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Provisional Government of Israel
Official Gazette: Number 1;
Tel Aviv, 5 Iyar 5708, 14.5.1948 Page 1
The Declaration of the Establishment of the
State of Israel
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 kept faith with 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, defiant returnees, 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 community 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
community 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 neighbouring
states and their peoples
in an offer of peace and
good neighbourliness,
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
Meir Grabovsky
Yitzchak Gruenbaum
Dr. Abraham
Granovsky Eliyahu
Dobkin Meir
Wilner-Kovner
Zerach Wahrhaftig
Herzl Vardi Rachel
Cohen Rabbi Kalman
Kahana Saadia
Kobashi Rabbi
Yitzchak Meir
Levin Meir David
Loewenstein Zvi
Luria Golda
Myerson Nachum Nir
Zvi Segal Rabbi
Yehuda Leib
Hacohen Fishman
David Zvi Pinkas
Aharon Zisling
Moshe Kolodny
Eliezer Kaplan
Abraham Katznelson
Felix Rosenblueth
David Remez Berl
Repetur Mordekhai
Shattner Ben Zion
Sternberg Bekhor
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