- "In May, 1948, the Jews made these promises that
the State of Israel: "will foster the development of the country
for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice
and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete
equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective
of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience,
language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of
all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter
of the United Nations."
-
-
- ERETZ-ISRAEL [(Hebrew) -
The Land of Israel] was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their
spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first
attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal
significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books.
-
- After being forcibly exiled from their land, the people
remained faithful to it throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to
pray and hope for their return to it and for the restoration in it of
their political freedom.
-
- Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment,
Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves
in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses.
Pioneers, ma'pilim [(Hebrew) - immigrants coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance
of restrictive legislation] and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived
the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving
community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing
how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's
inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood.
-
- In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual
father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress
convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth
in its own country.
-
- This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration
of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League
of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic
connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right
of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
-
- The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people
- the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration
of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing
in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland
wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully
privileged member of the comity of nations.
-
- Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as
Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel,
undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased
to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in
their national homeland.
-
- In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this
country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and
peace- loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the
blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned
among the peoples who founded the United Nations.
-
- On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General
Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish
State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of
Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the
implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations
of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
-
- This right is the natural right of the Jewish people
to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own
sovereign State.
-
- ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES
OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE
HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER
ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE
STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY
DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ- ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN
AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.
-
- WE DECLARE that, with effect from the moment of the termination
of the Mandate being tonight, the eve of Sabbath, the 6th Iyar, 5708
(15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities
of the State in accordance with the Constitution which shall be adopted
by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than the 1st October 1948,
the People's Council shall act as a Provisional Council of State, and
its executive organ, the People's Administration, shall be the Provisional
Government of the Jewish State, to be called "Israel".
-
- THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration
and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development
of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based
on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel;
it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all
its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee
freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will
safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to
the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
-
- THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the
agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the
resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will
take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
-
- WE APPEAL to the United Nations to assist the Jewish
people in the building-up of its State and to receive the State of Israel
into the comity of nations.
-
- WE APPEAL - in the very midst of the onslaught launched
against us now for months - to the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel
to preserve peace and participate in the upbuilding of the State on the
basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its
provisional and permanent institutions.
-
- WE EXTEND our hand to all neighboring states and their
peoples in an offer of peace and good neighborliness, and appeal to them
to establish bonds of cooperation and mutual help with the sovereign
Jewish people settled in its own land. The State of Israel is prepared
to do its share in a common effort for the advancement of the entire Middle
East.
-
- WE APPEAL to the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora
to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in the tasks of immigration and
upbuilding and to stand by them in the great struggle for the realization
of the age-old dream - the redemption of Israel.
-
- PLACING OUR TRUST IN THE ALMIGHTY, WE AFFIX OUR SIGNATURES
TO THIS PROCLAMATION AT THIS SESSION OF THE PROVISIONAL COUNCIL OF STATE,
ON THE SOIL OF THE HOMELAND, IN THE CITY OF TEL-AVIV, ON THIS SABBATH
EVE, THE 5TH DAY OF IYAR, 5708 (14TH MAY, 1948).
-
- David Ben-Gurion
- Daniel Auster
- Mordekhai Bentov
- Yitzchak Ben Zvi
- Eliyahu Berligne
- Fritz Bernstein
- Rabbi Wolf Gold
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- Herzl Vardi Rachel Cohen
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- Meir David Loewenstein
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- David Zvi Pinkas
- Aharon Zisling
- Moshe Kolodny
- Eliezer Kaplan
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- Felix Rosenblueth
- David Remez
- Berl Repetur
- Mordekhai Shattner
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- Bekhor Shitreet
- Moshe Shapira
- Moshe Shertok
-
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