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198-782: After the adoption of the UN Partition Plan and the end of the British Mandate , the Yishuv (Zionist settlement in Palestine) proclaimed the State of Israel . During the 1947-1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and the 1948 Arab–Israeli War that followed, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from the area that became Israel. More than 500 Arab villages, and about ten Jewish villages and neighborhoods, were depopulated during

396-501: A Zionist group called Beni Zion —Children of Zion. In 1900 it had a membership of 200. David was the youngest of three boys with an older and younger sister. His mother, Scheindel (Broitman), died of sepsis following a stillbirth in 1897. It was her eleventh pregnancy. Two years later his father remarried. Ben-Gurion's birth certificate, found in Poland in 2003, indicated that he had a twin brother who died shortly after birth. Between

594-685: A British decision to establish a Jewish state. However, it became clear that the British had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state and that limits on Jewish immigration would remain for the time being. As a result, with Ben-Gurion's approval the Haganah entered into a secret alliance with the Irgun and Lehi called the Jewish Resistance Movement in October 1945 and participated in attacks against

792-519: A Jewish home-in-exile in Vietnam. Ben-Gurion declined, telling Ho Chi Minh: "I am certain we shall be able to establish a Jewish Government in Palestine." According to his biographer Tom Segev , Ben-Gurion deeply admired Lenin and intended to be a 'Zionist Lenin'. In Ben-Gurion: A Political Life by Shimon Peres and David Landau , Peres recalls his first meeting with Ben-Gurion as a young activist in

990-599: A Palestinian. In the end, no agreement was reached. The failure to settle the refugee question led to the establishment of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to care for the needs of refugees. – According to Yagil Levy, the sides agreed on a protocol based on the Arabs' acceptance of the principle of partition in Palestine, implying recognition of Israel, and Israeli acceptance of

1188-562: A Warsaw heder. Inspired by Tolstoy he had become a vegetarian. He became involved in Zionist politics and in October 1905 he joined the clandestine Social-Democratic Jewish Workers' Party— Poalei Zion . Two months later he was the delegate from Płońsk at a local conference. While in Warsaw the Russian Revolution of 1905 broke out and he was in the city during the clamp down that followed; he

1386-549: A certain number of refugees. Israel was prepared to accept 100,000 refugees, contingent upon Arab agreement to a comprehensive peace and if its present (extended) territory remained the same. Sometimes this plan is referred to as "the 100,000 offer". After deduction of the already returned refugees, however, Israel's offer was in effect only some 80,000 refugees. Moreover, they were not allowed to return to their homes, but would be settled by Israel subject to its security and economic development plan. The Conciliation Commission considered

1584-729: A civil war. The three main Jewish underground forces later united to form the Jewish Resistance Movement and carry out several attacks and bombings against the British administration. In 1946, the Irgun blew up the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the southern wing of which was the headquarters of the British administration, killing 92 people. Following the bombing, the British Government began interning illegal Jewish immigrants in Cyprus . In 1948,

1782-531: A clandestine immigration effort called Aliya Bet was spearheaded by an organisation called Mossad LeAliyah Bet . Tens of thousands of European Jews escaped the Nazis in boats and small ships headed for Palestine. The British Royal Navy intercepted many of the vessels; others were unseaworthy and were wrecked; a Haganah bomb sunk the SS ; Patria , killing 267 people; two other ships were sunk by Soviet submarines :

1980-434: A community of around 200 Jews. It was one of the most remote colonies in the foothills of north-eastern Galilee . It took the two young men three days to walk there. Coincidentally at the same time Bar Giora, now with about 20 members and calling themselves 'the collective' but still led by Shochat, took on the operating of the training farm. Ben-Gurion found work in the farm but, excluded from 'the collective', he later became

2178-486: A contention the U.S. government strongly rejected. According to Israel, it was not committed to the boundaries determined in the Partition Plan because of paragraph 5 of Resolution 194 which, also according to Israel, left the field open for a territorial settlement completely unprejudiced by any a priori principle. The refugees were (thus) members of an aggressor group defeated in a war of its own making: "The exodus

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2376-611: A counter to British hegemony. On the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration in 1943, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop sent telegrams of support for the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem , Mohammad Amin al-Husseini , to read out for a radio broadcast to a rally of supporters in Berlin . On the other hand, as many as 12,000 Palestinian Arabs, with the endorsement of many prominent figures such as

2574-423: A day-labourer at Kfar Saba , moved to Rishon Lezion where he remained for two months. He made detailed plans with which he tried to entice his father to come and be a farmer. In October 1907, on Shlomo Zemach 's suggestion, Ben-Gurion moved to Sejera . An agricultural training farm had been established at Sejera in the 1880s and since then a number of family-owned farms, moshavah , had been established forming

2772-593: A firefight with a Palestine Police patrol hunting fruit thieves and a policeman was killed. Following the incident, British colonial police launched a search and surrounded al-Qassam in a cave near Ya'bad . In the ensuing battle, al-Qassam was killed. The death of al-Qassam on 20 November 1935 generated widespread outrage in the Arab community. Huge crowds accompanied Qassam's body to his grave in Haifa . A few months later, in April 1936,

2970-583: A group of around 25 Poale Zion followers. Shochat made a point of inspecting new arrivals looking for recruits. A month after his arrival at Petah Tikva, Shochat invited Ben-Gurion to attend the founding conference of the Jewish Social Democratic Workers' Party in the Land of Israel in Jaffa. The conference, 4–6 October 1906, was attended by 60 or so people. Shochat engineered the elections so that Ben-Gurion

3168-491: A half-year earlier, a similar application had been denied. That application was passed over by the adoption of General Assembly Resolution 194 , which created the Conciliation Commission. The Security Council was divided about whether or not admission would benefit the negotiations on Palestine and also about the borders, defined in the Partition Plan, but not accepted by Israel. Israel contended that its admission to

3366-422: A heavy fine. He immediately deserted and returned to Sejera, travelling, via Germany, with forged papers. On 12 April 1909 two Jews from Sejera were killed in clashes with local Arabs following the death of a villager from Kfar Kanna , shot in an attempted robbery. There is little conformation of Ben-Gurion's accounts of his part in this event. Later that summer, Ben-Gurion moved to Zichron Yaakov . From where

3564-436: A labourer for one of the moshav families. One of the first acts of 'the collective' was organising sacking of the farm's Circassian nightwatchman. As a result, shots were fired at the farms every night for several months. Guns were brought and the workforce armed. Ben-Gurion took turns patrolling the farm at night. In the autumn of 1908 Ben-Gurion returned to Plonsk to be conscripted into the army and avoid his father facing

3762-553: A letter to Yiddish Kemfer (" The Jewish Fighter " ), a Yiddish newspaper in New York City. It was an appeal for funds and was the first time something written by Ben-Gurion was published. The arrival of Yitzhak Ben-Zvi in April 1907 revitalised the local Poale Zion. Eighty followers attended a conference in May at which Ben-Zvi was elected onto a two-man Central Committee and all Ben-Gurion's policies were reversed: Yiddish, not Hebrew,

3960-511: A limited action aimed at the conquest of Latrun, and not for an all-out offensive. According to David Tal, in the cabinet meeting, Ben-Gurion reacted to what he had been just told by a delegation from Jerusalem. He points out that this view that Ben-Gurion had planned to conquer the West Bank is unsubstantiated in both Ben-Gurion's diary and in the Cabinet protocol. The topic came back at the end of

4158-530: A limited number. On 31 August, this view was repeated before the Conciliation Commission. On 1 August, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett declared in the Knesset, that Israel considered itself not responsible in any way for the problem of the refugees. Israel's position on the refugees was that the Arab states were responsible for the Palestinian refugee problem since it was their aggression that caused

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4356-604: A major Zionist leader, and the executive head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence , which he had helped to write. Under Ben-Gurion's leadership, the 1948 Arab–Israeli War saw the uniting of the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and

4554-668: A meeting of the Jewish Agency executive in June 1938, as well as by Chaim Weizmann. Following the London Conference in February and March 1939, the British Government published a White Paper which proposed a limit to Jewish immigration from Europe, restrictions on Jewish land purchases, and a programme for creating an independent state to replace the Mandate within ten years. This was seen by

4752-506: A policy regarding the admission of Jews to Palestine. In April, the Committee reported that its members had arrived at a unanimous decision. The Committee approved the American recommendation of the immediate acceptance of 100,000 Jewish refugees from Europe into Palestine. It also recommended that there be no Arab or Jewish state. The Committee stated that "in order to dispose, once and for all, of

4950-408: A quick peace. Residents and refugees of annexed Gaza (an area several times the size of the present Gaza Strip) who were hostile towards Israel should be deported. According to Israel, no Arab state had a right to any territory in Palestine. Israel had "of course" more demands as to territory, based upon its development scheme. Israel would not give up the occupied Negev, because she could develop it and

5148-543: A real Jew until she underwent an Orthodox conversion many years later. Amos became Deputy Inspector-General of the Israel Police , and also the director-general of a textile factory. He and Mary had six granddaughters from their two daughters and a son, Alon, who married a Greek gentile. Geula had two sons and a daughter, and Renana, who worked as a microbiologist at the Israel Institute for Biological Research , had

