History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict - David Ben Gurion & Menachem Begin

Summary: Reading Time: 12 minutesEarlier in this story on the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict<a href="http://www.theendofhistory.net/global-issues/middle-east-history-politics/complete-balanced-guide-israeli-palestinian-conflict-chapter-2-zionism/"> I wrote about one of the distinct and successful aspects of the modern Zionism and its two streams of thought and activity</a>. On the one hand you had people like Chaim Weizmann who represented the more conservative and institutionalized brand of Zionism. This stream of thought and activity within Zionism sought to elevate the Jewish quest for a homeland among the world powers by becoming one of them. They would walk with the leaders of the world, gain their trust and respect, and through diplomatic means find their goals accomplished. On the other end of the spectrum of thought and activity among modern Zionists were the likes of Ze’ev Jabotinsky and what Jabotinsky called Revisionist Zionism. This was a much more militaristic brand of Zionism. Future generations would even call their actions terrorism. They were those who were pursuing the goal of a Jewish state by any means necessary. Today I want to continue with this thought process and look at the next generation of leaders within Jewish Zionism. This would be the generation that followed that of Weizmann and Jabotinsky and it would become the generation who finally established the Jewish homeland and the State of Israel as well as established the policies and political tones of the new states up through the 1980s. Like Jabotinsky and Weizmann, these are the founding fathers of Israel. Today we meet David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin.<br>  <br> David Ben Gurion, Founding Father of Israel<br> If there is a man who could fit into a comparative role to George Washington for the nation of Israel it was David Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was a pragmatist and a realist politically speaking. He did not believe in friends. He believed in interests and the most important interests were those of the nation of Israel. He understood how power worked and he aimed to make Israel part of that power in the world. After the founding of the state of Israel Ben Gurion became the nation’s figure head supplanting a role that many believed rightly belonged to his intellectual and philosophical mentor, Chaim Weizmann. Weizmann would get his credit and his honorary titles, including the presidency, but by the 1940s Ben Gurion was the leader of Israel and a titan to contend with for all of his adversaries both within and outside of the Zionist organizations.<br> Ben Gurion was born in Poland, part of the Russian Empire in 1886. He was involved in Zionist organizations locally as a student but by the time he was 20 he had immigrated to Palestine. Later in his memoirs Ben Gurion noted that he never accounted anti-Semitism as part of his own motives for Zionism. His motivation for a homeland for the Jews was simply a love for the land.<br> In Palestine Ben Gurion was quickly involved in the political leadership of the Zionist organizations there. He was active in the agricultural work and to some extent with security roles of the agricultural settlements. He studied law in Constantinople and began to immerse himself in international political knowledge just as the Ottoman Empire was beginning to disintegrate. He officially took on the name of Ben Gurion, having been born David Grun and acquired the skills of journalism as well.<br> At the outbreak of World War I Ben Gurion still saw the future of the Jewish State linked to the success of the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, he worked to organize a volunteer Jewish units to support the Ottomans but he was quickly deported first to Egypt and from there he moved to the United States.<br> <br> In the US Ben Gurion toured the cities trying to raise support for a Jewish army unit that would back the Ottomans in the war of which the US was still not yet part of.