IsraelLast year, while browsing through one of the shops in Makati, I came across a book on Israel written by Daniel Gordis, senior vice president at Shalem College, Israel’s first liberal arts college in Jerusalem. On May 14, 1948, 50 years after the first Zionist Congress convened in Switzerland, David Ben Gurion, standing at the Tel Aviv Museum under a huge portrait of Herzl, announced: “We hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish State in the land of Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.” After the singing of the national anthem “Hatikva,” Ben Gurion declared the end of the proceedings that lasted for only 32 minutes. In 1951, West Germany and Israel started negotiations for Germany to pay reparations for what it had done to the Jewish people during the Holocaust. The announcement resulted in a bitter dispute between Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, a former terrorist leader who believed Israel should not accept monetary compensation from the Germans. The money from Germany helped Israel to improve housing, build roads and telecommunication systems and establish a national shipping fleet and airline.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 13, 2023 19:00 UTC