5346-600: A result Jabotinsky's supporters split with the Haganah and abandoned Havlagah. The house where he lived from 1931 on, and for part of each year after 1953, is now a historic house museum in Tel Aviv, the " Ben-Gurion House ". He also lived in London for some months in 1941. In 1946, Ben-Gurion and North Vietnam's Politburo chairman Ho Chi Minh became very friendly when they stayed at the same hotel in Paris. Ho Chi Minh offered Ben-Gurion

5544-449: A solution of the refugee problem could be reached only as a result of unconditional acceptance by Israel of the right of refugees to be repatriated. Israel, on the other hand, has maintained that no solution of the refugee question involving repatriation could be envisaged outside the framework of an overall settlement. Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in

5742-839: A son. After the death of theorist Ber Borochov , the left-wing and centrist factions of Poalei Zion split in February 1919, with Ben-Gurion and his friend Berl Katznelson leading the centrist faction of the Labor Zionist movement. The moderate Poalei Zion formed Ahdut HaAvoda with Ben-Gurion as leader in March 1919. In 1920 he assisted in the formation of the Histadrut , the Zionist Labor Federation in Palestine, and served as its general secretary from 1921 until 1935. At Ahdut HaAvoda's 3rd Congress, held in 1924 at Ein Harod , Shlomo Kaplansky ,

5940-519: A unified leadership. Indeed, it might be argued that they were virtually without any leadership at all." In 1937, the Peel Commission proposed a partition between a small Jewish state, whose Arab population would have to be transferred, and an Arab state to be attached to the Emirate of Transjordan , this emirate also being part of the wider Mandate for Palestine . The proposal was rejected outright by

6138-541: A veteran leader from Poalei Zion , proposed that the party should support the British Mandatory authorities' plans for setting up an elected legislative council in Palestine. He argued that a Parliament, even with an Arab majority, was the way forward. Ben-Gurion, already emerging as the leader of the Yishuv , succeeded in getting Kaplansky's ideas rejected. In 1930, Hapoel Hatzair (founded by A. D. Gordon in 1905) and Ahdut HaAvoda joined forces to create Mapai ,

Lausanne Conference of 1949 - Misplaced Pages Continue

6336-599: A year while the British sent the Peel Commission to investigate. During the first stages of the Arab Revolt, due to rivalry between the clans of al-Husseini and Nashashibi among the Palestinian Arabs, Raghib Nashashibi was forced to flee to Egypt after several assassination attempts ordered by Amin al-Husseini. After the Arab rejection of the Peel Commission recommendation, the revolt resumed in autumn 1937. Over

6534-458: Is a direct consequence of [the Arab state's] criminal invasion." It was inconceivable "to undertake in one and the same breath the absorption of mass Jewish immigration and the reintegration of returning Arab refugees" . Israel's position on borders was that they should be based on the 1949 Armistice Line (the Green Line), with minor modifications, and "flatly refused to return to the line of

6732-571: Is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? In 1909, Ben-Gurion attempted to learn Arabic but gave up. He later became fluent in Turkish . The only other languages he

6930-685: Is only granted the power to make recommendations; therefore, UNGAR 181 was not legally binding. Both the US and the Soviet Union supported the resolution. Haiti, Liberia, and the Philippines changed their votes at the last moment after concerted pressure from the US and from Zionist organisations. The five members of the Arab League , who were voting members at the time, voted against the Plan. The Jewish Agency, which

7128-468: Is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created. Ben-Gurion published two volumes setting out his views on relations between Zionists and

7326-566: The Yishuv as betrayal of the mandatory terms, especially in light of the increasing persecution of Jews in Europe. In response, Zionists organised Aliyah Bet , a programme of illegal immigration into Palestine. Lehi , a small group of extremist Zionists, staged armed attacks on British authorities in Palestine. However, the Jewish Agency , which represented the mainstream Zionist leadership and most of

7524-557: The 1955 elections . He backed Israel's reprisal operations to Arab guerrilla attacks , and its invasion, along with Britain and France, of Egypt during the Suez Crisis in 1956. He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from political life in 1970. He then moved to his modest "hut" in Sde Boker , a kibbutz in the Negev desert, where he lived until his death. Posthumously, Ben-Gurion

7722-460: The Arab delegations refused to talk directly with Israel, the Conciliation Commission shuttled back and forth between the parties. Israel also refused to negotiate on any point separately; it wanted to settle all problems at once within the framework of a general settlement. Israel's positions have been described as follows: "the two main bones of contention were refuguees and territory. Israel's position on

7920-666: The Augusta Victoria Hospital complex on Mount Scopus on what was then the northeastern edge of Jerusalem, a building that had been constructed for the Germans circa 1910. Damaged by an earthquake in 1927, this building served as the headquarters and official residence of the British High Commissioners until 1933. In that year, a new, purpose-built headquarters and official residence for the High Commissioner

8118-753: The British Army and trained at Fort Edward in Windsor, Nova Scotia . He volunteered for the 38th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers , one of the four which constituted the Jewish Legion. His unit fought against the Ottomans as part of Chaytor's Force during the Palestine Campaign , though he remained in a Cairo hospital with dysentery. In 1918, after a period of guarding prisoners of war in the Egyptian desert, his battalion

Lausanne Conference of 1949 - Misplaced Pages Continue

8316-592: The Gaza Plan . Besides the delegations representing Israel and the Arab states, there were three delegations representing the refugees. Included were members of the General Refugee Congress that had been formed in Ramallah in March 1949. Other notable representatives were members of the Jaffa and District Inhabitants Committee. While the main issue discussed at Lausanne was the fate of the refugees, also some of

8514-629: The Haganah , which were to prove decisive in 1948. Secondly, it became clear that the two communities could not be reconciled, and the idea of partition was born. Thirdly, the British responded to Arab opposition with the White Paper of 1939 , which severely restricted Jewish land purchase and immigration. However, with the advent of the Second World War , even this reduced immigration quota was not reached. The White Paper policy itself radicalised segments of

8712-413: The Jaffa Professional Trade Union Alliance with 75 members. He and Shochat also brokered a settlement to a strike at the Rishon Le Zion winery where six workers had been sacked. After three months the two-man Central Committee was dissolved, partly because, at that time, Ben-Gurion was less militant than Shochat and the Rostovians. Ben-Gurion returned to Petah Tikva. During this time Ben-Gurion sent

8910-440: The No'ar Ha'Oved youth movement . Ben-Gurion gave him a lift, and out of the blue told him why he preferred Lenin to Trotsky : "Lenin was Trotsky's inferior in terms of intellect", but Lenin, unlike Trotsky, "was decisive". When confronted with a dilemma, Trotsky would do what Ben-Gurion despised about the old-style diaspora Jews: he manoeuvred; as opposed to Lenin, who would cut the Gordian knot , accepting losses while focusing on

9108-405: The Palestine region of the Ottoman Empire in 1906. Adopting the name of Ben-Gurion in 1909, he rose to become the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British-ruled Mandatory Palestine from 1935 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which he led until 1963 with a short break in 1954–55. Ben-Gurion's interest for Zionism developed early in his life, leading him to become

9306-513: The Palestine Police Force withdrew from the Tel Aviv area, home to more than half the Jewish population, and turned over responsibility for the maintenance of law and order to Jewish police. As the civil war raged on, British military forces gradually withdrew from Palestine, although they occasionally intervened in favour of either side. Many of these areas became war zones. The British maintained strong presences in Jerusalem and Haifa , even as Jerusalem came under siege by Arab forces and became

9504-438: The Selvino children . Later, veterans of the Jewish Brigade were to play a major role in the foundation of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). From the Palestine Regiment, two platoons, one Jewish, under the command of Brigadier Ernest Benjamin , and another Arab, were sent to join Allied forces on the Italian Front , having taken part in the final offensive there. Besides Jews and Arabs from Palestine, in total by mid-1944

9702-409: The State of Israel as well as its first prime minister . As head of the Jewish Agency from 1935, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he was the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine , and largely led the movement for an independent Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine . Born in Płońsk , then part of Congress Poland , to Polish Jewish parents, he immigrated to

9900-449: The Sykes–Picot Agreement —an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Another issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was then established in 1920, and the British obtained a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922. During the Mandate, the area saw successive waves of Jewish immigration and

10098-448: The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine . While the Jewish Agency under Ben-Gurion accepted, the Arabs rejected the plan and the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine broke out. Ben-Gurion's strategy was for the Haganah to hold on to every position with no retreat or surrender and then launch an offensive when British forces had evacuated to such an extent that there would be no more danger of British intervention. This strategy

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10296-424: The War Office announced the formation of the Jewish Brigade Group of the British Army. The Jewish Brigade then was stationed in Tarvisio , near the border triangle of Italy, Yugoslavia , and Austria, where it played a key role in the Berihah 's efforts to help Jews escape Europe for Palestine, a role many of its members would continue after the brigade was disbanded. Among its projects was the education and care of

