ABSTRACT
This was to be a Jewish State – a state of the Jews and for the Jews. Not in the sense of being exclusively Jewish: contrary to a commonly held misperception, from an early stage Zionism had reconciled itself to the existence of a sizeable Arab minority in the Jewish state-to-be. As David Ben-Gurion put it in December 1947: 'In our state there will be non-Jews as well – and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as
well.'2 Rather, the prospective state was to be Jewish in its national ethos – historically, culturally, religiously – just as France was French and England was English. The various minorities would enjoy equitable treatment, with their religions and cultures even given official status by the state – something that is not yet applicable to the most advanced Western democracies;3 but as minorities they would ipso facto have to acquiesce in the majority's national ethos, as is the case throughout the world. And in Israel's case, the existence of a Jewish majority has been a sine qua non for both the establishment of the state and its continued existence. For it is the unwavering conviction that only by becoming a majority in a state of their own would the Jews be able to liberate themselves from the perennial weakness and insecurity attending their Diaspora minority existence which lies at the heart of the Zionist ideal. Were this majority to disappear, for one reason or another, the raison d'etat of the Jewish State would be irrevocably shattered.
