Military,Civilian,or Both: David Ben-Gurion’s Perception of National Security After the War of Independence

Abstract

Over the years, attempts to define the notion of national security in terms of what it means and what it represents have ranged from a classical, purely military definition, to a broader multidimensional concept encompassing a range of different features. Studies on Israel’s national security concept have tended to emphasize the formative role played by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and defense minister. These works have focused on the military aspects of the national security concept, based on arguments concerning the perceived threat of wartime engagements with Arab armies. This article argues that Ben-Gurion’s national security concept was essentially a civilian perspective with military features that responded to the four types of threats, local, regional, international, and Jewish, facing the State of Israel at the time, most of which were not military.

Keywords

Israel national security civil–military relations Ben-Gurion international relations war of Independence 1948 war

Introduction

The current public and academic discourse in Israel on the concept of national security is primarily a military one based on assessments of threats from the neighboring Arab states, and in recent years Iran, Hamas, Hizballah, ISIS, and others, as is evident from the conclusions of the “Meridor Committee.” The Committee for the Consolidation of Israel’s National Security Concept headed by former Minister of Justice Dan Meridor, which was set up in 2006 to analyze changes and trends in Israel’s strategic security environment, examined the validity of the existing paradigm, and recommended an updated national security concept, acknowledged that national security should be seen in its broadest sense and even defined the four major threats facing the national security of the country, namely, ensuring the existence of the State of Israel, preserving the values of the state and its Jewish and democratic character, ensuring the state’s ability to maintain socioeconomic strength, and finally, strengthening the international standing of the state and striving for peace with its neighbors. Despite this overarching mission statement, the committee chose to deal solely with narrow military issues, such that the document that was eventually issued by the committee, which was intended to define Israel’s national security concept, only addressed military issues and the issues that directly touched on them (Meridor & Eldadi, 2018).

In the past few decades, numerous studies have examined various aspects of Israel’s national security concept (e.g., Drory, 2000; Greenberg, 1991; Handel, 1973; Inbar & Shamir, 2014; Oren, 2002; Tal, 1977, 1996; Yaniv, 1986) with a particular emphasis on the critical role played in its formulation by David Ben-Gurion—Israel’s first prime minister and defense minister. Although in practice this concept was never committed to writing,¹

Although the Israeli national security concept had not yet been formally established, some see the article by Ben-Gurion as one (Ben-Gurion, 1981).

and can be seen more like guidelines, the research and public approach refer to it as a formulated security concept.

These studies have underscored the military aspects of the national security concept (e.g., the need to rely on reserve forces while maintaining a relatively small order of battle, preemptive strikes, short wars, and nuclear deterrence) based on arguments concerning the perceived threat of wartime engagements with Arab armies (Bar-Joseph, 2000; Cohen, Eisenstadt, & Bacevich, 1998; Horowitz, 1993; Rodman, 2001). Isaac Ben-Israel, for example, argued that the key to understanding Ben-Gurion’s national security concept is the fact that there was a quantitative imbalance between Israel and its neighbors (in terms of their respective military forces, population, etc.). He goes on to explain that the ultimate aim of the Israeli national security concept is to build an “iron wall” between Israel and its neighbors to protect Israel from Arab aggression (Ben-Israel, 2013, p. 35).

Although these studies have not overlooked civilian aspects, most of them treat these as features designed to help Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) in its campaigns. Moshe Lissak, who examined the civilian components of Ben-Gurion’s security strategy, believed that they were intended to strengthen Israel’s military capabilities in its bid to address its strategic weaknesses; namely, its demographic disadvantage, lack of strategic depth, and need to maintain a high level of recruitment of manpower and economic resources. As he explained “Principles such as immigration absorption address the demographic asymmetry; settlement and close, warm relations with the Diaspora primarily address the lack of strategic depth” (Lissak, 1993, p. 70). Shimon Golan concluded that when Ben-Gurion alluded to these elements as being part and parcel of Israel’s security, it was for the purpose of “nation building” or strengthening “the country’s resilience,” rather than for the security of the state per se (Golan, 2000, pp. 28–31).

