THE DECLARATION OF THE
ESTABLISHMENT
OF THE STATE OF
|1947-SPEECH OF DAVID BEN-GURION OCT 2, 1947|
|The Life &
|Who is
1948 - Declaration of
ERETZ-ISRAEL (Hebrew) - the
birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and
political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood,
created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave
to the world the eternal Book of Books.
After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people kept faith with it
throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for
their return to it and for the restoration in it of their political freedom.
Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in
every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient
homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers,
ma'pilim [(Hebrew) - immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance
of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom,
revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a
thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving
peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of
progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards
independent nationhood.
In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the
Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened
and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its
own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd
November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the |Mandate of the League of
Nations| which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic
connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the
right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the
massacre of millions of Jews in
demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its
homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State,
which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and
confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member
of the community of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in
parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by
difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their
right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national
homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country
contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and
peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by
the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be
reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.
On
passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in
Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of
Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the
implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United
Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is
irrevocable. This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be
masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign
State.
ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S
COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH
COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST
MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE
TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER
ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND
HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE
RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL
ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A
JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE
STATE OF
WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination
of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708
(
authorities of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall
be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st
October 1948, the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council
of State, and its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be
the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called
"
THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and
for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the
country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on
freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of
will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its
inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee
freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it
will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to
the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies
and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the
resolution
of the General Assembly of
will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of
Eretz-Israel.
WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewish people in the
building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel into the
community of nations.
WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched against us
now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to
preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the
basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its
provisional and permanent institutions.
WE EXTEND our hand to all neighbouring states and their peoples in
an offer of peace and good neighbourliness, and appeal to them to
establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign
Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared
to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire
WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora to rally
round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and
upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the
realization of the age-old dream - the redemption of
PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE ALMIGHTY, WE AFFIX OUR
SIGNATURES TO THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION
OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE, ON THE SOIL
OF
THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF
SABBATH EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH
MAY,1948).
David Ben-Gurion
Daniel Auster
Mordekhai Bentov
Yitzchak Ben Zvi
Eliyahu Berligne
Fritz Bernstein
Rabbi Wolf Gold
Meir Grabovsky
Yitzchak Gruenbaum
Dr. Abraham Granovsky
Eliyahu Dobkin
Meir Wilner-Kovner
Zerach Wahrhaftig
Herzl VardiRachel Cohen
Rabbi Kalman Kahana
Saadia Kobashi
Rabbi Yitzchak Meir Levin
Meir David Loewenstein
Zvi Luria
Golda Myerson
Nachum Nir
Zvi Segal
Rabbi Yehuda Leib Hacohen Fishman David
Zvi Pinkas
Aharon Zisling
Moshe Kolodny
Eliezer Kaplan
Abraham Katznelson
Felix Rosenblueth
David Remez
Berl Repetur
Mordekhai Shattner
Ben
Bekhor Shitreet
Moshe Shapira
Moshe Shertok