The state of Israel has created many hundreds if not thousands of entrepreneurs in it’s short existence as a State and it’s very long history as a nation of displaced peoples. But the ultimate act of entrepreneurship was the Creation of the State of Israel. The process of this creation started many decades before the official Declaration of Independence was made on May 14, 1948. We can even say that it started when the Jewish kingdoms were dispersed from their home in Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank as it is known now, and conquered in 586 BC by the Babylonians. From that point, the hope was born that they would find their way back to their ancestral homeland and rebuild their culture and people in safety.
Theodore Herzl (pic: wikipeda)
So when the Jewish national movement, Zionism, emerged in the late 19th century, partially in response to growing anti-Semitism, Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel increased. This is when the sparks of Jewish entrepreneurship were fanned into flame. However, any mention of Jewish entrepreneurship in the context of Israel’s creation, without also paying tribute to the originator of the Zionist movement, Theodore Herzl, would be inappropriate. Though others came before him, it is Herzl who is considered the father of the State of Israel and had the greatest impact on the Zionist movement. His literary work, The Jewish State (“Der Judenstaat”) published in 1896, laid out his plan and ideas for a national home for the Jewish people. Herzl felt this was essential as he came to believe that anti-semitism could not be fought and won, only avoided.
The following year, Herzl convened the first Zionist Congress with the aim of taking practical steps to establish the Jewish state. He led the Zionist Organization for seven years until his death in 1904 at age 44. He never saw the realization of his dream, however, he is the only individual mentioned by name in Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which refers to him as the “author of the vision of the Jewish state”. There were many entrepreneurs who fought tirelessly for the dream of the Jewish people to be realized, including Chaim Weizman, Golda Meir, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett to name a few.
The waves of Zionist immigration to the land of Israel, beginning in the 1880s and peaking in the 1930s and ’40s with the flight of Jews from the Holocaust were the biggest motivating factor in driving the creators forward. For centuries the Jews were persecuted and oppressed in the countries they had been dispersed to. These refugees from North Africa, Iraq, Egypt and Yemen that were making their way to Palestine, had been displaced and persecuted for far too long and their right to a safe homeland was critical. Their plight, and the absence of a single country willing to give them shelter, created the urgent need for a Jewish state. Following World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jewish displaced persons committed to making aliyah (Jewish immigration to the Land of Israel). However, the British government, in control of Palestine since 1917 and wanting to maintain friendly relations with the Arab world, refused to admit them. The result was the establishment of Displaced Persons camps being set up across Europe and Cyprus. Survivors of the Holocaust, that had so recently been released from the concentration camps of Nazi Germany were interred once again in squalor, waiting.
The proposed partition plan: Arab state in gold, Jewish state in blue.
Facing such dire circumstances, the Zionist leaders had their work cut out for them but they never lost sight of their ultimate goal. A broad diplomatic effort was required. The earlier efforts of Herzl, who negotiated with the leadership of Britain, Germany, Russia and the Ottoman Empire over the issuing of a formal charter for a Jewish government in Palestine, paved the way for renewed diplomatic overtures.
As the violence intensified between Jews, Arabs, and the British, Britain handed over the problem to the United Nations. In 1947, The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed the end of British rule and the partition of the country into Jewish and Arab states and an internationally controlled area around Jerusalem. The Zionists accepted the plan. The Arabs rejected it as they opposed any Jewish rule in any part of Palestine.
On November 29, 1947, on the heels of the UN General Assembly’s vote in favor of partition, Jewish settlements and neighborhoods were attacked by Palestinian guerrillas. Six months before the actual Declaration was made, the almost-state was in the middle of a civil war.
On May 12, 1948, the Provisional Council of the Yishuv, as the group of Jews living in the land were known, convened to discuss the declaration of Independence. After agreeing that they would indeed do this, the details had to be decided upon and the document written. Two days later on May 14, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon, David Ben Gurion read the formal document to all present in Tel Aviv Museum and those that were listening by radio. As soon as the document was read the and the news spread around the world, the celebrating began. But it was soon to be cut short.
Neighbouring Arab states and the Arab League were violently opposed to the vote, declaring they would intervene to prevent its implementation. In the days following the Declaration, the armies of Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, and Syria engaged Israeli troops inside the area of what had just ceased to be Mandatory Palestine, thereby starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The war continued through July of 1949, ending with the signing of the armistice agreement with Syria. By then Israel had retained its independence and increased its land area by almost 50% compared to the 1947 UN Partition Plan.
David Ben-Gurion declaring independence beneath a large portrait of Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism.
Following the Declaration, the Yishuv Council became the Provisional State Council, which acted as the legislative body for the new state until the first elections in January 1949. Of the 37 members of the Yishuv Council who signed the document, many of the signatories would play a prominent role in Israeli politics following its independence; Moshe Sharett and Golda Meir both served as Prime Minister, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi became the country’s second president in 1952, and several others served as ministers.
By virtue of UN General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel gained membership in the United Nations on May 11, 1949. After facing persecution and discrimination for centuries the Jewish people had come back home again.
A nation was reborn, a fractured people was finally reunited from countries around the world and the commitment was made to build a country when many thought there would never be one for them again. Can there be any greater entrepreneurial success than that?