This article does not deny the importance of these military components, which have been studied extensively over the years, but points to an issue that has not yet been adequately researched and argues that after the War of Independence, a formative time with regard to Israel’s security concept, Ben-Gurion promoted a broader concept of national security which included mainly civilian components; a concept that was derived from his broader perception of the threats facing Israel as he saw them in the first few years after Israel’s War of Independence. This article is a historical study and draws on concepts and theories to help explain the processes and events, but its main emphasis is historical.

What Is National Security?

Over the years, many researchers have discussed the meaning and implications of national security. These range from classical, purely military definitions, to broader multidimensional concepts encompassing a spectrum of different features (Baldwin, 1997; MacDonald, 2002; Meron, 1999; Miller, 2001; Philo, 2012). The percolation of the term “national security” in recent years into other areas such as politics, economics, society, and environment has also resulted in a much looser interpretation of the term beyond its military context and use in research contexts (Bourbeau, 2011; Gavriel-Fried, 2013). As a result of this variety and diversity of meanings, it is now difficult to provide a comprehensive definition, since national security has come to mean different things to different people with regard to the threats facing a country (Levy, 1995, p. 40) and is now seen as more of a function of time, place, and context, so that in practice its definition is linked to and depends a great deal on those defining it (Brooks, 2010; Huysmans, 1998).

Hence, national security does not necessarily denote an objective reality (Balzacq, 2005), but rather a process of social construction involving various political, economic, military, and other entities. One way to understand the processes by which a security issue is created is the theory of securitization, which explains how a given topic of interest, even if not a military issue, becomes a security issue. Buzan, Wever, and De Wilde (1998), who coined the term securitization, pointed out that the notion of security can be extended to any public issue presented by a known public figure (usually a politician) as an existential threat that requires emergency measures and justifies actions beyond the normal bounds of political procedure. This issue does not need to be an existential threat but only be presented as such.

Thus, national security must first be defined and then validated by the threats that it is deemed to face (Ullman, 1983, p. 133). In other words, the national security of any given country is the sum total of all the steps that country decides to undertake to confront any threats that it may face, including actions of a nonmilitary nature. For example, for several centuries, Switzerland’s national security concept has been, and remains, founded on international neutrality rather than a strong military.

Yehoshafat Harkabi has argued that conventionally, state security means ensuring the state’s continued existence, but that the true meaning of national security depends on the type of threat facing the state, and how it is perceived. This is because differences in the nature of the threat, and its respective attendant dangers mean that different aspects of security must be maintained in each case. In Harkabi’s view, there is a tendency to militarize the concept of security, as though defense can only be of a military nature, but threats to national security can extend well beyond the military domain (Harkabi, 1990, p. 530).

The formulation of a national security concept is tightly related to the notion of threat and the question of what constitutes one. A threat is a clear and present danger. It is definable and manifested in reality. Sometimes it is immediate, whereas in others it is a future prospect; in some cases, it is real, whereas in others it is speculative or even invented (Maoz, 2009), but in every instance it requires an appropriate response. These threats, as noted by Mohammed Ayoob, come in some cases from within rather than from outside the country (Ayoob, 1995, p. 7).

The IDF’s Threats Assessment

In the aftermath of Israel’s War of Independence, Israel found itself in a difficult position geostrategically. Its territory was narrow and long and surrounded by enemies on all sides (since the Mediterranean Sea could also potentially serve as an invasion route).

Figure 1.

The planning department map for possible attacks on the State of Israel. The red arrows show the many alternatives the Arab armies could choose from to penetrate the State of Israel (see Figure 1

In tactical topographic terms, the Arab armies enjoyed an advantage along most of these borders, which made it easy for them to launch an offensive move from any number of directions. The country’s strategic depth was minimal, which hampered the development of its offensive capabilities, and in particular, its ability to contain an attack since these borders had no natural or artificial obstacles, which made it easy for hostile forces and infiltrators to penetrate them. Moreover, the ceasefire lines were not drawn along strategic or operative topographic vantage points on which a defensive formation might be based. In other words, as Moshe Dayan puts it “the notion of border region security had little to do with any particular strip of land, since the entire country was, in reality, a border region” (Dayan, 1955, p. 250).

The reality, as the IDF’s supreme command saw it, was that Israel was surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction. Since the previous war had ended in a ceasefire rather than with a peace agreement clearly a second round of fighting with the Arab countries was only a matter of time. Finally, given the strain on the state budget in general, the IDF budget—and consequently its order of battle—had been significantly cut.

