Quotes About Ben-Gurion

The riots were a turning point in Ben-Gurion's

Before the State of Israel became a reality, Sinatra was a strong supporter, knowing that Jews were being denied access to the Holy Land. Sinatra met and had a friendship with Israel's first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Ben-Gurion gave Sinatra a beautiful Old Testament bible that was a proud possession that my father kept all his life.

That was my first lesson from Ben-Gurion. Then I saw him making peace, and I saw him making war. He mobilized me before the war. The man was a very rare combination between a real intellectual and a born leader. There is a contradiction between the two.

David Ben-Gurion was a mythic figure, the founding father of Israel and a modern-day prophet, but he was also a real man who stormed through history on human legs. It was my great privilege to know him and work with him for many years.

Already at the time of Israel's birth, Ben-Gurion extended his hand in peace to the Arab nations. His hand was rejected, but it remains extended.

In the end, Arik believes in security above all and is a salient pragmatist, a disciple of Ben-Gurion.

That was my first lesson from Ben-Gurion. Then I saw him making peace, and I saw him making war. He mobilized me before the war. The man was a very rare combination between a real intellectual and a born leader. There is a contradiction between the two.

During my career, I would encounter numerous situations in which parties found themselves full of mistrust and anger, where it seemed that all doors had been closed. Ben-Gurion had shown me that listening is not just a key element of good leadership, it is the key, the means to unlock doors that have been slammed shut by bitter dispute and resignation.

David Ben-Gurion established the Israeli intelligence community in June of 1948, just three weeks after the establishment of Israel and in the midst of war.

Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan were self-proclaimed atheists.

In Jerusalem, as elsewhere in Palestine, the Haganah's basic strategy reflected a philosophy propounded by David Ben-Gurion. What the Jews had, they must hold. No Jew was to leave his home, his farm, his kibbutz, his office without permission. Every outpost, every settlement, every village, no matter how isolated, was to be clung to as though it were Tel Aviv itself.

Ben-Gurion was talking about planning a war against five Arab armies and we were still being arrested by the British for carrying a pistol down the street.