Word: ben-gurion
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When he broke that promise last week, Ben-Gurion acted with the apparent approval and certainly with the complete support of his entire people. They went to war sure of their superior strength and weary of eight years of continuing crisis and uncertainty...
...deficits would eventually get tired and quit, and the little state would cave in. There were many in Israel too (and among U.S. Zionists) who argued that Israel had to learn to live peacefully with its neighbors if it was to survive as a nation. In 1953 Ben-Gurion suffered an election setback and retired to a pioneer desert community. Into office went Moshe Sharett, a modest, cautious lawyer who made some effort to diminish Arab hostility, to settle the problem of the 900,000 Palestinian refugees, to let some of them back into Israel and to join with Arab...
Turning Point. Convinced that neither the U.N. nor the big powers would ever win for Israel what they might win for themselves, the Israelis preferred to make their own way in the world. Said Ben-Gurion: "Israel will stand or fall by what is achieved in Israel." If desert settlers were to be protected from the endless sneak raids of Arab infiltrators, Israel must attend in its own way to its border security. Ben-Gurion returned early last year from the Negev desert to active duty as Defense Minister. Just eleven days later Israeli armed forces carried out a smash...
...With Ben-Gurion back, and soon Prime Minister again, less and less was said of coming to terms with the Arabs. Following the new tough policy, Israel struck again and again. By this summer a new-pattern of incidents emerged on the Jordan border, with Israel answering the smallest incursions with large-scale reprisals. Most notable example: an attack on Kalkilya in which Israelis killed 48 Arabs in return for the murder of two Israelis. Israel claimed that over the years many more Israelis than Arabs had been killed in border incidents. But hatreds on both sides could...
...Peace but a Sword. Seven months ago Dag Hammarskjold rushed to the Middle East and signed all parties to a ceasefire. In a major speech to the Knesset, Ben-Gurion declaimed: "Preventive war would be madness." But all the time Israel prepared. Last month, when Iraqi troops were reported massing to enter a weakened Jordan, Ben-Gurion disappointed some of his followers by his mild response. Army Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan rose in the middle of the speech and stomped out of the Knesset gallery...