The IDF’s perception of national security was based on its threats assessment; that is, the quantitative imbalance between Israel and its neighbors, and was designed to tackle these threats in terms of the country’s readiness for war, persistent hostile infiltrators, and day-to-day operational security. According to a report by the IDF’s Planning Department in 1952, the power ratio between the combined militaries of the Arab countries and the IDF at that time stood at 27 infantry brigades versus nine for the IDF (a 3:1 advantage for the Arab countries), two armored brigades versus one for the IDF (a 2:1 Arab advantage), and three mechanized brigades versus none for the IDF (a 3:0 Arab advantage).

Col. Shalom Eshet, the then head of the IDF’s Planning Department, concluded that Israel was not only at a military disadvantage in this regard, but that the power ratio, both comparatively and in absolute terms, had decisively shifted in favor of the Arab world since the War of Independence.³

Head of the Planning Department, GCHQ, “Assessment and Analysis of Israel’s Security Forces in 1952,” 20 October 1952, Israel Defense Forces Archive (IDFA), file 249-488/55.

Moreover, according to the Department’s assessments, by the end of 1955, the Arab countries’ order of battle would grow by 30 percent,⁴

Major Arthur Henke, Acting Head of Strategic Planning Branch, “The general lines for the IDF organization and structure by the end of 1955,” undated, IDFA, file, 91-488/1955.

and to around 100 regiments by 1960.⁵

“The Order of Battle: An assessment,” document by the Planning Department, GCHQ, June 1953, IDFA, file 36-157/1957.

This assessment was also reflected in the Planning Department’s operational plans in the event of war against the Arab countries, which were based on the premise that the Arab countries would conduct their campaigns by exploiting their clear quantitative advantage over the IDF. The IDF would be obliged to fight at an overall military disadvantage, particularly with regard to its support corps (artillery, air, and tanks).⁶

For example, “Operational Planning Ordinance Aryeh,” undated (mid-1954), IDFA, file, 199-6/1964.

Ben-Gurion’s Perception of National Security

As long as the battles of the War of Independence were raging, it was clear to Ben-Gurion that the army and its needs held precedence over many other areas—“for the sake of repulsing the risk of life and death,” as he noted at a meeting of the IDF General Command.⁷

GCHQ Meeting, 6 July 1949 (IDFA).

However, as of December 1948, at the height of the IDF’s campaign of conquests and victories (and even more so when the fighting had ended) he identified additional threats that had to be adequately addressed. “It is possible,” he said

that we are now moving from a period of ‘great things’: a period of heroic tales and military-political victories to a period of ‘small things’, a time of gray and protracted efforts at economic construction and organization on a national scale, which may lack beauty and brilliance and dramatic heroism. Those who think that these ‘small things’ demanded of us now are not as crucial or as fateful as the ‘great things’ are making a grave and dangerous mistake. The test we are facing now is no less severe or important than the test of war. (Ben-Gurion, 1975, p. 433)⁸

A statement made by David Ben-Gurion to the first government, shortly after the cessation of hostilities. All quotations in Hebrew were translated by the author for the purpose of this article.

Beyond the Arab military threat, Ben-Gurion identified others which he felt could menace the integrity and existence of the state, and were no less severe than the Arab military threat itself. As he put it to the Zionist activist Kurt Blumenfeld: “If the state succeeds in establishing itself (and this is no simple or quick ‘if’).” Anita Shapira referred to this comment as Ben-Gurion’s “heretical reflections” (Shapira, 2015, p. 144), but when examining the broader threats that Ben-Gurion identified, it is clear that this was indeed a sober and courageous view of reality as summed up by Mordechai Bar-On’s broad and comprehensive definition of “defending the achievements of [the war of] 1948” (Bar-On, 2001, p. 164).

These threats fell into four spheres:

the internal sphere: The danger of economic and social collapse of the country;

the regional sphere: The risk of another war with the Arab countries and the problem of hostile infiltrators;

the international sphere: The lack of recognition of Israel’s 1949 ceasefire borders, the issue of the Palestinian refugees, the question of the status of Jerusalem, and Israel’s place in inter-bloc conflicts and alliances; and

the Jewish sphere: The memory of the Holocaust that was still very raw in people’s minds, and the will to prevent such an event from ever happening again to the Jewish people.

