Israeli Declaration of Independence
David Ben-Gurion was inspired by the Hebrew Bible. How true to it was he?
On May 14, 1948, Israel’s founders wanted to emphasize to the world that while the Jewish people had been born in the Land of Israel, its state was the adopted child of the United Nations.
The declaration came together so hurriedly that if the drafters had argued for even a few hours more it would have read much differently.
The beginning of a new series investigating how the Israeli Declaration of Independence came about, and what the text reveals about the country it brought into being.
Ever? Judea? Zion?
Declaring Israel’s independence.
On the eve of Israel’s statehood in 1948, with the massed forces of five Arab nations threatening invasion, David Ben-Gurion picked a fight with his own army. Why?
And the recent dispute over who owns that draft.
A bulwark against judicial activism.
Ben-Gurion, Thomas Jefferson, and declarations of independence.
In the moments leading up to Israel’s independence, America’s diplomats did everything they could to stop the process, and the president, cold.
A long-accepted wisdom has it that just days before the state’s birth, its founders settled two burning issues in a pair of closely decided votes. The wisdom is half-wrong.
Let politics sort things out.
It borrowed liberally from America’s.