10494-456: The expulsion and flight of a majority of the Palestinian Arab population. Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's founding father ". Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first prime minister and minister of defence . As prime minister, he helped build state institutions, presiding over national projects aimed at the development of the country. He also oversaw the absorption of Jewish immigrants . A major part of his foreign policy

10692-473: The region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine . After an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War in 1916, British forces drove Ottoman forces out of the Levant . The United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would honour Arab independence in case of a revolt but, in the end, the United Kingdom and France divided what had been Ottoman Syria under

10890-412: The 1947 partition borders. Arab leaders, on the other hand, argued that it did. Walter Eyan, the protocol's Israeli signatory, later claimed that he had signed the document under duress. The conditions for negotiation were complex, as the questions of refugees and of territories were closely linked. The Arab participants only wanted to act en bloc . Israel only wanted to negotiate with separate states. As

11088-436: The 1947 partition plan." Already on 20 May 1949, Israel proposed that the "political frontiers" between Israel and respectively Egypt, Lebanon and the Hashemite Jordan Kingdom should be the same as under the British Mandate , thus annexing Galilee and Gaza. Israel made clear to the Conciliation Commission, that she also wanted a slice of Southeastern Lebanon, necessary to her development scheme, but not yet demanded in favor of

11286-433: The 1948 war, when General Yigal Allon also proposed the conquest of the West Bank up to the Jordan River as the natural, defensible border of the state. This time, Ben-Gurion refused although he was aware that the IDF was militarily strong enough to carry out the conquest. He feared the reaction of Western powers and wanted to maintain good relations with the United States and not to provoke the British. Moreover, in his opinion

11484-427: The 1948 war. The Conciliation Commission for Palestine was established on 11 December 1948 by UN-resolution 194. One month before the Lausanne Conference, on 29 March 1949, a military coup took place in Syria. Between 6 January and 3 April 1949, armistice agreements were signed by Israel, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan. On 20 July 1949, an armistice agreement with Syria was signed. During the Conference, on 11 May, Israel

11682-432: The 1949 Armistice Line, subject to certain modifications in the interests of both parties, thus with Israeli annexation of large areas along the present West Bank, including West Jerusalem. Israel declared that it had no ambitions as regards the central area of Palestine. In a letter of 31 August 1949 to the Conciliation Commission, Israel demanded that all territories it had conquered in the 1948 Palestine war (some 60% of

11880-475: The Arab economies; and a Jewish trade union was to be established. Three members of the Central Committee resigned and Ben-Gurion and Shochat continued meeting weekly in Jaffa or Ben Shemen where Shochat was working. Ben-Gurion walked to the meetings from Petah Tikva until he moved to Jaffa where he gave occasional Hebrew lessons. His political activity resulted in the establishment of three small trade unions amongst some tailors, carpenters and shoemakers. He set up

12078-424: The Arab national general strike broke out. The strike lasted until October 1936, instigated by the Arab Higher Committee, headed by Amin al-Husseini. During the summer of that year, thousands of Jewish-farmed acres and orchards were destroyed. Jewish civilians were attacked and killed, and some Jewish communities, such as those in Beisan ( Beit She'an ) and Acre , fled to safer areas. The violence abated for about

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12276-411: The Arab rebels in the lower Galilee and in the Jezreel valley" by conducting raids on Arab villages. Irgun , a Jewish militia group, used violence also against Arab civilians as "retaliatory acts", attacking marketplaces and buses . By the time the revolt concluded in March 1939, more than 5,000 Arabs, 400 Jews, and 200 British had been killed and at least 15,000 Arabs were wounded. In total, 10% of

12474-420: The Arab states as sufficient, and put a low priority on a permanent peace treaty. Among the Arabs, only King Abdullah of Transjordan (today's Jordan) worked for a permanent peace treaty with Israel, in part because he had annexed the West Bank and wanted the Israelis to recognize this. When Abdullah's secret negotiations and agreements with Israel were exposed, he was assassinated on 20 July 1951 in Jerusalem by

12672-403: The Arab world, there was no unanimity amongst the Palestinian Arabs as to their position regarding the belligerents in the Second World War. A number of leaders and public figures saw an Axis victory as the likely outcome and a way of securing Palestine back from the Zionists and the British. Even though Arabs were not highly regarded by Nazi racial theory , the Nazis encouraged Arab support as

12870-428: The Arab world: We and Our Neighbors , published in 1931, and My Talks with Arab Leaders published in 1967. Ben-Gurion believed in the equal rights of Arabs who remained in and would become citizens of Israel. He was quoted as saying, "We must start working in Jaffa. Jaffa must employ Arab workers. And there is a question of their wages. I believe that they should receive the same wage as a Jewish worker. An Arab has also

13068-497: The Arabs and Israel who would respond directly to one another's initiatives. For the Arabs, movement on the refugee issue remained the sine qua non of any wider discussion with the Israelis and so they too came away disappointed from Lausanne. – According to Benny Morris , the "Arab delegations arrived united in the demand that Israel declare acceptance of the principle of repatriation before they would agree to negotiate peace". Morris quotes Israeli delegate Dr. Walter Eytan as saying

13266-400: The Arabs were not able to. Moreover, it was impossible to give it up because of "psychological reasons" and because it "would obviously be a concession to the British, not to the Arabs". Jaffa, Lydda and Ramle were simply to be kept. The latter had been filled up with immigrants and there was no place for Arabs. The border between Israel and the "central area" (that is the West Bank ) would be

13464-457: The Arabs" or "not expel the Arabs" depending on one's interpretation of whether such deletion was intended by Ben-Gurion. Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote that the idea of expulsion of Palestinian Arabs was endorsed in practice by mainstream Zionist leaders, particularly Ben-Gurion. He did not give clear or written orders in that regard, but Morris claims that Ben-Gurion's subordinates understood his policy well: From April 1948, Ben-Gurion

13662-423: The Arabs. The two main Jewish leaders, Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion , had convinced the Zionist Congress to equivocally approve the Peel recommendations as a basis for more negotiation. In a letter to his son in October 1937 , Ben-Gurion explained that partition would be a first step to "possession of the land as a whole". The same sentiment was recorded by Ben-Gurion on other occasions, such as at

13860-461: The British authorities formally decided to use the traditional Arabic equivalent to the English name, and its Hebrew transcription i.e. Filasţīn (فلسطين) and Pālēśtīnā (פּלשׂתינה) respectively. The Jewish leadership proposed that the proper Hebrew name should be ʾĒrēts Yiśrāʾel (ארץ ישׂראל, Land of Israel ). The final compromise was to append the initials of the Hebrew proposed name, Alef - Yod , within parenthesis (א״י) after Pālēśtīnā whenever

14058-541: The British had assembled a multiethnic force consisting of volunteer European Jewish refugees (from German-occupied countries), Yemenite Jews and Abyssinian Jews . In 1939, as a consequence of the White Paper of 1939 , the British reduced the number of immigrants allowed into Palestine. The Second World War and the Holocaust started shortly thereafter and once the 15,000 annual quota was exceeded, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution were interned in detention camps or deported to places such as Mauritius . Starting in 1939,

14256-586: The British intended to favour Zionism. The British administration claimed that electrification would enhance the economic development of the country as a whole, while at the same time securing their commitment to facilitate a Jewish National Home through economic – rather than political – means. In May 1921, following a disturbance between rival Jewish left-wing protestors and then attacks by Arabs on Jews, almost 100 died in rioting in Jaffa . High Commissioner Samuel tried to establish self-governing institutions in Palestine, as required by

14454-677: The British maintained the ban on immigration. The Jewish Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel) and Irgun (National Military Organisation) movements initiated violent uprisings against the British Mandate in the 1940s. On 6 November 1944, Eliyahu Hakim and Eliyahu Bet Zuri (members of Lehi) assassinated Lord Moyne in Cairo . Moyne was the British Minister of State for the Middle East and

14652-576: The British withdrew from most of Haifa but retained an enclave in the port area to be used in the evacuation of British forces, and retained RAF Ramat David , an airbase close to Haifa, to cover their retreat, leaving behind a volunteer police force to maintain order. The city was quickly captured by the Haganah in the Battle of Haifa . After the victory, British forces in Jerusalem announced that they had no intention of overseeing any local administration but also that they would not permit actions that would hamper

14850-473: The British, and after Lehi assassinated Lord Moyne , the British Minister of State in the Middle East, decided to stop it by force. While Lehi was convinced to suspend operations, the Irgun refused and as a result, the Haganah began supplying intelligence to the British enabling them to arrest Irgun members, and abducting and often torturing Irgun members, handing some over to the British while keeping others detained in secret Haganah prisons. This campaign, which

15048-556: The British, stating: "Peace in Palestine is not the best situation for thwarting the policy of the White Paper". Ben-Gurion believed a peaceful solution with the Arabs had no chance and soon began preparing the Yishuv for war. According to Teveth "through his campaign to mobilize the Yishuv in support of the British war effort, he strove to build the nucleus of a 'Hebrew Army', and his success in this endeavor later brought victory to Zionism in