Of these, the first three spheres were perceived as threats to the existence of the State of Israel, whereas the fourth was perceived as a threat to the Jewish people as a whole (one that Israel’s founding was meant to help resolve). What made these threats all the more acute was the fact that they were interrelated and interlinked, with each affected by and affecting the others.

The Internal Sphere

During the first few years after independence, the Israeli economy was characterized by

significant national security expenditures;

an acute need for foreign capital, since the country’s foreign currency expenditures exceeded its revenues. The government’s local currency expenditures exceeded its revenue from taxation, which led to the printing of money to cover the deficit, and to inflation;

high levels of unemployment; and

very high levels of government intervention in the economy.

At this time, the shortage of foreign currency was so severe that even the importation of wheat, flour, oil, and petroleum-related products was occasionally uncertain (Gross, 1990, 1995).⁹

David Horowitz, Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister, Untitled, July 1951, Ben Gurion Archives (BGA), Correspondence.

The dire economic reality also affected immigration to the country, leading to suggestions that immigration needed to be scaled back or made more selective.

Another internal threat that the government had to contend with was the need to absorb the huge wave of immigrants who arrived within a short period of time, to “assimilate the diasporas” and forge the Jewish population in the country into a single nation. This meant integrating the newcomers among the country’s established residents (in addition, of course, to the economic problems associated with the immigration endeavor).

Within 3 years after the country’s independence, some 700,000 immigrants arrived. This tidal wave of immigrants came from a wide variety of cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds that heightened the social polarity that existed in the country even prior to independence (Lissak, 1999). At a cabinet meeting held on 5 September 1949, Ben-Gurion spelled out the nature of this threat:

Our security problem is not one of borders, the physical integrity of the country, or its independence. Our national security problem concerns our very existence—to be or not to be [...] and since, for us, the issue of national security is one of existence itself we must see things as they are. For our national security, we rely not on fortifications, or on weapons or on the military, but on one thing alone. We rely on the entire nation, on its overall, united, supreme ability and efforts [...] and since everything is dependent on the nation itself and on the people as a whole, we must ask ourselves something that no other nation is asking itself: Are we a people? My answer is: We are not yet a nation. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 72)

The Regional Sphere

Israel’s national security concept, which began to be formulated immediately after the War of Independence, saw “wartime footing” as a persistent condition that required the country to be in constant readiness for war at any given moment. The political leadership saw the regional threat as based on the following: (a) Israel was surrounded by enemies seeking to destroy it; (b) the previous war had ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty; (c) another round of fighting with Arab countries was only a question of time; and (d) Israel’s borders were long and very difficult to defend.

In a speech to IDF senior commanders in March 1953, Ben-Gurion alluded to the looming threat from the regional sphere:

And we mustn’t for a moment ignore the fact that our neighbors, who are conspiring against us, intend not only to push back our borders but to deny us our part of Jerusalem, to strip the entire Galilee or the Negev region from our country and to wipe the State of Israel off the map of the world, no more and no less, and to rip out the Jewish community by its roots. They want to exterminate us and destroy us. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 197)

The International Sphere

During the battles of the War of Independence and even more so in its aftermath, Israeli diplomacy was obliged to fend off threats from the international community with regard to the gains that it had made during the war. These concerned issues such as recognition of the ceasefire borders, the issue of Palestinian refugees, the status of Jerusalem, and Israel’s position in inter-bloc conflicts and alliances. These threats cast a pall over Israel’s international relations, and prompted Ben-Gurion to declare:

We must see the reality in the world—and I’m speaking purely from a Jewish point of view at this point, which I’m not embarrassed to [do]. Our situation in the world is like this: there is a global bloc that wants to destroy us, and that’s the bloc of Arab nations. There is a second bloc, which isn’t bent on destroying us, but is willing to help the Arab nations in their war against us—and that’s most of the Muslim nations. There’s a third bloc, which has nothing against us, but for various reasons doesn’t want to recognize our existence—such as India. And there’s a fourth bloc that accepts the State of Israel but doesn’t want to accept the existence of Jews and the existence of the Jewish people—that’s the Communist bloc. Then there’s a fifth bloc that accepts the State of Israel, doesn’t reject the country’s existence, but doesn’t care if we exist or not—and that’s everybody else. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 213)

In December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 194, which called for allowing Palestinian refugees who wished to live peacefully with their Jewish neighbors to return to their homes, or to choose between returning and receiving compensation. Israel, of course, considered the possibility of the return of such refugees as a threat to its very existence and worked at all levels to thwart the resolution.

