The legacy of the Declaration of Independence went on to exceed the most expansive ambitions of its authors. The Declaration’s drafters had thought that they were writing a document whose appearance would change the fate of the Jewish people and whose text would be judged by the standards of history. This was already quite ambitious. David Ben-Gurion had ensured that the document would create a state, that it would be the “Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel.” At the ceremony at which the Declaration was read, Ben-Gurion referred to the Declaration for what it was: “the Declaration of Independence.” A state would be established, and its fate would be determined in the realm of states.