Please refer to my previous postings (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180403)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180404)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180405)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180406)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180407)(http://d.hatena.ne.jp/itunalily2/20180408). (Lily)
Mosaic（https://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/）
by Martin Kramer
April 2018
The May 1948 Vote that Made the State of Israel
VI. The Vote that Did Occur
The real choice the People’s Administration faced wasn’t whether to declare a state, but what sort of state to declare. Would it be a state within the borders of the UN partition plan of the previous November? Or would it be a state whose borders would be determined by the fortunes of war?
Six months earlier, the yishuv had hailed the UN vote as the greatest Zionist achievement since the Balfour Declaration of 1917. Despite deep reservations about the resolution’s map, the mainstream Zionist leadership had accepted the plan in its totality. “We were resigned in 1947 to receiving the rump end of Palestine,” Ben-Gurion later recalled,
in accordance with the United Nations settlement. We didn’t think that settlement very fair since we knew that our work here deserved a greater assignment of land. We didn’t, however, press the point and prepared to abide scrupulously to the international ruling come the day of our independence.
Over the following months, even as international support for implementation of the UN plan eroded, Zionists clung to it all the more tenaciously. It was their anchor against the shifting currents of policy in Washington, London, and Moscow. As the mandate wound down, Zionists insisted that, to the extent possible in light of Arab rejection, the plan be honored to the letter.
So when the May 12 meeting took up the content of the declaration, there arose this question: what sort of reference should be made to the UN partition plan? Having insisted that others hew to the plan, could the Zionist movement do otherwise? Would, for instance, the Jewish state be declared “in the framework” of the plan? That would be the most legitimate form, and the one likeliest to win international recognition for the new state.
But it also posed a dilemma. On the one hand, a declaration of total adherence to the UN plan would imply acceptance of its map; on the other hand, a declaration that the state was established only “on the basis” of the UN partition plan would imply a diminished commitment to that map. The dilemma was acute because in the intervening fighting the Jews had already occupied some territory, mostly to relieve isolated and besieged settlements, that the UN plan had assigned to the proposed Arab state. Should the Jews seek to reassure the international community that they weren’t bent on expansion? Or should they prepare the case for possible annexation?
The Berlin-born Felix Rosenblueth (later Pinhas Rosen) was a member of the People’s Administration (New Aliyah party). A jurist, he would later become Israel’s first minister of justice, a portfolio he would hold three times. Some weeks earlier, he had assumed responsibility for drafting a declaration of statehood.
In the May 12 session, Rosenblueth insisted that the state be declared “in the framework” of the UN partition plan and that its borders be defined accordingly. As a matter of law, he contended, “it is impossible not to treat borders.” He had also distributed in advance a proposed draft in which the People’s Council “declares a free, sovereign Jewish state in the borders set forth in the resolution of the UN General Assembly of November 29, 1947.”
Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit, a lawyer and judge (and future minister of police), supported Rosenblueth with a legal argument of his own:
Regarding borders, I agree with Rosenblueth. It’s not credible to declare an authority without defining its scope. This can draw us into complications. . . . What the state publishes is the law in the territory of the state. . . . When a state arises, it declares the limits of its borders.
This was just the sort of moment Ben-Gurion knew how to seize. In a rebuttal described by Sharef as “trenchant,” Ben-Gurion took strong exception to the arguments of Rosenblueth and Sheetrit. “If we decide not to say ‘borders,’ then we won’t say it,” he countered. To begin with, there was no legal requirement to specify them:
This is a declaration of independence. For example, there is the American Declaration of Independence. It includes no mention of territorial definitions. There is no need and no law such as that. I, too, learned from law books that a state is made up of territory and population. Every state has borders. [But] we are talking about a declaration [of independence], and whether borders must or mustn’t be mentioned. I say, there’s no law such as that. In a declaration establishing a state, there is no need to specify the territory of the state.
“In a declaration establishing a state,” Ben-Gurion maintained, “there is no need to specify the territory of the state.”
And Ben-Gurion went further. The UN, by doing nothing to implement its plan, and the Arabs, by declaring war on Israel, had torn up the UN map. In these circumstances, expansion beyond the partition borders would be entirely legitimate:
Why not mention [borders]? Because we don’t know [what will happen]. If the UN stands its ground, we won’t fight the UN. But if the UN doesn’t act, and [the Arabs] wage war against us and we thwart them, and we then take the western Galilee and both sides of the corridor to Jerusalem, all this will become part of the state, if we have sufficient force. Why commit ourselves?
Ben-Gurion then did something he hadn’t done during the entire session: he called for a vote. “Who favors including the issue of the borders in the declaration?” Four raised their hands. “And who is opposed?” Five. “Resolved,” read the minutes, “not to include the issue of the borders in the declaration.” (The minutes didn’t specify how the individual members voted, and one of them must have abstained. Twenty years later, Ben-Gurion couldn’t remember the precise breakdown.)
Why did Ben-Gurion call for a vote? It’s a matter of conjecture. Clearly he thought the issue was of cardinal importance. He probably also thought he had to break the momentum built by Rosenblueth, a formidable legal authority.
And it wasn’t just Rosenblueth: the Jewish Agency had consistently reassured foreign governments that the new state wouldn’t deviate from the partition map. As the U.S. consul in Jerusalem reported the following day, May 13, “Jewish Agency officials have steadfastly maintained their intention to remain within the UN boundaries.” If this “intention” were to make its way into Israel’s foundational document, it would be impossible to amend it later.
Where exactly might the Jewish state seek to amend the borders stipulated by the partition plan? Ben-Gurion mentioned inclusion of the Jerusalem corridor and the western Galilee, but these were only two examples. In later years, in recalling his rationale, he would emphasize its more general character: “I said: let’s assume that during a war we capture Jaffa, Ramleh, Lydda, the Jerusalem corridor, and the western Galilee, and that we want to hold onto them. Well, it just so happens that we did take these places!” Ben-Gurion wanted the vote as a license to incorporate any strategically vital territory seized in war with an Arab aggressor.
The May 12 decision thus set Israel on course to replace the partition map with another map. And the vote was an achievement in which Ben-Gurion took pride. He never claimed credit for turning the tide in favor of independence, but he would consistently claim credit for the vote on the borders. And in the telling, he would always make sure to mention that while his own law studies had been aborted by war in 1914, he had prevailed over the jurist Rosenblueth and the judge Sheetrit. It was as though he wanted to show that by his superior foresight and legal reasoning he’d saved Israel from being forever trapped in the partition map—by its own top lawyers.
(To be continued.)