In the international arena, two specific positions dominated with regard to the issue of recognition of the ceasefire lines: a hardline position that demanded Israel withdraw to the borders granted to the Jewish state in the 1947 Partition plan, and a more lenient demand for a more limited withdrawal (Shalom, 1992, p. 197). In April 1949, at the reconciliation conference held in Lausanne, Israel encountered an emphatic American demand to resolve the conflict based on UN Resolution 194 so that Israel’s borders would align with the Partition Plan, and that any territorial addition would require an equal territorial concession somewhere else. During the conference, the Americans applied severe pressure upon Israel, as is evident in a letter from President Harry S. Truman, in which he threatened to reexamine the USA’s position toward Israel if the latter refused to change its policy (Bar-Siman-Tov, 1998; Rabinovich, 1991, p. 27; Shoval, 2014). For his part, however, Ben-Gurion saw any territorial concession as tantamount to an attempt to destroy the State of Israel (Shalom, 1992, p. 203).

The question of the status of Jerusalem was also at the core of Israel’s campaign, in light of widespread international opposition to the abolition of the city’s international status and its establishment as Israel’s capital (Bialer, 1985). Ben-Gurion himself became increasingly pessimistic about the position of United Nations General Assembly on this issue (Shalom, 1993, p. 76). He even went as far as to declare the threat surrounding this issue with the words:

We now find ourselves in a conflict not only with our Arab neighbors, but to a familiar extent with most of humanity, as represented in the United Nations, [over the issue] of Jerusalem. And only the blind cannot see that the origins of this conflict are not political, economic, or military, but ideological, as well. On the question of Jerusalem, we have witnessed [the formation of] a very peculiar and questionable combination: on the one hand we have seen, if not the entire Christian world, then at least the largest universal bloc-the Catholic bloc. On the other hand, the Muslim bloc, and along with them, the Communist bloc [...] What binds them together is not only a political interest, but an ideology. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 109)

At the same time, in the early 1950s with the spiraling of the Cold War and the establishment of NATO, the international community determined that, politically speaking, Europe “was outside the game,” because the stakes were too high. Thus, the feud between the United States and the Soviet Union was conducted on the fringes of Europe (Ayoob, 1995, pp. 93–114). The Americans and the British attempted to set up a “Middle Eastern Command” in 1951 and enlist Arab countries by putting forward proposals to shrink Israel’s territory particularly in the Negev region to establish a territorial continuity between Egypt and Jordan.¹⁰

The Anglo-American effort to build a regional alliance against Soviet threats can be traced to British attempts to construct this type of a regional alliance with some Arab states shortly after WW II. For more on British interests in the Middle East see Abadi (1982).

Israel saw this Western “courtship” of the Arab countries not only as a diplomatic threat which would involve isolation in the international arena, and the distancing of the USA but also as a risk that would lead to the growing military might of the Arab countries joining this alliance (Rabinovich, 1991, pp. 164–165). In a speech to military commanders, Ben-Gurion argued:

If a war breaks out between the Arabs and us and the Arabs win, no one will touch them because everyone is courting them. We saw this at the last Security Council meeting. There is nothing more natural than for America and Russia together to cultivate Arab friendship, and there is no guarantee that they would impose any sanctions on them. On the other hand, there is a serious threat that even after they attack us, and we give them hell in return and don’t give up until we prevail against them, [the US and the USSR] would use extreme measures against us. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 215)

Later that same decade, these ideas resurfaced when the Americans and the British worked toward what was called “Alpha Plan,” which involved “rewarding” Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser by giving him the Negev among other things if he committed to their defense alliance (Oren, 1992, pp. 109–117).

