ERETZ-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, ma'pilim (immigrants
coming to Eretz-Israel in defiance of restrictive
legislation) 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 comity 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.
