“Israel knew the fear of death and the taste of birth in the same moment.” With the odds unbeatable and the consequence inevasible, only a true leader, who has faith in his countrymen in general and G-d in particular, would choose to fight five other armies who are surrounding them, instead of surrendering and fleeing from an inevitable massacre of the remaining Jewry. Being outnumbered 12 to 1, and armed with obsolete weapons that were smuggled from Europe which were created for World War I, David Ben-Gurion hoped for miracle. Israel was now being attacked by Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and the Arab people living within Israel. With admonition from Washington and doomsday predictions by his closest consultants, David Ben-Gurion made a decision which few leaders would make. Ben-Gurion knew that losses would be high, even if Israel succeeded and ended up victorious; and he was right. In the War of Independence, over one percent of the Jewish people had died. How is it that an army which is outnumbered twelve times, come out victorious? The answer to this question lies in the leader of the country. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who at that time was also the minister of defence, realized that if their men fought face to face against the Arab’s, then surely they would suffer a quick defeat. Yet, if they were to break up into smaller groups, and slowly weaken the other armies, then victory could be attainable. This solution was what Ben-Gurion put into action. After one and a half years of on and off battles, Egypt Syria, Lebanon and Jordon signed an armistice agreement with Israel. Nahum Goldmann, an active Zionist who lived in the Diaspora at the time of David Ben-Gurion, wrote in his autobiography that “The victory offered such a glorious contrast to the centuries of persecution and humiliation, of adaptation and compromise, that it seemed to indicate the only direction that could possibly be taken from then on.” What Mr. Goldmann was trying to point out is that Ben-Gurion’s courses of action, which led to victory, would change the future image of the State of Israel. No longer would other nations of the world think of the Jewish people as being weak, or easy to conquer. David Ben-Gurion did

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