Israeli Declaration of Independence 1948: Founding of Israel

The Israeli Declaration of Independence was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948, hours before the British Mandate for Palestine came to an end. It announced the establishment of a Jewish state to be called Israel, fulfilling the central aim of the Zionist movement. The declaration was followed within hours by recognition from the United States and by the invasion of neighbouring Arab armies, turning an existing civil war into a regional conflict.

Background: from the Mandate to partition

Britain had governed Palestine since the end of the First World War, under a League of Nations mandate formally granted in 1922. The mandate incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain had promised to support “a national home for the Jewish people” while protecting the rights of the existing non-Jewish communities.

Jewish immigration, Arab opposition and British policy collided repeatedly. The Arab revolt of 1936–1939 was followed by a 1939 White Paper that sharply limited Jewish immigration, just as Jews in Europe faced persecution and then the Holocaust, in which about six million Jews were murdered.

After the Second World War, Britain faced an armed Jewish insurgency, including attacks such as the King David Hotel bombing in 1946, as well as growing international pressure over Holocaust survivors. In February 1947 London handed the problem to the United Nations.

On 29 November 1947 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 181, the UN Partition Plan, by 33 votes to 13 with 10 abstentions. It proposed separate Jewish and Arab states, with Jerusalem under an international regime. Jewish leaders accepted the plan; the Arab Higher Committee and the Arab states rejected it. Fighting between Jewish and Arab communities broke out the next day.

The decision to declare

Britain announced that it would end the mandate at midnight on 14–15 May 1948 and withdraw its forces. During the spring the Jewish community’s institutions, the Jewish Agency and the National Council, prepared to form a government. Two bodies were created: the People’s Council (Moetzet HaAm), a provisional legislature of 37 members, and the People’s Administration, a provisional cabinet of 13.

The decision was not straightforward. The United States was suggesting a temporary trusteeship and a truce, and Arab armies were preparing to intervene. Some leaders argued for delay. On 12 May the People’s Administration voted, by a narrow majority usually given as six to four, to proceed with a declaration.

Several questions had to be settled quickly. The leaders chose the name “Israel” over alternatives such as “Judea” and “Zion”. They agreed to say nothing about borders. A dispute between religious and secular members over whether to mention God was resolved by using the phrase “Rock of Israel” (Tzur Yisrael), which each side could interpret in its own way.

The ceremony in Tel Aviv

The ceremony was held on the afternoon of Friday 14 May 1948, timed to finish before the Jewish Sabbath began at sunset. The venue was the Tel Aviv Museum, housed in the former home of the city’s first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, on Rothschild Boulevard. Invitations were sent by messenger that morning, with guests asked to keep the event secret.

At about 4 pm, beneath a portrait of Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ben-Gurion rose and read the declaration aloud. The reading and signing took roughly half an hour and were broadcast live on the new radio station Kol Yisrael. Rabbi Yehuda Leib Maimon recited a traditional blessing, members of the council signed, and the audience sang “Hatikvah”, the Zionist anthem that later became the national anthem.

The British High Commissioner, Sir Alan Cunningham, had left Jerusalem that morning and sailed from Haifa late that night. At midnight the mandate ended, and the new state came into legal existence.

Not every member of the People’s Council could attend. Jerusalem was under siege, and members trapped there, along with some others who were abroad, added their signatures in the following days and weeks. A space was left on the parchment for them, which is why the signatures do not appear in a single neat sequence. In all, 37 members signed the declaration.

What the declaration says

The declaration is a short document in Hebrew. It begins with a historical section describing the Land of Israel as the birthplace of the Jewish people, the dispersion of Jews, the rise of Zionism, the Balfour Declaration, the Holocaust and the UN resolution of November 1947.

It then proclaims “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel”. It promises that the state will be open to Jewish immigration and that it will ensure “complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex”, along with freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture.

The text calls on Arab inhabitants of the state to keep the peace and participate in building it as full and equal citizens. It extends an offer of peace to neighbouring states and appeals to Jews around the world for support. It also states that a constitution would be adopted by an elected assembly, which in practice never happened; Israel instead developed a series of Basic Laws.

Key people

David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, was the driving force behind the decision and became Israel’s first prime minister.

Moshe Sharett (then Shertok), head of the Jewish Agency’s political department, was a principal editor of the final text and became foreign minister.

Golda Meir (then Meyerson) was one of two women among the signatories. Days earlier she had held secret talks with King Abdullah of Transjordan in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent his army from entering the war.

Chaim Weizmann, the veteran Zionist statesman, was in the United States, where he had lobbied President Truman. He was soon chosen as president of the Provisional State Council and later became Israel’s first president.

Harry S. Truman, the American president, decided to recognise the new state despite opposition from senior officials, including Secretary of State George Marshall.

Recognition and war

The United States granted de facto recognition at 6:11 pm Washington time, eleven minutes after the state came into being. The Soviet Union, hoping to weaken British influence in the region, granted full de jure recognition on 17 May. Other states followed over the following months; Britain granted de facto recognition in January 1949.

Recognition did not bring peace. On 15 May 1948 armies from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, with a smaller Lebanese force, entered the territory of the former mandate. The 1948 Arab-Israeli War lasted until armistice agreements were signed in 1949.

The provisional government moved quickly to build the institutions of a state. One of its first acts cancelled the restrictions of the 1939 White Paper, opening the country to Jewish immigration, and a law-and-administration ordinance kept existing mandate law in force unless changed. On 26 May 1948 an order established the Israel Defense Forces, merging the Haganah and, over the following months, other armed groups into a single army.

Immigration soon transformed the population. Holocaust survivors held in displaced persons camps in Europe and in British detention camps on Cyprus arrived in large numbers, followed by Jews from across the Middle East and North Africa. Within about three years the Jewish population of the country had roughly doubled.

Israel was admitted to the United Nations as its 59th member on 11 May 1949, under General Assembly Resolution 273. Elections for a Constituent Assembly were held in January 1949; it reconstituted itself as the first Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in February.

Legacy and different memories

In Israel, the declaration is celebrated each year on Independence Day, Yom Ha’atzmaut, held on the Hebrew date 5 Iyar. The building where it was signed became a museum known as Independence Hall. Israel’s Supreme Court has often cited the declaration’s principles of equality and freedom in interpreting the law, even though the document itself is not a constitution.

For Palestinians, the same moment is remembered very differently. Around 700,000 to 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes during the fighting of 1947–1949, an event they call the Nakba, or catastrophe. Palestinians commemorate it on 15 May, the day after the declaration.

The declaration’s dual commitment, to a Jewish state and to equality for all its citizens, has remained central to political debate in Israel ever since.

Timeline

• 1917, 2 November: Britain issues the Balfour Declaration.
• 1922, 24 July: The League of Nations approves the British Mandate for Palestine.
• 1947, 29 November: The UN General Assembly adopts the partition plan, Resolution 181.
• 1948, 12 May: The People’s Administration votes to declare independence.
• 1948, 14 May: Ben-Gurion reads the declaration in Tel Aviv; the US recognises Israel.
• 1948, 15 May: The mandate ends at midnight; Arab armies invade.
• 1948, 17 May: The Soviet Union grants de jure recognition.
• 1949, 11 May: Israel is admitted to the United Nations.

Why it matters

The Declaration of Independence created the State of Israel and set out the principles it claimed to stand for. It marked the achievement of Zionism’s main goal three years after the Holocaust, but it also began a war that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The conflicting meanings of 14 and 15 May 1948 remain at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today.