15246-465: The British. In June 1946, the British launched Operation Agatha , a large police and military operation throughout Palestine, searching for arms and arresting Jewish leaders and Haganah members in order to stop the attacks and find documentary evidence of the alliance the British suspected existed between the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi. The British had intended to detain Ben-Gurion during the operation but he

15444-624: The Department of State reported Israel's territorial demands and its refusal to compromise on the refugee problem. The territorial demands included a piece of southeastern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip, and parts of Transjordan as well as those portions of "Arab Palestine" defined by the UN that Israel had occupied. The memo noted the Israeli intentions to bring about a change in the US positions through their own means, and

15642-601: The French-ruled Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon , and organised and established the Black Hand , an anti-Zionist and anti-British militant organisation. He recruited and arranged military training for peasants, and by 1935 he had enlisted between 200 and 800 men. They used bombs and firearms against Zionist settlers and vandalised settlers' orchards and British-built railway lines. In November 1935, two of his men engaged in

15840-515: The General Assembly and in other places: talk of Arab-Jewish amity sound fantastic, for the Arabs do not wish it, they will not sit at the same table with us, they want to treat us as they do the Jews of Bagdad, Cairo, and Damascus. Nahum Goldmann criticised Ben-Gurion for what he viewed as a confrontational approach to the Arab world. Goldmann wrote, "Ben-Gurion is the man principally responsible for

16038-687: The Holy Land. The group ran Hebrew classes for local youth and in 1903 collected funds for the victims of the Kishinev pogrom . One biographer writes that Ezra had 150 members within a year. A different source estimates the group never had more than "several dozen" members. In 1904 Ben-Gurion moved to Warsaw where he hoped to enroll in the Warsaw Mechanical-Technical School founded by Hipolit Wawelberg . He did not have sufficient qualifications to matriculate and took work teaching Hebrew in

16236-606: The Homeland is illegal. It will never be recognised. The signature by institutions and individuals of the partition agreement is invalid. It will not bind the Jewish people. Jerusalem was and will forever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for ever." When the United Kingdom announced the independence of the Emirate of Transjordan as the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan in 1946,

16434-461: The Israeli attitude thus far at Lausanne "must inevitably lead to a rupture in those conversations" ... "and that a rupture arising out of the rigid attitude of the Government of Israel would place a heavy responsibility upon that Government and people" . The United States warned for a revision of its relation with Israel. When the U.S. ambassador the next day handed over the telegram to Ben-Gurion,

16632-412: The Israeli delegation had 'come prepared to tackle [the refugee problem] with sincerity and above all in the spirit of realism.', where, according to Morris, 'Realism' meant no repatriation." Morris adds that "The insufficiency of the '100,000 Offer,' the Arab states' continuing rejectionism, their unwillingness to accept and concede defeat and their inability to publicly agree to absorb and resettle most of

16830-414: The Israeli proposal as unsatisfactory. In return for repatriation of this limited number of refugees, Israel asked the annexation of all territories it had conquered until the 1949 Armistice Agreements , The total number of Arabs, including the non-refugees, were "for economic and security reasons" not to exceed 250,000, meaning that it would not be possible to maintain the 100,000 offer in combination with

17028-516: The Israeli threat to obtain additional territory by force. According to the memo, the Lausanne Conference was likely to break up when the Arabs learned of the refusal of Israel to make any concessions on territory or refugees. The memo recommended to take measures and reconsider the US relations with Israel, if she would not respond favorably. The President sent on 28 May 1949 a note to Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion , expressing that he

17226-509: The Jewish Resistance Movement be dissolved. From then on, the Irgun and Lehi continued to regularly attack the British, but the Haganah rarely did so, and while Ben-Gurion along with other mainstream Zionist leaders publicly condemned the Irgun and Lehi attacks, in practice the Haganah under their direction rarely cooperated with the British in attempting to suppress the insurgency. Due to the Jewish insurgency, bad publicity over

17424-592: The Jewish population, still hoped to persuade Britain to allow resumed Jewish immigration and cooperated with Britain during the Second World War . On 10 June 1940, during the Second World War , the Kingdom of Italy declared war on the British Empire and sided with Nazi Germany . Within a month, the Italians attacked Palestine from the air , bombing Tel Aviv and Haifa , inflicting multiple casualties. In 1942, there

17622-476: The Jewish population, who after the war would no longer cooperate with the British. The revolt had also a negative effect on Palestinian Arab leadership, social cohesion, and military capabilities, and it contributed to the outcome of the 1948 War because "when the Palestinians faced their most fateful challenge in 1947–49, they were still suffering from the British repression of 1936–39, and were in effect without

17820-424: The Jews who even if their numbers were initially fewer could quickly call on reinforcements from the entire quarter. Far from being afraid of them, they were rather afraid of us. In general, however, relations were amicable, though distant. In autumn of 1906 he left Poland to go to Palestine . He travelled with his sweetheart Rachel Nelkin and her mother, as well as Shlomo Zemach his comrade from Ezra . His voyage

18018-754: The Lehi assassinated Count Bernadotte , the UN mediator, in Jerusalem. Yitzak Shamir , a future Prime Minister of Israel , was one of the conspirators. The negative publicity resulting from the situation in Palestine caused the Mandate to become widely unpopular in Britain itself and caused the United States Congress to delay granting the British vital loans for reconstruction. The British Labour Party had promised before its election in 1945 to allow mass Jewish migration into Palestine but reneged on this promise once in office. Anti-British Jewish militancy increased, and

18216-677: The Mandate's name was mentioned in Hebrew in official documents. The Arab leadership saw this compromise as a violation of the mandate terms. Some Arab politicians suggested " Southern Syria " (سوريا الجنوبية) as the Arabic name instead. The British authorities rejected this proposal; according to the Minutes of the Ninth Session of the League of Nations' Permanent Mandates Commission : Colonel Symes explained that

18414-523: The Manifesto Committee the task of deciding the new party's objectives. They produced The Ramleh Program which was approved by a second smaller 15-man conference held in Jaffa the following January 1907. The program stated "the party aspires to political independence of the Jewish People in this country." All activities were to be conducted in Hebrew; there should be segregation of the Jewish and

18612-748: The Palestine Mandate and place the Question of Palestine before the United Nations , the successor to the League of Nations . The UN created UNSCOP (the UN Special Committee on Palestine) on 15 May 1947, with representatives from 11 countries. UNSCOP conducted hearings and made a general survey of the situation in Palestine and issued its report on 31 August. Seven members (Canada, Czechoslovakia , Guatemala, Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, and Uruguay) recommended

18810-521: The Resolutions 181 and 194, thus helping foster peace in the Middle East. On 26 April 1949, Israeli president Weizmann had written to U.S. president Truman: "No single act, in my judgment, will contribute so much to pacification of the Middle East, as the speedy admission of Israel to the United Nations". The admission should also counter the denial by Arab countries of the existence of Israel. Less than

19008-478: The Resolutions 181 and 194. Israel rejected this and instead preferred a division of Jerusalem into a Jewish and an Arab zone, and international control and protection only for Holy Places and sites. During the conference, the Israeli government began moving its offices into West Jerusalem which angered the Arab states, who submitted a formal complaint to the commission with respect to the "administration and services which have been installed in this city in contempt of

19206-455: The Resolutions 181 and 194. The resolution was adopted with 37 votes to 12. The admission was approved despite the quiet annexation of large parts of territory, which in the UN Partition Plan had been assigned to the Arab state, including the ports of Haifa and Jaffa, Galilee, and the areas around the West Bank, including West Jerusalem. The UN hoped that Israel as member would abide the Charter and

19404-455: The UN implied that the international community had agreed with Israel's attitude regarding Resolution 194, an argument the US government strongly rejected. – According to Fishbach, Israel emerged from Lausanne frustrated with the role played by the UNCCP. Israel formally notified the UNCCP in the fall of 1949 that it felt its role should not be one of initiating proposals, but rather mediating between

19602-481: The adoption and implementation of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union as Resolution 181 (II), while making some adjustments to the boundaries between the two states proposed by it. The division was to take effect on the date of British withdrawal. The partition plan required that the proposed states grant full civil rights to all people within their borders, regardless of race, religion or gender. The UN General Assembly

19800-420: The adult Arab male population was killed, wounded, imprisoned, or exiled. From 1936 to 1945, while establishing collaborative security arrangements with the Jewish Agency, the British confiscated 13,200 firearms from Arabs and 521 weapons from Jews. The attacks on the Jewish population by Arabs had three lasting effects: firstly, they led to the formation and development of Jewish underground militias, primarily

19998-530: The ages of five and 13 Ben-Gurion attended five different heders as well as compulsory Russian classes. Two of the heders were 'modern' and taught in Hebrew rather than Yiddish . His father could not afford to enroll Ben-Gurion in Płońsk's beth midrash so Ben-Gurion's formal education ended after his bar mitzvah . At the age of 14 he and two friends formed a youth club, Ezra , promoting Hebrew studies and emigration to

