Far-right Israeli protesters gather on a hill overlooking the besieged Gaza Strip, near the border barrier, on July 30, 2025. (Credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP)
It was April 1970. In his final address as a member of the Knesset, former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reflected on what he described as the dilemma Israel would henceforth face.“The Six-Day War [of 1967] created new trends, or at least what seem to be new trends: those who favor peace and those who favor possessing the whole Land of Israel. I do not know which side I belong to,” he said, adding that he had always been “for both.”The remark perfectly captures Ben-Gurion’s pragmatism, Israel’s founding father, and a leading figure of the country’s left.A few years before he died in 1973, the man who devoted his life to building a Jewish state said that Israel stood at a crossroads. Confronted with the conquest of new territories, he advocated a realistic policy — neither ideological nor theological, but above all strategic and...
It was April 1970. In his final address as a member of the Knesset, former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion reflected on what he described as the dilemma Israel would henceforth face.“The Six-Day War [of 1967] created new trends, or at least what seem to be new trends: those who favor peace and those who favor possessing the whole Land of Israel. I do not know which side I belong to,” he said, adding that he had always been “for both.”The remark perfectly captures Ben-Gurion’s pragmatism, Israel’s founding father, and a leading figure of the country’s left.A few years before he died in 1973, the man who devoted his life to building a Jewish state said that Israel stood at a crossroads. Confronted with the conquest of new territories, he advocated a realistic policy — neither ideological nor theological, but above...
