Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Intellectual Origins of Ben-Gurion's Zionism
- 2 The Holocaust and Its Lessons
- 3 Ben-Gurion between Right and Left
- 4 Ben-Gurion and the Israel Defense Forces – From Formation to the Suez-Sinai Campaign of 1956
- 5 From the 1956 War to the “Lavon Affair”
- 6 From the “Lavon Affair” to the Six Day War
- Epilogue: The Renaissance That Waned and Its Leader
- Archives
- Interviews
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Published Sources
- Name Index
- Ben-Gurion Subject Index
4 - Ben-Gurion and the Israel Defense Forces – From Formation to the Suez-Sinai Campaign of 1956
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 March 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Intellectual Origins of Ben-Gurion's Zionism
- 2 The Holocaust and Its Lessons
- 3 Ben-Gurion between Right and Left
- 4 Ben-Gurion and the Israel Defense Forces – From Formation to the Suez-Sinai Campaign of 1956
- 5 From the 1956 War to the “Lavon Affair”
- 6 From the “Lavon Affair” to the Six Day War
- Epilogue: The Renaissance That Waned and Its Leader
- Archives
- Interviews
- Abbreviations
- Notes
- Published Sources
- Name Index
- Ben-Gurion Subject Index
Summary
The British Army as a Model
If Ben-Gurion enjoyed a close acquaintance with any army, as he was wont to say, it was the British Army. He himself was an “alumnus” of this army, having served in the Jewish Legion that had seen combat in World War I. Afterwards, he had many years' acquaintance with the British Army in Palestine and observed it while in England during the Blitz. His political sense and his experience taught him something about the connection between an army and a society at the end of a total war, such as World War I, in which an entire nation had been mobilized. In 1950, as defense minister of the State of Israel, Ben-Gurion stated in the Knesset:
I know of no greater privilege for a Jew in our times than that enjoyed by those who served in the Israel Defense Forces during that amazing year. … It seemed to them, however, that military life became pointless once the battles wound down. They were wrong: There was much point to it – but the point did not appeal to them.…In the months that followed the end of the fighting, we were not sure that the armistice negotiations would succeed; adequate military forces had to be maintained … even though there was enormous pressure … to disarm rapidly and almost totally. … For the army, this may have been the hardest period, harder than that of the battles. … It was also the general feeling in the Yishuv [this term remained in use even after independence as a synonym for the Israeli community at large], which continued to influence the army. […]
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- David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Renaissance , pp. 191 - 260Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010