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Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel

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aliasesDeclaration of Israel's Independence 1948, Israeli Declaration of Independence

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Summary

The proclamation issued at Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948 (5th of Iyar, 5708) by the Members of the People’s Council, representatives of the Jewish community of Eretz-Israel and of the Zionist Movement, declaring, by virtue of their natural and historic right and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly resolution, the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, effective from the termination of the British Mandate that night, with the People’s Council as Provisional Council of State and the People’s Administration as Provisional Government until elected authorities are established under a Constitution to be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than 1 October 1948; the State is declared open for Jewish immigration and the Ingathering of the Exiles, based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel, ensuring complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, guaranteeing freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture, safeguarding the Holy Places of all religions, and faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations (Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel, lines 1-180).

What the file is

The Avalon Project reproduction headed “Declaration of Israel’s Independence 1948”, issued at Tel Aviv on May 14, 1948 (5th of Iyar, 5708). About 1,315 words for the Declaration itself; 180 lines in the text copy including the Avalon navigation menus at the head and the Lillian Goldman Law Library footer (copyright 2008, 127 Wall Street, New Haven, CT 06511) at the tail. No page markers and no Hebrew text; Hebrew terms appear only in bracketed English glosses for Eretz-Israel and ma’pilim. The text is clean and legible throughout. The Avalon heading uses “Independence”; the proclamation’s own operative wording is “the Establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel”.

Section by section

  • Historical recital, birthplace and exile. Eretz-Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people, where their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped, they first attained statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave the world the eternal Book of Books. After forcible exile the people remained faithful throughout their Dispersion and never ceased to pray and hope for return and restoration of political freedom.
  • Historical recital, return. Impelled by that attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland; in recent decades they returned in their masses as pioneers, ma’pilim and defenders, 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.
  • Historical recital, Zionist Congress, Balfour and the Mandate. In 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. That right was recognised in the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917 and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations, which 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.
  • Historical recital, catastrophe, migration and war. The massacre of millions of Jews in Europe demonstrated the urgency of solving homelessness by re-establishing the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations. Survivors and Jews from other parts of the world continued to migrate, undaunted, asserting their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil. In the Second World War the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle 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.
  • Historical recital, the 1947 resolution. On 29 November 1947 the General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel and requiring the inhabitants to take the necessary steps; that recognition of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is stated to be irrevocable, and the right is stated as the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
  • Operative declaration. The Members of the People’s Council, assembled on the day of termination of the British Mandate, by virtue of natural and historic right and on the strength of the General Assembly resolution, declare the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.
  • Provisional organs and timetable. From the moment of termination of the Mandate, tonight, the eve of Sabbath, 6th Iyar, 5708 (15th May, 1948), until the establishment of the elected, regular authorities under the Constitution to be adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than 1 October 1948, the People’s Council acts as Provisional Council of State and its executive organ, the People’s Administration, is the Provisional Government of the Jewish State, to be called “Israel”.
  • Character of the State. Open for Jewish immigration and the Ingathering of the Exiles; development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; complete equality of social and political rights to all inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture guaranteed; the Holy Places of all religions safeguarded; faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
  • Co-operation and economic union. The State is prepared to cooperate with United Nations agencies and representatives in implementing the 29 November 1947 resolution, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.
  • Four appeals. To the United Nations, to assist in building up the State and receive Israel into the comity of nations. To the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel, in the midst of an onslaught launched against us now for months, 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. To all neighbouring states and their peoples, an extended hand in peace and good neighbourliness and cooperation for the advancement of the entire Middle East. To the Jewish people throughout the Diaspora, to rally round the Jews of Eretz-Israel in immigration and upbuilding and stand by them in the struggle for the realisation of the age-old dream, the redemption of Israel.
  • Attestation and signatures. Placing trust in the Almighty, the signatories affix their signatures at the session of the Provisional Council of State, on the soil of the homeland, in Tel-Aviv, on Sabbath eve, 5th Iyar, 5708 (14th May, 1948). The list as printed carries 37 names (computed from the list), headed by David Ben-Gurion and including, among others, Yitzchak Ben Zvi, Golda Myerson and Moshe Shertok; the full order is recorded in the reading notes.