The Jewish Sphere

The memories of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism also entered into the threat scenarios put forward by Ben-Gurion, who saw the founding of a Jewish state in Palestine as an answer to the perils which, in his view, still menaced the Jewish people everywhere in the world. In a speech before the leadership council of his Mapai party he said:

I will not, for the moment, try to explain this unique phenomenon of why all the nations hate us, and why they all fear us. This has been going on for over 2500 years. This hatred and the fear have not subsided in the world.¹¹

Speech to the Mapai Party council, 12–13 January 1949, Labor Party Archives (LPA), File 2-022-1949-75: 8.

This explains why he considered one of the primary objectives of the Jewish state at that time to be the ingathering of the exiles to the Land of Israel, and for Israel to work toward opening the gates to all the Jewish communities that had been cut off from world Jewry and denied the right to immigrate to Israel (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 197).

Notably, Ben-Gurion did not limit this vision to countries where the government treated their Jewish populations harshly, but extended it to democratic countries as well. As he put it:

All Jews in the Diaspora are more or less shackled as Jews and as citizens. Even in countries with the greatest liberties, which maintain complete and full equal rights as one of the cornerstones of their regime, Jews do not have natural and full liberty—even in general civilian matters—as those who are members of the majority. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 197)

Ben-Gurion saw an existential threat to Israel in each of these spheres. In his view, everything had to be done to tackle these threats (permanently or temporarily), whereupon the last threat—to the Jewish sphere—would also be resolved. An examination of his speeches and writings in the first few years after independence reveals the various components of his national security concept; the military, economy (balance of payments, cost of living, development, industry, research, etc.), society (immigration and absorption), settlement (in the Negev, Galilee, and the “Jerusalem Corridor,” population dispersal), and foreign policy.

The Military

In Ben-Gurion’s view, the IDF was undoubtedly one of the central pillars of all national security strategies. He often argued that the achievements of the War of Independence were tantamount to a “miracle,” and that a miracle of that sort would not happen again without a strong modern army. Beyond that, he understood that the next war would be different, and would require the IDF to go on the offensive and take the war to the enemy’s territory rather than assume a purely defensive position.¹²

Divrei HaKnesset (The Israeli Parliament Protocols) [in Hebrew], 19 August 1952: 2028. For Ben-Gurion’s definition of the results of the War of Independence as “a miracle,” see GCHQ Meeting, 16 April 1949, IDFA.

This can be seen in the strong emphasis given to strengthening Israel’s military over the years in terms of acquisition and development of new weapons, changes in the combat strategy to an offensive strategy, the development of nuclear arsenal, and others.

Economy and Industry

As previously noted, Israel’s economic situation in the first few years after independence was “on the brink of an abyss.” Ben-Gurion understood that irrespective of its military victories, a failure by the country to resolve its economic and monetary situation could bring about its downfall and collapse soon after its founding. Only by strengthening and stabilizing the economy could Israel stave off the threat of the state’s collapse and bankruptcy, which thus justified the harsh measures and suggestions to stabilize the economy such as rationing, limiting immigration,¹³

See for example the government’s attempts to limit the immigration of the sick (Hacohen, 1998).

budgetary cuts, unemployment, etc. were essential.

Society

Ben-Gurion regarded immigration as a key component of national security. In his view, immigration was not only a moral obligation to save Jews or to foster the ingathering of the exiles but was vital to the Jewish community in Israel, and to the continued existence and security of the state. Without immigration, Israel was doomed to fail. Therefore, on purely national security grounds, it was essential to have massive and rapid immigration, on a wide and expanding basis. “Nothing,” he said, “is more urgent or more important” (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 56). Thus, one of his key priorities was that the Jewish community in the country actively help in assimilating the immigrants, rather than leave immigration absorption entirely in the hands of the authorities.

Settlement and Population Dispersal

Settlement was another key facet of Ben-Gurion’s national security concept, since it addressed each type of threat facing the country. He saw settlements as a key to the country’s security in several interlocking ways, namely, militarily (in the form of border settlements), economically (by strengthening agriculture and economy generally), socially (by providing homes for immigrants), and politically (by claiming abandoned and vacant lands). He also established a clear order of priorities with regard to the location of settlements, with highest precedence given to settlements in the Negev, Galilee, and the Jerusalem Corridor regions (which had been designated part of the Arab state under the 1947 Partition Plan, but were conquered during the 1948 War).

