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How David Ben-Gurion got the Palestinians wrong in 1948
When European Jewish settlers embarked on brutal ethnic cleansing to establish Israel in 1948, they thought the Palestinian population would be the least of their problems. In fact, Zionist leaders like David Ben-Gurion believed that “the refugee problem would resolve itself”.There was deep-seated conviction among Zionists that the Palestinians lacked an identity, and they would just flee to neighbouring Arab countries and assimilate. They would not come back to claim their stolen land.But what happened was the exact opposite.Decade after decade, the Palestinian national cause grew stronger. Today, few survivors of the Nakba of 1948 remain, but the national commitment to Palestinian rights and historical justice is as strong as ever. That is because the older generations did not teach the younger ones to forget the trauma and move on; they taught them to remember and to keep the keys to their ancestral homes in their minds.The “refugee problem” did not “resolve itself” not just because of Palestinian determination and resilience, but also because the Israeli policies of violence and dispossession backfired.Israel’s theft of land and resources and violent displacement of Palestinians was the starting point for every Palestinian generation to reject and resist occupation.As Israel succeeded in usurping more and more Palestinian land, it failed miserably in controlling the Palestinian consciousness.Despite continuous Israeli efforts to turn refugee camps into isolated enclaves, recruit agents and collaborators to undermine unity, and introduce international bodies to redefine the refugee issue as a purely humanitarian one, it failed to dismantle the Palestinian national cause.Those who were dispossessed and violated – the Palestinian refugees – became the most ardent carriers of the idea of resistance. Refugee camps became the centres of peaceful and armed struggle. These camps gave birth to prominent Palestinian thinkers, doctors, educators and leaders, who spread one message: the rejection of the Israeli occupation and the insistence on Palestinian rights.Palestinian refugees were the drivers of the first Intifada of 1987 and the second Intifada of 2000. They were at the centre of any subsequent mobilisation to resist the Israeli occupation.The colonial project saw no option but to ratchet up its brutality. Repeated massacres, mass imprisonment and relentless efforts to uproot communities did not achieve subjugation. This approach failed and the Gaza Strip ...
The Eleven-Minute Speech That Helped Create Israel: How Ben-Gurion ...
PeopleAuthored by: Girish ShuklaUpdated May 14, 2026, 16:27 ISTBehind the eleven-minute speech that founded Israel sits a 31-year-old lawyer nobody remembers, a frantic all-night edit, and one official stuck in Tel Aviv traffic with the only copy.How Ben-Gurion Wrote the Declaration of Independence for Israel (Picture Credit - Unpack Media)On the morning of 14 May 1948, somewhere in Tel Aviv, a 31-year-old lawyer named Mordechai Beham was probably reading the newspaper. Six weeks earlier, he had been handed an impossible assignment by Pinchas Rosen, the man who would become Israel's first justice minister. Beham was asked to draft, by himself, the founding document of a country that did not yet exist. He used the American Declaration of Independence as a structural model. He inserted the phrase "Rock of Israel," a deliberately ambiguous reference to God that nobody in the secular Zionist leadership would later remove. He delivered his draft at the end of April 1948. He was 31, junior, and his name would not appear on the final document. He almost vanished from the story. In 2019, the Israeli government had to fight his family in court to gain custody of his papers.The Building on Rothschild BoulevardThe ceremony took place at 4 PM on Friday, 14 May, eight hours before the British Mandate officially expired at midnight. The location was deliberately kept secret. Members of the People's Council, the body that would sign the document, received invitations the day before with strict instructions not to disclose the venue. The fear was twofold. The British might try to intervene. The Arab armies massed on the borders might launch their invasion early. The room chosen was the Tel Aviv Museum on Rothschild Boulevard, today preserved as Independence Hall. A large portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, hung behind the podium. Herzl had died in 1904. Ben-Gurion would stand beneath him.Tel Aviv Museum on Rothschild Boulevard, Now Preserved as Independence HallThe Argument That Almost Sank EverythingThe drafting committee had been working for weeks across multiple committees, three lawyers here, five politicians there, until the question of borders became the first explosive disagreement. The original draft committed Israel to the borders proposed by the United Nations partition plan of 1947. Pinchas Rosen and Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit wanted those borders mentioned. Ben-Gurion and Aharon Zisling refused. "We accepted the UN Resolution," Ben-Gurion ...
The Israeli Massacres in Palestine Between 1937-1948 in Palestine ...
The Israeli army's role in massacres became evident on 14-05-1948, a day before the declaration of the State of Israel. The Givati Brigade, part of the Israeli army, besieged and attacked the Arab village of Abu Shusha using bullets and mortar shells, resulting in the death of 60 Palestinians and injuries.
The 32-Minute Speech That Changed the Middle East Forever | May 14, 1948
[summary] On May 14th, 1948, David Ben-Gurion declared the establishment of the State of Israel as British rule ended, which the US and Soviet Union quickly recognized.