20196-418: The anti-Arab policy, because it was he who molded the thinking of generations of Israelis." Simha Flapan quoted Ben-Gurion as stating in 1938: "I believe in our power, in our power which will grow, and if it will grow agreement will come..." Goldmann reported that Ben Gurion had told him in private in 1956: Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That

20394-478: The areas allocated to the proposed Arab state) would become part of Israel, in addition to the territory already allocated in the Partition Plan. The Arabs on the other hand, insisted that any deal had to be resolved on the basis of the Partition Plan, with territorial adjustments necessary pursuant to the Lausanne Protocol. The United States expected territorial compensation for any territorial acquisition beyond

20592-542: The assassination is said by some to have turned British Prime Minister Winston Churchill against the Zionist cause. After the assassination of Lord Moyne, the Haganah kidnapped, interrogated, and turned over to the British many members of the Irgun (" The Hunting Season "), and the Jewish Agency Executive decided on a series of measures against "terrorist organisations" in Palestine. Irgun ordered its members not to resist or retaliate with violence, so as to prevent

20790-469: The boundaries of the Partition Plan proposed in Resolution 181 . The Israelis wanted the construction of a water canal from north to south on Arab land. According to the delegation, it was essential for the canal to run entirely through Israeli territory. Only Jewish areas would benefit by it so that it held no common interest for both parties. Therefore, the territory, including Tulkarm, Qalqiliya and most of

20988-456: The city were roughly equal, about five thousand each. The Jews, however, formed a compact, centralized group occupying the innermost districts whilst the Poles were more scattered, living in outlying areas and shading off into the peasantry. Consequently, when a gang of Jewish boys met a Polish gang the latter would almost inevitably represent a single suburb and thus be poorer in fighting potential than

21186-724: The commission's stance that the interrelation of all the aspects of the problem was too obvious to be overlooked." The Israeli government briefly offered to repatriate 100,000 refugees, but only as part of a final settlement in which all other refugees were absorbed by Arab states. Compensation would be paid, but not to individual refugees or Arab states, only to a "common fund" and only for land that had been under cultivation prior to being abandoned; not for any movable property or uncultivated land. The common fund would be reduced by an amount of compensation to Israel for war reparations. The commission found this proposal to be unsatisfactory and declared that The Arab delegations insisted on dealing with

21384-439: The country should be called "Southern Syria" in order to emphasise its close relation with another Arab State. The adjective " mandatory " indicates that the entity's legal status derived from a League of Nations mandate ; it is not related to the word's more commonplace usage as a synonym for "compulsory" or "necessary". Following the arrival of the British, Arab inhabitants established Muslim-Christian Associations in all of

21582-420: The country was described as "Palestine" by Europeans and as "Falestin" by the Arabs. The Hebrew name for the country was the designation "Land of Israel", and the Government, to meet Jewish wishes, had agreed that the word "Palestine" in Hebrew characters should be followed in all official documents by the initials which stood for that designation. As a set-off to this, certain of the Arab politicians suggested that

21780-470: The creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, with Jerusalem to be placed under international administration . Three members (India, Iran, and Yugoslavia ) supported the creation of a single federal state containing both Jewish and Arab constituent states. Australia abstained. On 29 November 1947, the UN General Assembly, voting 33 to 13, with 10 abstentions, adopted a resolution recommending

21978-505: The creation of the state of Israel in 1948. During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine , Ben-Gurion instigated a policy of restraint (" Havlagah ") in which the Haganah and other Jewish groups did not retaliate for Arab attacks against Jewish civilians, concentrating only on self-defense. In 1937, the Peel Commission recommended partitioning Palestine into Jewish and Arab areas and Ben-Gurion supported this policy. This led to conflict with Ze'ev Jabotinsky who opposed partition and as

22176-538: The distribution of the seats, arguing that as they constituted 88% of the population, having only 43% of the seats was unfair. Elections took place in February and March 1923, but due to an Arab boycott , the results were annulled and a 12-member Advisory Council was established. At the First World Congress of Jewish Women which was held in Vienna , Austria, 1923, it was decided that: "It appears, therefore, to be

22374-475: The duty of all Jews to co-operate in the social-economic reconstruction of Palestine and to assist in the settlement of Jews in that country." In October 1923, Britain provided the League of Nations with a report on the administration of Palestine for the period 1920–1922, which covered the period before the mandate. In August 1929, there were riots in which 250 people died. In 1930, Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam arrived in Palestine from Syria, then part of

22572-600: The end of the Second World War, especially by the Haganah, who carried mostly illegal Jewish immigrants in the period 1945-47. After the war, 250,000 Jewish refugees were stranded in displaced persons (DP) camps in Europe. Despite the pressure of world opinion, in particular the repeated requests of the U.S. President , Harry S. Truman , and the recommendations of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that 100,000 Jews be immediately granted entry to Palestine,

22770-520: The essentials. In Peres' opinion, the essence of Ben-Gurion's life work were "the decisions he made at critical junctures in Israel's history", and none was as important as the acceptance of the 1947 partition plan , a painful compromise which gave the emerging Jewish state little more than a fighting chance, but which, according to Peres, enabled the establishment of the State of Israel. The 1937 Ben-Gurion letter

22968-448: The exclusive claims of Jews and Arabs to Palestine, we regard it as essential that a clear statement of principle should be made that Jew shall not dominate Arab and Arab shall not dominate Jew in Palestine". U.S. President Harry S. Truman angered the British Government by issuing a statement supporting the 100,000 refugees but refusing to acknowledge the rest of the committee's findings. Britain had asked for U.S. assistance in implementing

23166-399: The fighting, the British did not allow the regular armies of the surrounding Arab states to cross into Palestine. David Ben-Gurion David Ben-Gurion ( / b ɛ n ˈ ɡ ʊər i ə n / ben GOOR -ee-ən ; Hebrew : דָּוִד בֶּן־גּוּרִיּוֹן [daˈvid ben ɡuʁˈjon] ; born David Grün ; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of

23364-529: The final Assembly of the League of Nations and the General Assembly both adopted resolutions welcoming the news. The Jewish Agency objected, claiming that Transjordan was an integral part of Palestine, and that according to Article 80 of the UN Charter , the Jewish people had a secured interest in its territory. During the General Assembly deliberations on Palestine, there were suggestions that it would be desirable to incorporate part of Transjordan's territory into

23562-630: The first year, using various pen names, eventually settling for Ben Gurion. The adopting of Hebrew names was common amongst those who remained during the Second Aliyah . He chose Ben-Gurion after the historic Joseph ben Gurion . In the spring of 1911, faced with the collapse of the Second Aliyah, Poale Zion's leadership decided the future lay in "Ottomanisation". Ben-Zvi , Manya and Israel Shochat announced their intention to move to Istanbul . Ben-Zvi and Shochat planned to study law; Ben-Gurion

23760-459: The following spring he was invited, by Ben-Zvi, to join the staff of Poale Zion's new Hebrew periodical, Ha'ahdut (The Unity), which was being established in Jerusalem. They needed his fluency in Hebrew for translating and proof reading. It was the end of his career as a farm labourer. The first three editions came out monthly with an initial run of 1000 copies. It then became a weekly with a print run of 450 copies. He contributed 15 articles over

23958-401: The former was clear and emphatic: the Arab states were responsible for the refugee problem, so responsibility for solving it rested with them. Israel was willing to make a modest financial contribution toward the resolution of this problem but only as part of an overall settlement of the conflict and only if the refugees were to be resettled in Arab countries. On the second issue Israel's position

24156-522: The framework for a comprehensive peace, which included territories, refugees, and Jerusalem. Israel agreed in principle to allow the return of a number of Palestinian refugees. This Israeli agreement was made under pressure from the United States, and because the Israelis wanted United Nations membership, which required the settlement of the refugee problem. Once Israel was admitted to the UN, it retreated from

24354-606: The initial tragedy. The Arab states' position was that the responsibility was Israel's and that the refugees should be allowed to choose between returning to their homes in territory Israel had occupied or receiving compensation. Transjordan was the first state willing to resettle refugees, provided they had also free choice to return to their homes. When on 20 May Israeli delegate Walter Eytan put forward David Ben-Gurion's proposal to annex Egypt-controlled Gaza , Israel accepted all its inhabitants and refugees, some 230,000 refugees and 70,000 inhabitants, as citizens of Israel, provided

24552-524: The international community would pay for refugee resettlement. Israel threatened to abstain from offering proposals concerning the number of refugees it would accept in the event that the Gaza area were not incorporated into Israel. The Gaza annexation proposal, also called the "Gaza Plan", was done to "make a really constructive large-scale contribution to the refugee problem". Israel had, however, failed to stipulate under what conditions refugees could return and Egypt

24750-466: The introduction and two-thirds of the text. He suspended all his Poale Zion activities and spent most of the next 18 months in New York Public Library . Ben-Zvi, originally designated as co-editor, contributed a section on Jewish history in which he expounded the theory that the fellahin currently living in the area were descendants of pre- Roman conquest Jews. Eretz Israel – Past and Present