Foreign Policy

Ben-Gurion saw Israel’s foreign policy as an important element in its national security. It was a means of forging ties with the rest of the world, which would help Israel economically, professionally, and naturally contribute to its security as well (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 197). Foreign policy was essential to help thwart the international political initiatives that could compromise Israel’s existence as a country within its current borders, and/or its demographic makeup.

Ben-Gurion Versus the IDF Leadership Over the Makeup of National Security

While the IDF’s perception of national security did not deny the importance of civilian components, such as the economy, immigration, industry, and settlement for Israel’s development and prosperity, it saw them as ancillary to the greater goal of strengthening the IDF and helping it contend with the future military threats posed by the Arab countries. In April 1949, the then Head of Operations, Yigael Yadin, demanded that a state of emergency be declared in the country for a period of 2 years to allow the military to deploy and direct all the other components of the economy.¹⁴

GCHQ Meeting, 16 April 1949, IDFA.

On another occasion, several years later, the Head of the Planning Department at the time, Yuval Ne’eman, argued that since the military ratio was not in Israel’s favor, the IDF had to aspire toward maximum equilibrium. To this end, an all-out total concentration of efforts was required in terms of the resources placed at the military’s disposal. This meant that the entire country and everything in it should be regarded as the military’s base of operations and administration. The country’s development should be placed under continuous monitoring by the military, and a national security-oriented perspective introduced everywhere to help the IDF carry out its defense missions and expand its wartime potential.¹⁵

Colonel Yuval Ne’eman, Head of the Planning Department, “Planning the Military Formation: Main Lines of Thought,” 18 February 1953, IDFA, file, 40–433/1956.

Over the years, Ben-Gurion found himself engaged in an endless tussle with the IDF leadership in particular over the civilian aspects of his national security concept. This was clearly evident in his emphatic and repeated demands of the IDF to cut its budget and its human resources so that these could be diverted to the other spheres of national security. As he said to Chief of Staff Yigael Yadin: “I don’t think that you’re seeing the entire picture as it is.”¹⁶

Letter from Ben-Gurion to Yigael Yadin, 4 September 1952, BGA, Correspondence.

Similarly, on another occasion Ben-Gurion noted:

We have a tendency to conflate two different concepts, and mistakenly identify the military with security. Of course, there is a connection between the military and security and as long as there is a risk of war in the world, national security requires the existence of the military. However, the military is not the be-all and end-all of a nation’s security needs, and the problem of security is much more comprehensive and profound than the issue of the military. (Ben-Gurion, 1980, p. 72)

This difference in policy was often fraught with tensions that ultimately led to the resignation of Yadin as Chief of Staff. However, this divisiveness began well before Yadin was appointed Chief of Staff, immediately after the War of Independence when Ben-Gurion first demanded cuts in the military budget. Yadin, in response, threatened that if war broke out again, the IDF would have to concede certain territories, a threat that Ben-Gurion refused to accept.¹⁷

GCHQ Meeting, 10 January 1949, IDFA.

In March–April 1949, while his dispute with the IDF leadership over the issue of budget cuts was still at its height, Ben-Gurion set out his perception of the nonmilitary aspects of national security:

Housing, a reduction of the cost of living, and settlement activity (not complete or massive, but sufficient) of the Negev and Galilee regions are more urgent, and acute, and vital now than anything else. The dangers that we face now, in this respect, are so severe to be equivalent to the dangers that we faced during the invasion of May and June [1948] (even if those dangers were of a different nature, but that doesn’t matter). It seems to me that this is not being taken into account in your considerations.¹⁸

GCHQ Meeting, 16 March 1949, IDFA.

From this point onwards, Ben-Gurion took pains to emphasize to the IDF leadership that national security, as he understood it, was a much broader concept than was understood by the military and required considerably different solutions.