Key passages

  • “HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL” (operative declaration, lines 1-180).
  • “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” (character of the State, lines 1-180).
  • “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” (appeals, lines 1-180).

Evidence the work relies on

  • The proclamation is a declaratory act, not an argued report; it gives no evidence section. Its stated authorities, in its own order, are: the historic and traditional attachment and continuous striving to return; the First Zionist Congress of 1897 under Theodore Herzl; the Balfour Declaration of 2 November 1917; the Mandate of the League of Nations; the catastrophe of the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe and continued migration by survivors and others; the Jewish community’s Second World War contribution; and the United Nations General Assembly resolution of 29 November 1947. It cites no documents by number beyond those dates and names.

Analysis

The text works in two registers: a historical recital that presents statehood as the restoration of an interrupted national life, grounded cumulatively in ancient statehood, exile and fidelity, modern return, Zionist organisation, British and League recognition, the European catastrophe, war service and the 1947 resolution — each step stated, none argued — and an operative part that declares the State, constitutes provisional organs with a constitutional deadline of 1 October 1948, and states the State’s character and appeals. Two of its operative claims are held in the text itself without machinery: complete equality irrespective of religion, race or sex is promised in the same paragraph that opens the State for Jewish immigration and the Ingathering of the Exiles, and the appeal to the Arab inhabitants for full and equal citizenship is made expressly in the midst of an ongoing onslaught. The proclamation names no boundaries for the State it declares, and the economic union it undertakes to bring about is of the whole of Eretz-Israel, the same term it uses for the State’s location. Those are limits of the text as printed, recorded here without outside supplementation.

People, organizations, places and events

David Ben-Gurion, Theodor Herzl, Israeli Declaration of Independence, Provisional Government of Israel, Balfour Declaration, Mandate for Palestine, Holy Places

Concepts

Zionism

How it relates to other sources

  • This file is the primary text behind Israeli Declaration of Independence as Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century presents its later legal career — held in Zeev v. Gubernik to express the people’s vision with political, not legal, authority, and re-established by Agranat in Kol ha-Am as an interpretive norm — including the Lahav epigraph quotations promising a state based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel and complete equality irrespective of religion, race or sex, both of which appear in the character paragraph here.
  • Its authority chain (Balfour Declaration, Mandate, 29 November 1947 resolution) is the same chain, in the same order, that the primary texts now in the wiki state from the other side: compare The Balfour Declaration, Mandate for Palestine (1922) and Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, whose Plan the proclamation undertakes to implement and whose Economic Union it restates as the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel, without repeating Resolution 181’s Arab State, City of Jerusalem or boundary provisions.
  • Peace, Peace, When There Is No Peace, as recorded on UN General Assembly Resolution 181, argues the Jewish leadership withdrew from explicit reliance on Resolution 181 before the Declaration of Independence; the Declaration’s own text states reliance on the 29 November 1947 resolution as one of its two stated grounds, alongside natural and historic right. Both accounts are held, not reconciled.

Open questions

  • The proclamation states no boundaries for the State of Israel, and no text in this file supplies them; later sources’ claims about the Declaration and boundaries are recorded on their own pages.
  • The timetable in the text — a Constitution adopted by the Elected Constituent Assembly not later than 1 October 1948 — is stated without any provision for delay; whether and how it was met is outside this file and is treated in Judgment in Jerusalem: Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century’s account of the unenacted constitution, recorded on Israeli Declaration of Independence.
  • The Avalon reproduction gives no Hebrew text and no information about the drafting or the signing beyond the issue line, attestation and signature list as printed.

Coverage

lines 1-180 of 180, read in full

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