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David Ben
Gurion, who died in 1973 aged 87, is a member of an elite group
of world leaders whose names will always be associated with the
founding of their countries. Without the dedication and tenacity
of Ben Gurion it is unlikely that Israel would have been created
as early as it was.
On 14 May
1948, Ben Gurion proclaimed the existence of Israel and became
its first prime minister. The end of one struggle meant the start
of another.
David Ben
Gurion was born in Czarist Poland in 1886. As he grew he became
aware of the mood of anti-semitism in Europe and was drawn to the
ideals of the fledgling Zionist movement.
In 1906 he
emigrated to Ottoman-controlled Palestine and became an
agricultural worker, putting into practice the philosophy that
was to inspire Zionists over the next four decades. For Ben
Gurion, Zionism meant one thing: conquering the land by Jewish
labour.
Ben Gurion
was expelled from Palestine in 1915 because of his nationalist
and socialist activities. In exile in New York he devoted himself
to the Zionist cause.
Ottoman rule
over Palestine ended after the First World war. And it was to
British-controlled Palestine that Ben Gurion returned.
Maintaining his conviction that Jewish labour would provide the
foundation of the Jewish state, he established the General
Federation of Labour, the Histradut. This still provided the
bastion of Zionist power a decade and more after the creation of
the state.
As much as
Ben Gurion campaigned tirelessly on behalf of the Zionist cause
in Europe and the United States, he also encouraged the
development of a military force in Palestine. When World War II
broke out he encouraged Jews to fight for the Allies, while
organizing an underground agency to smuggle Jews fleeing from
Nazi holocausts into Palestine.
After the
war, Jewish violence against the British escalated. While Ben
Gurion supported the principle of armed struggle, he condemned
right-wing extremist groups that carried out acts of terrorism.
After
independence had been achieved, Ben Gurion insisted that all
armed groups be dissolved and become part of the Israel Defence
Force. The new force was soon in action, fighting and defeating
Arab armies that tried to over-run the new state.
Ben Gurion
also faced other challenges: building state institutions and
absorbing the flood of new immigrants. In 1953 he left government
for a time, but was back as prime minister two years later - a
post he held until 1963.
Ben Gurion
finally retired from politics, aged 84, in 1970.
He was a man
of prodigious energy - physical and intellectual. "He was a
mercurial man," wrote Israeli author Amos Oz, "almost
violently vivacious."
Ben Gurion
had a vision and saw it realised. But by the time he died he had
sensed hints of the internal traumas that were later to beset
Israel.
After the
1967 Middle East war, Ben Gurion argued against holding on to
Arab territory beyond Jerusalem. The fright that Israel was given
in the 1973 war when the Arabs enjoyed success revealed, in Ben
Gurion's view, a dangerous sign of arrogance and complacency.
To a man
obsessed by the ideal of hard work in the cause of Zionism, these
characteristics were abhorrent. Two months after the war, he
died.
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