Israel P-46a 50 sheqalim 1978-1980 UNC—David Ben-Gurion

David Ben-Gurion: leader of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine and first prime minister of Israel

David Ben-Gurion (born David Grün, 1886 in Płońsk, Russian Poland; died 1973) was the dominant political leader of the Yishuv and its chief paramilitary Haganah and then Israel’s first prime minister. As head of the Jewish Agency leadership from the mid-1930s and, in 1948, prime minister and defense minister, he drove state-building and oversaw the consolidation of armed forces into what became the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces). 

Haganah: why it’s not usually labeled “a terrorist organization”

The Haganah is typically described as the Yishuv’s principal paramilitary/defense organization under the British Mandate (1920-1948) and the core predecessor of the IDF, rather than as a “terror group” in the way Irgun and Lehi (Stern Gang) were widely labeled by the United States government.

That said, even mainstream references note Haganah’s involvement in illegal immigration operations and violent actions during the British Mandate, and historians dispute how to classify specific operations—especially in 1948 when tactics included sieges, bombardment, and expulsions in some areas. 

Ben Gurion's Plan Dalet for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine

What’s broadly supported across sources is:

• Plan Dalet (Plan D) was finalized 10 March 1948 by the Haganah/its staff planning apparatus and became a major operational framework for taking/holding territory in the final months of the Mandate and early war.

• Ben-Gurion is consistently described as the senior political figure who requested/pressed for such a plan and, in that period, functioned as the key authority over security policy—often summarized as “commanded by” in reference works.

• Authorship is contested: some accounts emphasize Haganah planners (e.g., Yigael Yadin/General Staff); others (e.g., Pappé) stress a policy “consultancy” under Ben-Gurion’s guidance.

Haganah forms of violence

• Village bombardment and shelling (use of mortars/artillery against inhabited areas)

• Urban bombing (explosive attacks in towns and mixed cities)

• House demolition (systematic destruction of homes to prevent return)

• Arson of dwellings (burning of villages or sections of towns)

• Forced expulsions / population transfer (driving civilian populations out)

• Sieges and starvation tactics (cutting off water, food, and access)

• Summary executions (killing of detainees or civilians without trial, in some documented cases)

• Psychological warfare operations (broadcast threats, intimidation campaigns, “whispering” operations to induce flight)

• Occupation and depopulation of villages (military takeover followed by clearing of inhabitants)

• Mining and booby-trapping of houses (to render return impossible)

In legal-historical language, these are discussed under:

• Collective punishment

• Ethnic cleansing / forcible transfer

• War crimes against civilians

• Crimes against humanity (in some scholarly and UN-framework interpretations)

What crimes against humanity did Ben-Gurion personally direct?

• Ben-Gurion sat at the top of the chain for Yishuv/Israeli security policy and attended operational discussions (e.g., around Operation Dani). In the Lydda/Ramle episode, sources describe a meeting with senior commanders during which expulsions were discussed; the written expulsion order is associated with IDF command channels (commonly linked to Rabin as signatory), and accounts note Ben-Gurion’s involvement in passing instructions up the chain—including instructions that came after expulsions were already underway.

• Whether that amounts to “personally directing crimes against humanity” depends on (a) your legal framework, and (b) which historian’s interpretation you treat as authoritative. You can responsibly say he bore command responsibility / political responsibility for a military system that produced mass displacement, and that Plan Dalet is viewed by many historians as central to that outcome; you cannot responsibly claim, without a specific documentary trail for each act, that he personally ordered every atrocity alleged in public memory.

Was ethnic cleansing justified and needed to establish Israel?

After the UN partition resolution (Nov 1947), Palestine slid into a rapidly escalating civil war with attacks and reprisals by multiple actors; that violence is real and well-documented. But even if you grant a security rationale for securing corridors/positions, it does not logically or legally justify collective expulsion of civilian populations or the destruction of communities—those are different categories of action. The historical dispute is precisely whether expulsions were:

1. an intended objective of Plan Dalet,
2. a contingent wartime practice that became widespread, or
3. a mix varying by district and commander