Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA)

Strategic Alliances for a Secure, Connected, and Prosperous Region

Menu

Ben-Gurion and Jewish Foreign Policy

April 2, 1991 | Giora Goldberg

This essay examines the Jewish basis of David Ben-Gurion's foreign policy. For Ben-Gurion, Israel was the sum and substance of everything Jewish. Therefore, his foreign policy was totally Israel-centric ? ideological when it came to matters of Israel's centrality and pragmatic when it came to Israel's survival. Ben-Gurion developed a unique interpretation of Judaism which enabled him to adopt policies and make decisions that would be compatible with his own version of Judaism while at the same time serving the collective interests of the new Jewish state. Such foreign policy issues as non-alignment, reaction to the alleged Jewish doctors' plot in the USSR, rapprochement with West Germany, attitudes towards South Africa, anti-Semitism in the diaspora, and the Eichmann trial are analyzed in this light.

Ben-Gurion’s Concept of Mamlahtiut and the Forming Reality of the State of Israel

April 4, 1989

Ben-Gurion's concept of mamlahtiut was at the center of his political ideology. It entailed not only the vision of an independent Jewish state, but primarily a set of principles and modes of operation which he deemed essential for the formation of the state and considered highly critical for its preservation.