BEN-GURION'S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL

BEN-GURION'S DECLARATION ON THE EXCLUSIVE AND
INALIENABLE JEWISH RIGHT TO THE WHOLE OF
THE LAND OF ISRAEL
At the Basle Session of the 20th Zionist Congress at Zurich (1937)
by Howard Grief

(English Translation Reprinted with commentary from "A Petition To Annul The Interim Agreement", by Howard Grief,  published by ACPR, Number 77, page 95)


"No Jew is entitled to give up  the right of establishing   [i.e. settling]   the Jewish Nation in  [all of]  the Land of Israel.  No Jewish body has such power.  Not even all the Jews alive today [i.e. the entire Jewish People] have the  power to cede any part of the country [or homeland]  whatsoever.  This  is a  right*  vouchsafed or reserved for the Jewish Nation throughout  all generations. This right  cannot be lost or expropriated  under any condition [or circumstance].  Even if at some particular time,  there are those who declare that they are relinquishing  this  right,  they  have no power  nor competence  to deprive coming  generations of this right. The Jewish nation is neither bound nor governed  by such a  waiver or renunciation.  Our right  to the whole of this country is valid, in force and endures forever.  And until the Final Redemption has come,  we will not budge from this historic right."

It is apparent from Ben-Gurion's above words that though he had already accepted the concept of partition as a pressing necessity, in order to establish the Jewish State, his real goal, as stated, was always the unification of all parts of the Land of Israel, under Jewish sovereignty.  Partition served only as a transitory or interim step in the realization of the ultimate goal to win possession of the entire country for the Jewish Nation.  Though he never realized this goal during his long service as Prime Minister, he never-the-less implanted this notion of eventual unification of the Land of Israel into the State's constitutional structure and made it the law of the land to be enforced whenever additional parts of the land would be liberated by the Israel Defense Forces.  It may therefore be safely assumed that in the absence of any serious military threat to Israel's security,  Ben-Gurion, had he been in power in 1967 and guiding the nation's destiny, would never have sacrificed this aspiration after its very accomplishment, no matter what the counter-considerations may have been, such as making possible peace treaties with Arab states or the more inhibiting Arab demographic question, which proved less serious than first anticipated.  It is most likely then that Judea, Samaria and Gaza would have been annexed to the State by Ben-Gurion as Prime Minister as soon as effective possession of these lands had been obtained, under the
very law he himself had created for that purpose, namely the Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance.  One need only look at what Ben-Gurion did in 1948 while at the height of his power when he annexed all parts of the Land of Israel that the IDF had liberated, to confirm the truth of this statement, despite what others have tendentiously imputed to him after he retired from active public life.