Theodore Herzl Started the World Zionist Organization: wrote the book: “ State of the Jews” he was an Austrian Journalist. Man of enlightenment. Herzl is one of the first people express Zionism around 1880’s in a form of Political Zionism. |
Ze'ev Jabotinsky- Russian Jew- was a right-wing Revisionist Zionist Leader, author, Soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. He was the founder and leader of the clandestine Jewish armed Organization Irgun. He advocated retaliation and not self-defense. He split from the WZO in 1925. |
Moshe Dian Was an Israeli Military leader and politician. He was the fighting symbol to the world of the new state of Israel. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he was the commander of the defense in the Jordan valley. He was extremely well-liked by Israel's founding Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion and became his protégé, together with Shimon Peres (a future Prime Minister and President). He became defense Minister and later Foreign Minister of Israel. |
Chaim Weizmann- Practical/pragmatic Zionist: he was a Zionist leader, President of the World Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on February 1, 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was also a chemist who developed a new process of producing acetone through bacterial fermentation. In his earlier years he helped in developing agriculture infrastructure to support later migration of Jews. |
Ben Gurion- was the first Prime Minister of Israel. Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, culminated in his instrumental role in the founding of the state of Israel. After leading Israel to victory in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Ben-Gurion helped build the state institutions and oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world. |
UN Mediator FolkeBernadotte: UN Mediator: Following the 1947 UN Partition Plan, on 20 May 1948, Folke Bernadotte was appointed the United Nations' mediator in Palestine, the first official mediator in the UN's history. In this capacity, he succeeded in achieving a truce in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and laid the groundwork for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. He proposed in modifying 1947 partion by redrawing the boundries between Jewish and Arab Palestine. Palestine will be apart of TransJordan. The Arabs thought of this and opposed to unite with Jordan, and decided on a total rejection of a Jewish state. Through this resolution, Jerusalem was an international site and is divided into jewish controlled west and Arab controlled East. |
Colonial Secretary of State Malcolm MacDonald- In 1939 MacDonald oversaw and introduced the so-called MacDonald White Paper which aimed at the creation of a unified state, with controls on Jewish immigration. |
Ralph Bunche: Beginning in 1947, Bunche was involved with the Arab-Israeli conflict. He served as assistant to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, and thereafter as the principal secretary of the U.N. Palestine Commission. In 1948 he traveled to the Middle East as the chief aide to Count Folke Bernadotte, who had been appointed by the U.N. to mediate the conflict. In September, Bernadotte was assassinated by members of the underground Jewish group Lehi. Bunche became the U.N.'s chief mediator and concluded the task with the signing of the 1949 Armistice Agreements. |