Israel's Early Years • 309David Ben-Gurion
B
en-Gurion (1886-1973) was born David Gruen in Plonsk, Poland. His
family was ardently Zionist and gave him an ideologically influenced and
secular, though Hebrew-based, education. By 1904, as a student at the Univer¬
sity of Warsaw, he joined Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion), a socialist-Zionist
group. His ardent Zionism caused him to leave the university after two years
and immigrate to Palestine when he was but twenty years old.
Upon arriving in Palestine, Gruen changed his name to Ben-Gurion and
threw himself into the Zionist project. He helped found the kibbutz move¬
ment, the Histadrut (general trade union), and a Jewish defense group called
Hashomer (the Watchman). In 1912, envisaging future Jewish autonomy
within the Ottoman Empire, he went to Istanbul to study Turkish law and
government. His studies were cut short by the outbreak of World War I. Ben-
Gurion was deported as a troublemaker in 1915 and ended up in New York
City, where he spent most of the war years and also met and married a Rus¬
sian-born Zionist activist, Pauline Munweis.
By 1918 Ben-Gurion was back in Palestine as a member of the Jewish Legion
attached to the British army. A man of enormous energy and drive, he soon be¬
came the leader of both the Histadrut and Mapai (Israeli Workers Party). In the
1930s he would reach the pinnacle of Zionist power, when he was elected chair¬
man of the Zionist Executive, the highest body of international Zionism at that
time, and chairman of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, which the British had
designated as the official representative of the Jewish people in its mandate. He
would keep this power throughout the turbulent struggle that led to Israel's
creation in 1948, when he became the country's first prime minister.
Ben-Gurion was totally dedicated to Zionism, the cause that shaped his life,
and he viewed the rest of the world through its ideological premises. Single-
minded and ultimately successful, he was not a pleasant man. Amos Oz de¬
scribed Ben-Gurion as follows: "Verbal battle, not dialogue, was his habitual
mode of communication. ... he was a walking exclamation mark, a tight,
craggy man with a halo of silver hair and a jawbone that projected awesome
willpower and a volcanic temper."
Dedication to the Zionist cause also produced a clear-minded but amoral
aspect to Ben-Gurion's character and behavior. On one hand, he once admit¬
ted: "If I were an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel ... we
came here and stole their country." On the other, he prescribed the following:
"We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the
cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population."
David Ben-Gurion was in many ways the father of his country. He was a
politician, administrator, and commander. He achieved what he and the Zion¬
ist movement most wanted, a Jewish state in Palestine. The Western world has
glorified this accomplishment and vilified the Palestinians who resisted it.