24948-470: The issues relating to refugee property were discussed. The Israelis "explained the activities of the Custodian of Absentee Property ". The discussion covered whether property issues could be addressed separately from the overall Arab–Israeli conflict, Israeli counter claims for war damages, the fate of the refugee orange groves, and the fate of refugee bank accounts blocked in Israel. Israel insisted on discussing

25146-424: The latter reacted by saying that the United States and UN had been unable to enforce 29 November resolution and to prevent the Arab aggression. He stated that Israel was not established on the basis of the resolution but on that of a successful war of defence. Because the Arab states refused to make peace, he regarded refugees as potential enemies of Israel. On 8 June, Israel replied to the 28 May note. It stated that

25344-682: The major towns. In 1919 they joined to hold the first Palestine Arab Congress in Jerusalem. It was aimed primarily at representative government and opposition to the Balfour Declaration . Concurrently, the Zionist Commission formed in March 1918 and actively promoted Zionist objectives in Palestine. On 19 April 1920, elections took place for the Assembly of Representatives of the Palestinian Jewish community . In March 1920, there

25542-434: The mandate, but the Arab leadership refused to co-operate with any institution which included Jewish participation. When Kamil al-Husayni , the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem , died in March 1921, High Commissioner Samuel appointed his half-brother, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini , to the position. Amin al-Husseini, a member of the al-Husayni clan of Jerusalem, was an Arab nationalist and Muslim leader. As Grand Mufti, as well as in

25740-485: The mayors of Nablus and Gaza and media such as "Radio Palestine" and the prominent Jaffa -based Falastin newspaper, volunteered to join and fight for the British, with many serving in units that also included Jews from Palestine. 120 Palestinian women also served as part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service . However, this history has been less studied, as Israeli sources put more focus in studying

25938-402: The more moderate Zionist labour party (it was still a left-wing organisation, but not as far-left as other factions) under Ben-Gurion's leadership. In the 1940s the left-wing of Mapai broke away to form Mapam . Labor Zionism became the dominant tendency in the World Zionist Organization and in 1935 Ben-Gurion became chairman of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency , a role he kept until

26136-617: The motor schooner Struma was torpedoed and sunk in the Black Sea by a Soviet submarine in February 1942 with the loss of nearly 800 lives. The last refugee boats to try to reach Palestine during the war were the Bulbul , Mefküre and Morina in August 1944. A Soviet submarine sank the motor schooner Mefküre by torpedo and shellfire and machine-gunned survivors in the water, killing between 300 and 400 refugees. Illegal immigration resumed after

26334-422: The next 18 months, the British lost Nablus and Hebron. British forces, supported by 6,000 armed Jewish auxiliary police, suppressed the widespread riots with overwhelming force. The British officer Charles Orde Wingate (who supported a Zionist revival for religious reasons ) organised Special Night Squads of British soldiers and Jewish volunteers such as Yigal Alon ; these "scored significant successes against

26532-539: The next four months Ben-Gurion and Ben Zvi embarked on a speaking tour planned to visit Poale Zion groups in 35 cities in an attempt to raise a pioneer army, Hechalutz , of 10,000 men to fight on the Ottoman side. The tour was a disappointment. Audiences were small; Poale Zion had fewer than 3,000 members, mostly in the New York area. Ben-Gurion was hospitalised with diphtheria for two weeks and spoke on only five occasions and

26730-536: The obligations contained in the UN Charter , with Permanent Member Great Britain abstaining from voting. Israel was afraid that the discussions on borders and refugees would delay its admission and tried to persuade the Palestine Conciliation Commission to prevent debate on the issues in the UN pending the application procedure. On 11 May, the day before Israel signed the Lausanne Protocol, the General Assembly approved Israel's admission, referring to

26928-576: The other influential positions that he held during this period, al-Husseini played a key role in violent opposition to Zionism . In 1922, al-Husseini was elected President of the Supreme Muslim Council which had been established by Samuel in December 1921. The Council controlled the Waqf funds, worth annually tens of thousands of pounds, and the orphan funds, worth annually about £50,000, as compared to

27126-517: The parties signed the Lausanne Protocol . Annexed to the protocol was a copy of the partition map of Resolution 181 . The UNCCP's third progress reports states that while the map was to form the basis for discussion, adjustments of its boundaries could be proposed. Israel's signature on the protocol soon became a bone of contention. Israel argued that the protocol was merely a "procedural device" and that its signature did not imply an acceptance of

27324-521: The partition plan, but refused to enforce it, arguing it was not accepted by the Arabs. Britain also refused to share the administration of Palestine with the UN Palestine Commission during the transitional period. In September 1947, the British government announced that the Mandate for Palestine would end at midnight on 14 May 1948. Some Jewish organisations also opposed the proposal. Irgun leader Menachem Begin announced, "The partition of

27522-460: The period 1947–49 Israel had no Palestinian option or any other Arab option, save the Jordanian option. King Abdullah was the only Arab head of state who was willing to accept the principle of partition and to co-exist peacefully with a Jewish state after the dust had settled." – Ilan Pappe writes: On 12 May 1949, the conference achieved its only success when the parties signed the Lausanne Protocol on

27720-462: The principle of the repatriation of the Palestinian refugees. Nevertheless, Israel, inspired by its newly defined security interests, signed the document but successfully impeded its translation into a political agreement (Levy, 1997, p. 60). The Israelis insisted on discussing solutions to refugee problems only in the context of an overall settlement of the Arab–Israeli conflict . This agreed with

27918-458: The property of those who do not wish to return" as formulated in Resolution 194, and asked large amounts of land in exchange for return of a limited number of refugees. The Arabs wanted recognition of the areas allotted to them by the Partition Plan and immediate return of the refugees coming from the areas that were conquered by Israel. In a memo of 27 May 1949 to U.S. president Harry S. Truman ,

28116-637: The proposed Jewish state. A few days before the adoption of Resolution 181 (II) on 29 November 1947, US Secretary of State Marshall noted frequent references had been made by the Ad Hoc Committee regarding the desirability of the Jewish State having both the Negev and an "outlet to the Red Sea and the Port of Aqaba". According to John Snetsinger, Chaim Weizmann visited President Truman on 19 November 1947 and said it

28314-400: The protocol it had signed, because it was completely satisfied with the status quo, and saw no need to make any concessions with regard to the refugees or on boundary questions. Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett had hoped for a comprehensive peace settlement at Lausanne, but he was no match for Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who saw the armistice agreements that stopped the fighting with

28512-407: The recommendations. The US War Department had said earlier that to assist Britain in maintaining order against an Arab revolt, an open-ended US commitment of 300,000 troops would be necessary. The immediate admission of 100,000 new Jewish immigrants would almost certainly have provoked an Arab uprising. These events were the decisive factors that forced Britain to announce their desire to terminate

28710-548: The refugee and the property issue only as a part of the resolution of the entire conflict, while the Arabs insisted on dealing with the refugee issues separately, on their repatriation. In the month before the Lausanne Conference, the UN Security Council recommended the General Assembly to admit Israel as a member of the United Nations, deciding that Israel was a peace-loving state and was able and willing to carry out

28908-482: The refugee problem separately from an overall settlement, and refused to deal directly with the Israeli delegation. The commission found that and that no constructive progress towards a solution of existing problems would be possible unless all the parties to the dispute, at the outset of the discussions, expressed their determination to respect each other's right to security and freedom from attack, to refrain from warlike or hostile acts against one another, and to promote

29106-536: The refugees if Israel agreed to repatriate the rest, the Egyptian rejection of the 'Gaza Plan,' and America's unwillingness to apply persuasive pressure on Israel and the Arab states to compromise—all meant that the Arab–Israeli impasse would remain and that Palestine's displaced Arabs would remain refugees, to be utilized during the following years by the Arab states as a powerful political and propaganda tool against Israel." – According to Avi Shlaim , "I accept that in

29304-417: The resolution of 11th December 1948." At least half of the estimated 700,000 refugees originated from the areas allotted to "Arab Palestine" in the Partition Plan. First, the Arab states demanded the return of those refugees. In May and June 1949, the Israeli delegation expressed Israel's standpoint that Arab refugees should be settled in other states and Israel would not allow their return to Israel apart from

29502-545: The restriction of Jewish immigrants to Palestine, non-acceptance of a partitioned state (as suggested by the United Nations) amongst Arab leaders, and the cost of keeping 100,000 troops in Palestine the British Government referred the matter to the United Nations. In September 1947, the British decided to terminate the Mandate. In November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution approving

29700-420: The results of the war were already satisfactory and Israeli leaders had to focus on the building of a nation. According to Benny Morris, "Ben-Gurion got cold feet during the war. ... If [he] had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country -the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion rather than

29898-472: The return of permanent peace in Palestine. Overall, for reasons that were beyond the commission's task of facilitation, this movement did not come to pass. The respective attitudes of the parties on this matter—attitudes which produced a complete deadlock as regards the refugee question—are well known. The Arab States insisted upon a prior solution of the refugee question, at least in principle, before agreeing to discuss other outstanding issues. In their opinion,

