The Declaration of Independence (Hebrew: הכרזת העצמאות, Hakhrazat HaAtzma'ut) of Israel, was the official announcement that a new Jewish state, named the State of Israel (Medinat Yisrael in Hebrew), had been formally established in parts of what was known as the British Mandate for Palestine and on land where, in antiquity, the Kingdoms of Israel, Judah and Judea had once been. The State of Israel was declared only on the territories assigned to it "by the Partition Plan," (the State of Israel would later be expanded as a result of the 1948 War of Independence).[1]
It has been called the start of the "Third Jewish Commonwealth" by some observers. The "First Jewish Commonwealth" ended with the destruction of Solomon's Temple in 586 BCE, the second with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, and the crushing of Bar Kokhba's revolt by the Roman Empire in the year 135.
Historical background
The Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel was publicly read in Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948, before the expiration of the British mandate at midnight. After David Ben-Gurion read the declaration of independence, Rabbi Fishman recited the Shehecheyanu blessing, and the Declaration of Independence was signed. The ceremony concluded with the singing of Hatikvah.
It was drafted during the preceding months, and the final version was a result of a compromise between the various parts of the Israeli public of that time. On May 14, 1948, the Vaad Leumi (Jewish National Council) gathered at the first site of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art — a site today called Independence Hall, and approved the proclamation.
However, "On May 12, the Jewish national administration was convened in order to decide whether to accept the American proposal for a truce or to declare the new state. A vote was taken and the decision to declare independence forthwith was supported by six of the ten voting members."[2]
The new state and its government was recognized de facto minutes later by the United States and three days later de jure by the Soviet Union. It was however opposed by many others, particularly Arabs (both the surrounding Arab states and the Palestinian Arabs who felt it was being established at their expense).
The declaration is written in a style reminiscent of UN resolutions, beginning with preambulatory sentences explaining the causes for the declaration and the right of Jews to an independent country, and then operative sentences detailing the attributes of the forthcoming State of Israel.
Context of the Declaration of Independence
The document commences by drawing a direct line from Biblical times to the present:
…the Land of Israel, was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
It acknowledges the Jewish exile over the millennia, mentioning both ancient "faith" and new "politics":
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
It speaks of the urge of Jews to return to their ancient homeland:
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses.
It describes Jewish immigrants to Israel in the following terms:
Pioneers… and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
In 1897, at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in what it claimed to be its own country. This right was supported by the British government in the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Palestine and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The European Holocaust of 1939–45 is part of the imperative for the re-settlement of the homeland:
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people—the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe—was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the community of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi Holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.
On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Israel, requiring the inhabitants of Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
On the issues of sovereignty and self-determination:
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
Thus members and representatives of the Jews of Palestine and of the Zionist movement upon the end of the British Mandate, by virtue of "natural and historic right" and based on the United Nations resolution… Hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel to be known as the State of Israel.
…Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the "Ingathering of the Exiles"; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
The new state pledged that it will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel and appealed:
in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us now for months — to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent institutions. We extend our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle East.
A final appeal is made to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and upbuilding and to stand by them in the struggle for the realization of their age-old dream, the redemption of Israel.
Concluding by "Placing our trust in the Rock of Israel…" (language which was the result of a compromise between religious and secular groups) the signatories affixed their signatures.
Signatories
As leader of the Yishuv, David Ben-Gurion was the first person to sign. He was followed by:
Daniel Auster, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Mordechai Bentov, Eliyahu Berligne, Fritz Bernstein, Rachel Cohen-Kagan, Eliyahu Dobkin, Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman, Rabbi Wolf Gold, Meir Grabovsky, Dr Abraham Granovsky, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Rabbi Kalman Kahana, Eliezer Kaplan, Abraham Katznelson, Saadia Kobashi, Moshe Kolodny, Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Levin, Meir David Loewenstein, Zvi Luria, Golda Meyerson, Nahum Nir, David-Zvi Pinkas, Felix Rosenblueth, David Remez, Berl Repetur, Zvi Segal, Mordechai Shatner, Ben-Zion Sternberg, Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, Haim-Moshe Shapira, Moshe Shertok, Herzl Vardi, Meir Vilner, Zerach Warhaftig and Aharon Zisling
Recognition of Israel
11 minutes after the Declaration of Independence was signed at 18:00 (Washington, D.C. time), on 14 May 1948, the United States formally recognized the State of Israel, followed by Guatemala, Nicaragua and Uruguay. The Soviet Union recognized the State of Israel on 17 May 1948, followed by Poland, Czechoslovakia (formally), Yugoslavia (formally), Ireland and South Africa.
Gallery
 The invitation to the signing, dated May 13, 1948. |
 Large celebratory crowd outside the Dizengoff House (now called Independence Hall) after the signing. |
 May 16, 1948 edition of newspaper, The Palestine Post. The headline reads, "STATE OF ISRAEL IS BORN." (May 15 was Shabbat when newspapers are not printed.) |
References
External links
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