What Ben-Gurion Knew Would Happen after Israel Declared Independence

Martin Kramer, brilliant historian that he is, has described compellingly how David Ben-Gurion used the crisis of May 1948 to establish civilian control over the future Israel Defense Forces (IDF); it was not the least of his gifts to the new state.

I do not quarrel with Kramer’s basic assertion that Ben-Gurion was more optimistic about victory in the war than he let on to his associates in the People’s Administration, Israel’s cabinet-in-waiting, or than he allowed others to let on. What may be added, however, is a bit more context.

Ben-Gurion was, first of all, no naïf about military affairs. As anyone knows who has toured his house in Tel Aviv, it was filled to overflowing with works of military history. In 1947, moreover, he had conducted, and recorded in his voluminous diaries, a detailed study of the military preparedness of the Haganah, the Jewish armed force of the pre-independence yishuv—and he found it lacking. Thus, his campaign for civilian control over the military—in practice, his own control as the new state’s prospective prime minister with responsibility also for the defense portfolio—was never going to be simply an assertion of his personal will, although that was undoubtedly present. His actions reflected mature judgment as well.