David Ben-Gurion's Zionist foreign policy, 1938–48: the democratic factor

Abstract

In the face of Britain's retreat – at a time when the situation of European Jewry had disastrously deteriorated – from its international commitment to help establish in Eretz Israel (Palestine) a national home for the Jewish people, David Ben-Gurion, leader of the Yishuv and the Jewish Agency for Eretz Israel, did not succumb to despair and violence. Instead, he adopted a predominantly political-diplomatic course, curved democratically to activate for the Zionist cause American Jewry and the American public in general. This strategy, basically derived from the democratic tradition of the Zionist movement and the Yishuv, vindicated in the establishment of the State of Israel, in part of Eretz Israel, against heavy odds and with the recognition of the United States and American Jewry. Thus, the Zionist drive for an American alignment employed democracy as a means to achieve Jewish independence, and also worked further to form the state itself as quintessentially democratic.