JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

increased, and Ben-Gurion decided on a policy of military reprisals
across the armistice lines. Following the elections to
the Third Knesset in November 1955, Ben-Gurion once again
assumed the twofold position of prime minister and minister
of defense. He now concentrated on the development of close
relations with France, which due to its own struggle in Algeria,
viewed Egyptian President Gamal Abdul *Nasser as a bitter
enemy. These ties became even closer when Nasser nationalized
the Suez Canal in July 1956. In October 1956 Ben-Gurion
went to France for a secret meeting with representatives of the
French and British governments. At this meeting an agreement
was reached on concerted military action against Egypt.
On October 29, 1956, the Israeli Army moved into the Sinai
Peninsula (see *Sinai Campaign), while Britain and France
closed in on the Suez Canal. However, under international
pressure Britain and France were forced to give up their effort
to reverse Nasser’s actions, and Israel was compelled to
agree to the withdrawal of its forces from the Sinai Peninsula
and the Gaza Strip. This withdrawal was completed in March
1957, and relative quiet was attained after UN forces were stationed
in the Gaza Strip and the sea route to Eilat through the
Straits of Tiran was reopened to Israeli shipping. Following
the Sinai Campaign, and the election of Charles de Gaulle as
president of France, Israel’s relations with France remained
cordial. However, Ben-Gurion increased Israel’s efforts to diversify
its sources of arms to include West Germany and the
United States.
During the election campaign for the Fourth Knesset at
the end of 1959, Ben-Gurion raised the issue of electoral reform.
He advocated a system of personal elections in constituencies,
which he believed would cure Israel’s political ills by
reducing the number of parliamentary groups in the Knesset.
His opponents argued that Ben-Gurion’s intention was to “gerrymander”
the constituencies in such a way that Mapai would
win an absolute majority of Knesset seats. The elections, however,
produced no significant change in the composition of the
Knesset, and Ben-Gurion did not have the power to change
the electoral system.
In the years 1960–62 Ben-Gurion traveled a great deal,
visiting the United States, where he met with President John
*Kennedy, Western Europe, where he met with German Chancellor
Konrad *Adenauer and French President Charles de
Gaulle, and Burma. Towards the elections to the Fifth Knesset,
what now came to be known as the Lavon Affair, concerning
responsibility for the bungled intelligence operation in Egypt
back in 1954, reemerged, not least of all because Ben-Gurion
wanted the truth to be uncovered as to who had given the order
for the operation. Ben-Gurion believed that Pinḥas Lavon,
now secretary-general of the Histadrut, was responsible. Ben-
Gurion’s obsession with this affair was severely criticized by
his opponents both within Mapai and outside of it. However,
a commission of seven ministers, set up to examine the relevant
documents acquitted Lavon of responsibility, a verdict
that Ben-Gurion refused to accept. He submitted his resignation
in January 1961 and, before new elections were held for
ben-gurion, david
the Fifth Knesset, demanded that the Mapai Central Council
make a choice between himself and Lavon. On February 4 the
Central Council decided by 159 votes to 96 to remove Lavon
from his office as Histadrut secretary-general. However, this
was a Pyrrhic victory for Ben-Gurion, whose position in the
party was greatly undermined. In the elections Mapai was
greatly weakened and Ben-Gurion experienced much difficulty
forming a new coalition. He would not let the crisis over
the Lavon Affair subside, and in June 1963 once again resigned
from the premiership – this time for good.
Ben-Gurion in Opposition
Eshkol became prime minister upon Ben-Gurions’ recommendation
and Ben-Gurion once again retired to Sedeh Boker and
devoted himself to writing. But soon he was back, once again
advocating a reform of the electoral system, and expressing
his opposition to the establishment of the Alignment between
Mapai and Aḥdut ha-Avodah. However, the Lavon Affair was
still under his skin. In the autumn of 1964 he submitted a dossier
of documents that he had prepared to Minister of Justice
Dov *Joseph and to the attorney general and demanded that
a judicial inquiry be opened on the issue. At a meeting of the
Mapai Central Committee party conference in January 1965, a
majority voted against Ben-Gurion’s demands. Though it was
only a minority that supported Ben-Gurion, Eshkol decided to
put an end to the matter and resigned from the premiership,
with the demand that the government be allowed to decide
on the matter without party interference. He then formed a
new government, with the same makeup as the outgoing one.
Ben-Gurion’s response was to leave Mapai with a group of his
followers, who included Moshe *Dayan, Shimon *Peres, and
Yosef *Almogi, and set up a new parliamentary group called
*Rafi (Reshimat Po’alei Yisrael), which ran in the 1965 Knesset
and Histadrut elections. While Rafi gained 10 seats in the
Sixth Knesset, and Ben-Gurion was to remain a member of the
Knesset until May 1970, to all intents and purposes he had lost
his political clout and influence. Rafi rejoined Eshkol’s government
on the eve of the *Six-Day War, with Dayan assuming the
Defense portfolio, and shortly after the war joined with Mapai
and Aḥdut ha-Avodah to form the *Israel Labor Party, a move
to which Ben-Gurion objected, leaving him as a single Member
of Knesset when the other nine members of Rafi joined
the new parliamentary group. In the elections to the Seventh
Knesset Ben-Gurion ran at the head of a new party – the State
List – which received four seats. Half a year after the elections,
at the age of 84, he resigned from the Knesset and returned to
Sedeh Boker, where he once again dedicated himself to writing
and studying, and occasionally expressing his views on
the political situation, generally advocating an Israeli withdrawal
from the territories occupied during the Six-Day War.
Though in his last years Ben-Gurion cut a solitary figure, he
continued to be admired as the most influential Zionist and
Israeli leader in the modern age, an individual who had made
some of the most fateful decisions in the history of the Jewish
nation in its early years, more or less on his own. Though
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 347