30096-610: The right to be elected president of the state, should he be elected by all." Ben-Gurion recognised the strong attachment of Palestinian Arabs to the land. In an address to the United Nations on 2 October 1947, he doubted the likelihood of peace: This is our native land; it is not as birds of passage that we return to it. But it is situated in an area engulfed by Arabic-speaking people, mainly followers of Islam. Now, if ever, we must do more than make peace with them; we must achieve collaboration and alliance on equal terms. Remember what Arab delegations from Palestine and its neighbors say in

30294-410: The rise of nationalist movements in both the Jewish and Arab communities. Competing interests of the two populations led to the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and the 1944–1948 Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine . The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine to divide the territory into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, was passed in November 1947. The 1948 Palestine war ended with

30492-505: The role played by Jewish soldiers. Meanwhile, Palestinian sources "were not eager to glorify the names of those who cooperated with Britain not so many years after the British put down the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939, and thereby indirectly helped the Jews establish a state." On 3 July 1944, the British government consented to the establishment of a Jewish Brigade within the British Army , with hand-picked Jewish and also non-Jewish senior officers. On 20 September 1944, an official communiqué by

30690-414: The safe and orderly withdrawal of their forces; military courts would try anybody who interfered. Although by this time British authority in most of Palestine had broken down, with most of the country in the hands of Jews or Arabs, the British air and sea blockade of Palestine remained in place. Although Arab volunteers were able to cross the borders between Palestine and the surrounding Arab states to join

30888-448: The same time Ben-Gurion assisted the illegal immigration of thousands of European Jewish refugees to Palestine during a period when the British placed heavy restrictions on Jewish immigration. In 1944, the Irgun and Lehi , two Jewish right-wing armed groups, declared a rebellion against British rule and began attacking British administrative and police targets. Ben-Gurion and other mainstream Zionist leaders opposed armed action against

31086-435: The scene of fierce fighting, though the British occasionally intervened in the fighting, largely to secure their evacuation routes, including by proclaiming martial law and enforcing truces. The Palestine Police Force was largely inoperative, and government services such as social welfare, water supplies, and postal services were withdrawn. In March 1948, all British judges in Palestine were sent back to Britain. In April 1948,

31284-418: The situation required the presence of over 100,000 British troops in the country. Following the Acre Prison Break and the retaliatory hanging of British sergeants by the Irgun, the British announced their desire to terminate the mandate and to withdraw by no later than the beginning of August 1948. The Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946 was a joint attempt by Britain and the United States to agree on

31482-400: The struggle to establish a Jewish state." During the Second World War, Ben-Gurion encouraged the Jewish population to volunteer for the British Army . He famously told Jews to "support the British as if there is no White Paper and oppose the White Paper as if there is no war". About 10% of the Jewish population of Palestine volunteered for the British Armed Forces, including many women. At

31680-406: The ten-day campaign during the 1948 war , the Israelis were militarily superior to their enemies and the Cabinet subsequently considered where and when to attack next. On 24 September, an incursion made by the Palestinian irregulars in the Latrun sector, killing 23 Israeli soldiers, precipitated the debate. On 26 September, Ben-Gurion put his argument to the Cabinet to attack Latrun again and conquer

31878-415: The territory of Mandatory Palestine divided among the State of Israel , the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , which annexed territory on the West Bank of the Jordan River , and the Kingdom of Egypt , which established the " All-Palestine Protectorate " in the Gaza Strip . Mandatory Palestine was designated as a Class A Mandate , based on its social, political, and economic development. This classification

32076-502: The villages of the coastal plain should be annexed by Israel. This would double the 1947-allotted Jewish area, aside from the Negev. Israel also wanted the entire western shore of the Dead Sea. The issue of Jerusalem was relegated to a subcommittee: the Committee on Jerusalem . While they had previously rejected the UN's internationalisation plan, most of the Arab delegations accepted a permanent international regime (called corpus separatum ) under United Nations supervision as proposed in

32274-413: The violent insurrection against the British in cooperation with the Irgun and Lehi with the approval of himself and other Jewish Agency officials. However, Ben-Gurion asked that the operation be delayed, but the Irgun refused. The Irgun carried out the King David Hotel bombing in July 1946, killing 91 people. Ben-Gurion publicly condemned the bombing. In the aftermath of the bombing, Ben-Gurion ordered that

32472-408: The whole or a large part of West Bank. The motion was rejected by a vote of seven to five after discussions. Ben-Gurion qualified the cabinet's decision as bechiya ledorot ("a source of lament for generations") considering Israel may have lost forever the Old City of Jerusalem. There is a controversy around these events. According to Uri Bar-Joseph, Ben-Gurion placed a plan that called for

32670-420: The willingness of Israel to negotiate and its full cooperation with the Conciliation Commission proved that it did not reject the basic principles of Resolution 194 . The stalemate was entirely due to the attitude of the Arab states. Israel stated that its admission to UN membership, after setting forth Israel's views regarding the Resolution before the committee, meant that the UN considered them satisfactory;

32868-484: The £600,000 in the Jewish Agency 's annual budget. In addition, he controlled the Islamic courts in Palestine. Among other functions, these courts had the power to appoint teachers and preachers. The 1922 Palestine Order in Council established a Legislative Council, which was to consist of 23 members: 12 elected, 10 appointed, and the High Commissioner. Of the 12 elected members, eight were to be Muslim Arabs, two Christian Arabs, and two Jews. Arabs protested against

33066-417: Was "seriously disturbed" with the "excessive Israeli claims to further territory within Palestine" and its "rejection of the basic principles of the Resolution set forth by the GA on 11 December 1948" . The U.S. position was that Israel should offer territorial compensation for any territory it had acquired outside the boundaries set forth in the UN resolution of 29 November 1947. The United States warned that

33264-483: Was a period of great concern for the Yishuv , when the German forces of General Erwin Rommel advanced east across North Africa towards the Suez Canal , raising a fear that they would conquer Palestine. This period was referred to as the " 200 days of dread ". This event was the direct cause for the founding, with British support, of the Palmach – a highly trained regular unit belonging to Haganah (a paramilitary group composed mostly of reserves). As in most of

33462-421: Was able to use when in discussions with Arab leaders were English, and to a lesser extent, French. The British 1939 White paper stipulated that Jewish immigration to Palestine was to be limited to 15,000 a year for the first five years, and would subsequently be contingent on Arab consent. Restrictions were also placed on the rights of Jews to buy land from Arabs. After this Ben-Gurion changed his policy towards

33660-455: Was admitted as member of the United Nations. Amongst the issues discussed were territorial questions and the establishment of recognized borders, the question of Jerusalem, the repatriation of refugees (and whether the issue could be discussed separately from the overall Arab–Israeli conflict), Israeli counter-claims for war damages, the fate of orange groves belonging to Arab refugees and of their bank accounts blocked in Israel. On 12 May 1949,

33858-402: Was afraid they would be dropped in the desert area of the Negev. The Gaza proposal became an important issue in the negotiations. While the negotiations were in an impasse, Israel was asked to "break the ice" by making a goodwill gesture. Israel then announced that it would pay compensation to refugees for their abandoned properties. The United States, however, persuaded Israel to accept at least

34056-500: Was an attack by Arabs on the Jewish village of Tel Hai . In April, there was another attack on Jews, this time in Jerusalem. In July 1920, a British civilian administration headed by a High Commissioner replaced the military administration. The first High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel , a Zionist and a recent British cabinet minister, arrived in Palestine on 20 June 1920 to take up his appointment from 1 July. Samuel established his headquarters and official residence in part of

34254-693: Was arrested twice, the second time he was held for two weeks and only released with the help of his father. In December 1905 he returned to Płońsk as a full-time Poalei Zion operative. There he worked to oppose the anti-Zionist Bund who were trying to establish a base. He also organised a strike over working conditions amongst garment workers. He was known to use intimidatory tactics, such as extorting money from wealthy Jews at gunpoint to raise funds for Jewish workers. Ben-Gurion discussed his hometown in his memoirs, saying: For many of us, anti-Semitic feeling had little to do with our dedication [to Zionism]. I personally never suffered anti-Semitic persecution. Płońsk

34452-412: Was at sea, returning from Istanbul, when the First World War broke out. He was not amongst the thousands of foreign nationals deported in December 1914. Based in Jerusalem , he and Ben-Zvi recruited forty Jews into a Jewish militia to assist the Ottoman Army. Despite his pro-Ottoman declarations he was deported to Egypt in March 1915. From there he made his way to the United States, arriving in May. For

34650-446: Was called the Saison or "Hunting Season", left the Irgun unable to continue operations as they struggled to survive. Irgun leader Menachem Begin ordered his fighters not to retaliate so as to prevent a civil war. The Saison became increasingly controversial in the Yishuv, including within the ranks of the Haganah, and it was aborted at the end of March 1945. At the end of World War II, the Zionist leadership in Palestine had expected

