Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

PAGE 14 THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE October 17, 1986 David Ben-Gurion:The by Sheldon Kirshner Jewish Telegraphic Agency One hundred years ago this month, Sheindel Gruen, the wife of Avigdor, gave birth to a son, David, in the Polish town of Plonsk. The boy became a man and the man became the first Jew in 2,000 years to head a Jewish state. David Ben-Gurion, the name by which he would be known, was one of the towering figures in Jewish history. Twice prime minister of Israel, Ben-Gurion lived a long, fruitful life, dying as the dust of the 1973 Yom Kippur War settled. The quintessential Zionist, he immi grated to Palestine in 1906, labor ing in the orange groves of Petah Tikvah and in the wine cellars of Rishon Le Zion, before becoming politically involved in the supreme battle to secure a Jewish homeland in what is now Israel. In this respect, it was not by chance that he changed his name. Ben-Gurion, which means son of a lion cub, was one of the leaders of the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 C.E. His namesake fought the Arabs and the British in the bloody attempt to create a place in the sun for Jews. A keen student of Greek and Eastern philosophies, a practitioner of yoga, as well as a master of seven languages. Ben-Gurion carved out a career whose contours followed the course of Zionist politics. Ben-Gurion, a gruff man whose idealism was tempered by pragma tism, served as secretary-general of the Histadrut labor federation at a time when Jews sought to create a Jewish workers society in Palestine. He was founder of Mapai, the political party that mixed Social ism with capitalism and ruled Israel from 1949 until its defeat at the hands of the Likud block in 1977. He was chairman of the Jewish Agency executive for 13 years, pre paring the groundwork for the establishment of Israel in 1948. When the War of Independence broke out, Ben-Gurion, as prime minister of the provisional govern ment, headed the defense effort and took charge of raising funds for the beleaguered Jewish state. In the 1949 general election, Ben-Gurion, having failed to obtain an overall majority, formed a coa lition government and thus set the pattern for future governments. He retired in 1953, joining a kib butz in the Negev Desert. But within two years, Ben-Gurion emerged from the wilderness, first becoming minister of defense under Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and then winning back the prime ministership. For the next eight years, Ben- Gurion, a short, bulky man whose snow white hair framed a pudgy face, wielded power as Israel made the gradual transition from child hood to adulthood. He retired in 1963, designating Levi Eshkol as his successor. The infamous Lavon Affair, which rumbled across the Israeli political landscape like a menacing earthquake, led to his resignation. The controversy, which revolved around a bungled espionage oper ation in Egypt in the mid-1950s, effectively spelled finis to Ben- Gurion’s spectacular career. When he attempted a third comeback, Mapai thwarted his ambition. He formed an independ ent list for the 1965 election, Rafi, and acolytes like Moshe Dayan and Shimon Peres joined him. But Rafi performed poorly at the polls and any hope Ben-Gurion may have had about being a kingmaker vanished. In 1969, he tried once again to use his past to appeal to the Israeli electorate, but he failed. His state list floundered, and the “old man” resigned from the Knesset just a year later. When he died, in a year when Israel’s arrogant self-confidence was badly shaken by a war which claimed more than 2,000 Israeli lives, Ben-Gurion was effectively in political exile, a lonely, embit tered figure who had been over taken by the rush of events. Never theless, Ben-Gurion’s contributions to Israel’s rebirth and consolida tion were never forgotten, not even by his most formidable enemies. Ben-Gurion, despite enormous pressure from the U.S. and the doubts of many of his colleagues, proclaimed the state of Israel. A lesser leader might have hesitated and postponed a decision, but he charged ahead. In declaring state hood, Ben-Gurion had come a long way. Before the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1918, he had urged Jews to support the Turks in World War I to win from them the promise of autonomy in Palestine. But when the Turkish authorities cracked down on Zionism, he switched sides and championed the British cause. In the 1930s, when Palestinian Arabs were rising up in revolt against Jewish settlement and the British mandate, Ben-Gurion fav ored a Jewish homeland but felt that statehood should be deferred until the country was sufficiently populated with Jews. By the early 1940s, he had come around to favoring the creation of a Jewish commonwealth; By 1948, he was prepared to declare statehood. Ben-Gurion fathered the mod ern Israeli army and considered it a tool of national unity. As the War of Independence raged, he dis banded all Jewish militias, includ ing the Palmach, the Haganah and the Irgun, and molded them into the new Israel Defense Force, the IDF. “...I see in it (IDF) not only the fortess of our security...but also an educational force for national uni fication, and a loyal instrument for welding together the dispersed ethnic groups,” he said. Ben-Gurion viewed aliya as one of his chief nation-building tasks. He promulgated the Law of Return, which enabled Jews to claim im mediate Israeli citizenship, and he diverted scarce financial resources to ensure that the new arrivals Ben-Gurion presents President Harry S Truman with a Hanukia during a 1951 visit to the United States. Abba Eban, then ambassador to the United Nations, is in the center. father of Israel Ben-Gurion with his wife Paula. 1917. from all corners of the world would be properly integrated. “Aliyah precedes everything else,” he was fond of saying. “For in aliyah there is security, in aliyah there is renaissance...” Ben-Gurion, in opposition to the United Nations, declared Jer usalem as Israel’s capital. “Jewish Jerusalem is an organic and insep arable part for Israel, just as it is an inseparable part of Jewish history, Jewish religion and the Jewish soul,” he wrote. Ben-Gurion, though totally sec ular, signed an historic agreement with Jewish Orthodox parties granting certain concessions in return for their acceptance of a Jewish state. The so-called “status quo” in religion was frayed at the edges and alienated many Israelis, but it has helped preserve Israel’s national unity. Ben-Gurion turned Israeli for eign policy westward, away from neutrality, and sowed the seeds of Israel’s alliance with the United States. He laid the foundation for Israel s relationship with West Germany, and he cultivated Afri can and Asian nations. He opened up the Negev, the sandy, desolate wasteland which comprises two-thirds of Israel’s land area. But for all his efforts, the Negev still remains sparsely popu lated and, in comparison to the West Bank, a financial stepchild. Despite all his successes, Ben- Gurion failed at peace-making. He wanted to come to terms with Israel’s Arab neighbors, but could not do so. In general, he adopted a hardline approach to the Arabs, permitting the IDF to retaliate for each blow delivered bv the enemy. According to some historians, Ben-Gurion relied too heavily on retaliatory raids. They claim that il he had been less provocative, that if he had not ordered the assault on Egyptian positions in the Gaza Strip in February 1955, Israel might have had a chance to enter into meaningful talks with Egypt, the leader of the Arab world. In retrospect, Ben-Gurion’s fate ful decision to collude with France and Britain in the 1956 Arab-Israeli war was probably a strategic error, for it branded Israel with the stamp as a collaborator of colonial Euro pean powers. After his retirement, and partic ularly in wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, Ben-Gurion’s attitude mel lowed. A hawk during much of his tenure as prime minister, he turned into something of a dove in his dec lining years. “...we must return to the pre- 1967 borders,” he told an inter viewer several years before his death. “Peace is more important than real estate.” David Ben-Gurion usually knew what was good for Israel.