As he wrote to Chief of Staff Yadin and subsequently to his successor Mordecai Makleff: “The security of the state of Israel is not based only on the military, but on the nation’s economic, financial, professional, and moral capacity,”¹⁹

Letter from David Ben-Gurion to Yigael Yadin, Untitled, 4 September 1952, BGA, Correspondence.

and

I am fully aware, and have no hesitation or doubt, that the record levels of manpower in the military is in excess of what it can sustain or needs, and this record level undermines national security, inasmuch as it undermines the country’s ability to achieve economic independence and sustainability [...] our true national security budget is that of [immigration] absorption and development, in addition to the military budget.²⁰

Letter from David Ben-Gurion to the IDF Chief of Staff, “Your Memorandum of November 17, 1952 Regarding the Budget,” 20 November 1952, BGA, Correspondence.

Conclusion

National security is a function of time, place, and context, and hence, in practice, its definition is linked to and depends a great deal on those defining it. This article presented a different interpretation of Ben-Gurion’s national security concept based on the notion that national security is not merely a military issue. It presented Ben-Gurion’s national security concept as a derivative of his broader perception of the threats facing Israel as he saw them in the first few years after Israel’s War of Independence.

Nir Kedar, in his study on Ben-Gurion’s civil thought, claimed that in the Israeli narrative, Ben-Gurion is perceived as a militaristic rather than a civilian figure, especially because he was in charge of the Zionist movement’s security affairs from 1946 onward and led Israel to victory in the War of Independence (Kedar, 2009, p. 6). However, Ben-Gurion’s perception of national security emerged in response to the threat scenarios facing the State of Israel, most of which were not military. Ben-Gurion understood that to tackle these nonmilitary threats, he had to broaden the concept of “security” to one of “national security” such that in addition to the military, it included civilian issues such as immigration, settlement, the economy, society, industry, etc., each of which provided a solution to one or more of the threat scenarios. Not all of these elements were “security” in its narrow and classical military sense, but were nonetheless facets of “national security” and provided a full response to the spheres of threat as Ben-Gurion understood them.

Unlike the IDF, which referred to these components as “important,” Ben-Gurion’s presentation of these elements as an existential threat was meant to place them on an equal footing with military strength, and show that they had to be accommodated in the budget, even at the expense of the military. Accordingly, he felt obliged to resort to semantics that portrayed any potential danger to civilian aspects of national security as an existential threat to the country. This was not merely a pathos-rich style of delivery (Yaniv, 1994, p. 22), but a deliberate choice of terminology to highlight critical issues which, as he saw it, indeed constituted an existential threat to the country.

It could be argued that there is no connection between immigration, settlements and economy, and national security. However, Ben-Gurion genuinely believed that these elements were of vital importance to the country. He saw each of these spheres and the fact that they were interrelated and interlinked, as existential. Hence, his national security concept was intended to provide a solution to them given their extraordinary importance to the country’s security. He even went so far as to set a personal example by building his home in the Negev, to reflect the importance that he attributed to Jewish settlement in that region.

What enabled Ben-Gurion to concretize his national security vision was his status in the political and military arena. Although he was a civilian with no significant military background, he was nonetheless an authority in matters of national security within the political and military establishment. Unmoved by the threats of the military or the resignation of its Chief of Staff Yadin, his unassailable status as the undisputed leader of the country allowed him to force and steer a civilian course and agenda.

It is perhaps a moot point whether Ben-Gurion’s national security concept was a military one with civilian components or a civilian concept with military elements. In light of his broad perception of threat presented above, and his view that security is not limited to military matters but can also extend to civilian issues, it seems clear that Ben-Gurion’s national security concept was primarily a civilian one with military components. Given that Israel’s precarious economic, social, and international situation at that time might have brought about the collapse of the entire Zionist enterprise so soon after the establishment of the State of Israel, this was, he knew full well, an all too objective and real danger.

Ben-Gurion was a key player in Israel’s political and military system for many years. Over the years, the economic, social, military, and international reality of Israel changed, and it would be worthwhile to examine his security concept in a broader and longer historical perspective to determine whether these changes affected it. As can be seen from the conclusions of the “Meridor Committee,” the civilian components of the national security concept have not disappeared; instead the military aspects took on greater significance in public and academic thinking. A number of hypotheses may account for this:

The economic and political improvement during the 1950s and the fact that the State of Israel succeeded in overcoming the challenges of the first few years may have reduced the importance of the civilian components and the rise of military components, since the military threat to the State of Israel remained the same;

The strengthening of the military establishment at the expense of the civilian establishment had an impact on the public discourse on the security concept.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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