34848-417: Was completed on what was then the southeastern edge of Jerusalem. Referred to as Armon HaNetziv by the Jewish population, this building, located on the 'Hill of Evil Counsel' on the ridge of Jabel Mukaber , remained in use as the headquarters and official residence of the British High Commissioners until the end of British rule in 1948. One of the first actions of the newly installed civil administration

35046-431: Was elected onto the five-man Central Committee and the 10-man Manifesto Committee. He also arranged that Ben-Gurion was chosen as chairman of the sessions. These Ben-Gurion conducted in Hebrew, forbidding the translation of his address into Russian or Yiddish. The conference was divided: a large faction— Rostovians —wanted to create a single Arab–Jewish proletariat. This Shochat and Ben-Gurion opposed. The conference delegated

35244-399: Was expected that their relationship would continue when they landed in Jaffa but he shut her out after she was fired on her first day labouring—manuring the citrus groves of Petah Tikva. Whilst in New York City in 1915, he met Russian-born Paula Munweis and they married in 1917. In November 1919, after an 18-month separation, Paula and their daughter Geula joined Ben-Gurion in Jaffa . It

35442-561: Was funded by his father. Immediately on landing in Jaffa , 7 September 1906, Ben-Gurion set off, on foot, in a group of 14, to Petah Tikva . It was the largest of the 13 Jewish agricultural settlements and consisted of 80 households with a population of nearly 1,500; of these around 200 were Second Aliyah pioneers like Ben-Gurion. He found work as a day labourer, waiting each morning hoping to be chosen by an overseer. Jewish workers found it difficult competing with local villagers who were more skilled and prepared to work for less. Ben-Gurion

35640-456: Was imperative that the Negev and Port of Aqaba be within the Jewish state. Truman telephoned the US delegation to the UN and told them he supported Weizmann's position. However, the Trans-Jordan memorandum excluded territories of the Emirate of Transjordan from any Jewish settlement. Immediately after the UN resolution, civil war broke out between the Arab and Jewish communities, and British authority began to break down. On 16 December 1947,

35838-429: Was improving relations with West Germany through a reparations agreement in compensation for Nazi confiscation of Jewish property during the Holocaust . In 1954, he resigned as prime minister and minister of defence but remained a member of the Knesset . He returned as minister of defence in 1955 after the Lavon Affair and the resignation of Pinhas Lavon . Later that year he became prime minister again, following

36036-442: Was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th century . David Ben-Gurion was born in Płońsk in Congress Poland —then part of the Russian Empire , to Polish Jewish parents. His father, Avigdor Grün, was a pokątny doradca (secret adviser), navigating his clients through the often corrupt Imperial legal system. Following the publication of Theodore Herzl 's Der Judenstaat in 1896 Avigdor co-founded

36234-460: Was poorly received. Ben-Zvi spoke to 14 groups as well as an event in New York City and succeeded in recruiting 44 volunteers for Hechalutz; Ben-Gurion recruited 19. Ben-Gurion embarked on a second tour in December, speaking at 19 meetings, mostly in small towns with larger events in Minneapolis and Galveston . Due to the lack of awareness of Poale Zion's activities in Palestine it was decided to republish Yizkor in Yiddish . The Hebrew original

36432-505: Was published in Jaffa in 1911; it consisted of eulogies to Zionist martyrs and included an account by Ben-Gurion of his Petah Tikva and Sejera experiences. The first edition appeared in February 1916 and was an immediate success; all 3,500 copies were sold. A second edition of 16,000 was published in August. Martin Buber wrote the introduction to the 1918 German edition. The follow-up was conceived as an anthology of work from Poale Zion leaders; in fact Ben-Gurion took over as editor, writing

36630-409: Was published in April 1918. It cost $ 2 and was 500 pages long, over twice the length of Yizkor . It was an immediate success, selling 7,000 copies in 4 months; second and third editions were printed. Total sales of 25,000 copies made a profit of $ 20,000 for Poale Zion. It made Ben-Gurion the most prominent Poale Zion leader in America. In May 1918 Ben-Gurion joined the newly formed Jewish Legion of

36828-432: Was remarkably free of it ... Nevertheless, and I think this very significant, it was Płońsk that sent the highest proportion of Jews to Eretz Israel from any town in Poland of comparable size. We emigrated not for negative reasons of escape but for the positive purpose of rebuilding a homeland ... Life in Płońsk was peaceful enough. There were three main communities: Russians, Jews and Poles. ... The number of Jews and Poles in

37026-455: Was reserved for post-war mandates with the highest capacity for self-governance. All Class A mandates other than mandatory Palestine had gained independence by 1946. The name given to the Mandate's territory was "Palestine", in accordance with local Palestinian Arab and Ottoman usage and with European tradition. The Mandate charter stipulated that Mandatory Palestine would have three official languages: English, Arabic and Hebrew. In 1926,

37224-608: Was shocked at the number of Arabs employed. In November he caught malaria and the doctor advised he return to Europe. By the time he left Petah Tikva in summer of 1907 he had worked an average 10 days a month which frequently left him with no money for food. He wrote long letters in Hebrew to his father and friends. They rarely revealed how difficult life was. Others who had come from Płońsk were writing about tuberculosis, cholera and people dying of hunger. On his disembarkation at Jaffa, Ben-Gurion had been spotted by Israel Shochat who had arrived two years previously and had established

37422-446: Was successful, and by May 1948 Jewish forces were winning the civil war. On 14 May 1948, a few hours before the British Mandate officially terminated, Ben-Gurion declared Israeli independence in a ceremony in Tel Aviv. A few hours later, the State of Israel officially came into being when the British Mandate terminated on 15 May. The 1948 Arab–Israeli War began immediately afterwards as numerous Arab nations then invaded Israel. After

37620-415: Was that the permanent borders between itself and its neighbors should be based on the cease-fire lines, with only minor adjustments." The Arabs wanted to negotiate on the basis of UN resolutions 194 and 181. They wanted Israel to accept first the "right to return". Israel rejected the principle of "repatriation of the refugees and payment of due compensation for their lost or damaged property, as well as for

37818-410: Was the Jewish state-in-formation, accepted the plan, and nearly all the Jews in Palestine rejoiced at the news. The partition plan was rejected by the Palestinian Arab leadership and by most of the Arab population. Meeting in Cairo on November and December 1947, the Arab League then adopted a series of resolutions endorsing a military solution to the conflict. Britain announced that it would accept

38016-413: Was the first time he met his one-year-old daughter. The couple had three children: a son, Amos, and two daughters, Geula Ben-Eliezer and Renana Leshem. Amos married Mary Callow, already pregnant with their first child. She was an Irish gentile , and although Reform rabbi Joachim Prinz converted her to Judaism soon after, neither the Palestine rabbinate nor her mother-in-law Paula Ben-Gurion considered her

38214-468: Was the language to be used; the future lay with a united Jewish and Arab proletariat . Further disappointment came when Ben-Zvi and Shochat were elected as representatives to go to the World Zionist Congress . Ben-Gurion came last of five candidates. He was not aware that at the next gathering, on Ben-Zvi's return, a secret para-military group was set up— Bar-Giora —under Shochat's leadership. Distancing himself from Poale Zion activism Ben-Gurion, who had been

38412-401: Was to begin granting concessions from the Mandatory government over key economic assets. In 1921 the government granted Pinhas Rutenberg – a Jewish entrepreneur – concessions for the production and distribution of electrical power. Rutenberg soon established an electric company whose shareholders were Zionist organisations, investors, and philanthropists. Palestinian-Arabs saw it as proof that

38610-529: Was to join them but first needed to learn Turkish , spending eight months in Salonika , at that time the most advanced Jewish community in the area. Whilst studying he had to conceal that he was Ashkenazi due to local Sephardic prejudices. Ben-Zvi obtained a forged secondary school certificate so Ben-Gurion could join him in Dar al-Funun . Ben-Gurion was entirely dependent on funding from his father, while Ben-Zvi found work teaching. Struggling with ill health, Ben-Gurion spent some time in hospital. Ben-Gurion

38808-491: Was transferred to Sarafand . On 13 December 1918 he was demoted from corporal to private, fined three days' pay and transferred to the lowest company in the battalion. He had been five days absent without leave visiting friends in Jaffa . He was demobilised in early 1919. One of Ben-Gurion's companions when he made the Aliyah was Rachel Nelkin. Her step-father, Reb Simcha Isaac, was the leading Zionist in Płońsk, and they had met three years previously at one of his meetings. It

39006-402: Was visiting Paris at the time. The British stored the documents they had captured from the Jewish Agency headquarters in the King David Hotel , which was being used as a military and administrative headquarters. Ben-Gurion agreed to the Irgun's plan to bomb the King David Hotel in order to destroy incriminating documents that Ben-Gurion feared would prove that the Haganah had been participating in

39204-442: Was written when he was head of the executive committee of the Jewish Agency , to his son Amos on 5 October 1937. The letter is well known to scholars as it provides insight into Ben-Gurion's reaction to the report of the Peel Commission released on 7 July of the same year. It has also been subject to significant debate by scholars as a result of scribbled-out text that may or may not provide written evidence of an intention to "expel

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