Word: ben-gurion
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...late '20s, Golda became active in Histadrut, the Jewish labor federation; in 1940 she was named head of its political department. After World War II, with all signs pointing toward an end to Britain's mandate over Palestine, David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency, dispatched Golda to the U.S. to raise money for arms that the new Jewish state would need. She minced no words. As she told a Chicago assembly of fund raisers: "You cannot decide whether we will fight or not. We will. You can only decide one thing: whether or not we shall...
...Ben-Gurion used to buy weapons for his underground army, the Haganah. History, he said later, would record that "there was a Jewish woman who got the money that made [Israel] possible...
...aware of the Security Theory advocated by [David] Ben-Gurion which constituted a basis for the establishment of the State of Israel. It says openly that peace should be imposed on the Arabs by force of arms. While in the White House I told Carter "Peace cannot be imposed. If imposed, it will cease to be peace inasmuch as one party thus dictates its terms to the other. Israel," I went on, "has not so far succeeded in dictating her terms...
...third mistake, continues Rabin, was in the process of the negotiations. "Every Israeli Premier since Ben-Gurion used to say that once an Arab leader would meet openly with the Premier of Israel, the conflict could be solved within minutes. Well, President Sadat came, sat, talked, and yet the miracle that was called direct negotiations did not work. But more than that, Begin decided to go to Washington to get President Carter's blessing for his peace plan even before he showed it to the Egyptians; this displayed Begin's obvious lack of confidence in direct negotiations...
Begin probably has a firmer hold on Israel than any leader since his old antagonist, David Ben-Gurion, and it is this very strength that helped make Sadat's peace initiative possible. A close Begin aide confides: "The Premier believes that Jewish history [in Israeli stopped in 1963 when Ben-Gurion retired and only started again this year with his election to the premiership." With the backing of the 15 Deputies from Yigael Yadin's Democratic Movement for Change, who joined the government in October, Begin's ruling coalition now commands a healthy 78 votes...