David Ben-Gurion Assassinated in 1949

CaliGuy

Banned
What if David Ben-Gurion would have gotten assassinated (for instance, by some radical Palestinian) in 1949?

How would post-independence Israeli politics develop without Ben-Gurion?
 
Alright, if Ben-Gurion is assassinated in 1949, Moshe Sharett is most likely to become PM (he was the #2 man in the Mapai electoral list). While Israel is going to be reeling from the loss of Ben-Gurion (who most likely will be mythologized as the father of the country alongside Theodor Herzl's status as father of Zionism), Israel is going to remain stable. Mapai, the Labor-Zionist party that dominated Israeli politics until 1977, had a very stable leadership structure. You're going to see people, including Sharett, like Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Moshe Dayan, Pinhas Lavon, Teddy Kollek, Abba Eban, Shimon Peres, etc coming to power sooner (especially the leaders from the Third Aliyah, since they thought that Ben-Gurion was trying to cultivate a new generation of leaders without giving them the chance to govern). The reparations agreement between Israel and Germany is most likely going to come around as in OTL, though I'd expect people like Moshe Sharett and members of the Third Aliyah to have more prominence during negotiations.

Eliezer Kaplan (#3) and David Remez (#4) both die in the early 1950s, but they may end up having a more prominent role in the Israeli government. Same with Yosef Sprinzak (#5). Without Ben-Gurion, you may see the Lavon Affair butterflied away and Pinhas Lavon may end up having a more prominent role in any future Israeli government (which, ironically, may end up helping help relations between Jews and Arabs). Lavon, as Minister for Defense, extended the draft to Arab-Israelis in 1954 with PM Sharett's blessing and was surprised by Arab-Israeli enlistment. The Lavon Affair ended his career, brought Ben-Gurion back as Minister of Defense and PM, and ended the Arab-Israeli draft extension.

It can't be understated just how influential David Ben-Gurion was. I could easily see Herut and General Zionists gaining seats through new Mapai leadership mismanagement, but Herut is not likely to lead a government (Israel's electoral system requires any government to form a coalition government, and Israel was very socialist-dominated until Likud took power in the 1977 elections).
 
Perhaps a French style presidency with Weitzmann being more than an elder statesmen!

Having more French influence in Israel is certainly interesting (French Ambassador to Israel Pierre Gilbert was Hebrew-speaking and quite beloved, and both Guy Mollet and Maurice Bourges-Maunory were viewed as friends), but a French-style presidency (especially with Weizmann) I don't think would happen. The presidency is more symbolic than anything, there's no real power there.
 
You have a point. I just though Wietzmann the second founder of Zionism, might gain the opportunity.

That's very true, and Weizmann did want the presidency to have more power than it had. But it's unlikely that Weizmann would have any real effect on it after a Ben-Gurion assassination - presidential elections were (at least then) tied to the Knesset and if the Knesset had an election, so did the presidency. Plus he was quite ill when he was elected, and even more so when he was reelected in 1951. There's a good chance that he might not even stand for the presidency in 1949 if he feels he's not healthy enough for it
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Alright, if Ben-Gurion is assassinated in 1949, Moshe Sharett is most likely to become PM (he was the #2 man in the Mapai electoral list). While Israel is going to be reeling from the loss of Ben-Gurion (who most likely will be mythologized as the father of the country alongside Theodor Herzl's status as father of Zionism), Israel is going to remain stable. Mapai, the Labor-Zionist party that dominated Israeli politics until 1977, had a very stable leadership structure. You're going to see people, including Sharett, like Golda Meir, Levi Eshkol, Moshe Dayan, Pinhas Lavon, Teddy Kollek, Abba Eban, Shimon Peres, etc coming to power sooner (especially the leaders from the Third Aliyah, since they thought that Ben-Gurion was trying to cultivate a new generation of leaders without giving them the chance to govern). The reparations agreement between Israel and Germany is most likely going to come around as in OTL, though I'd expect people like Moshe Sharett and members of the Third Aliyah to have more prominence during negotiations.

All of this appears to make sense. :)

Eliezer Kaplan (#3) and David Remez (#4) both die in the early 1950s, but they may end up having a more prominent role in the Israeli government. Same with Yosef Sprinzak (#5). Without Ben-Gurion, you may see the Lavon Affair butterflied away and Pinhas Lavon may end up having a more prominent role in any future Israeli government (which, ironically, may end up helping help relations between Jews and Arabs). Lavon, as Minister for Defense, extended the draft to Arab-Israelis in 1954 with PM Sharett's blessing and was surprised by Arab-Israeli enlistment. The Lavon Affair ended his career, brought Ben-Gurion back as Minister of Defense and PM, and ended the Arab-Israeli draft extension.

OK; also, weren't Israel's Arabs under military rule until 1966 in our TL? If so, could this end a bit earlier in this TL?

It can't be understated just how influential David Ben-Gurion was. I could easily see Herut and General Zionists gaining seats through new Mapai leadership mismanagement, but Herut is not likely to lead a government (Israel's electoral system requires any government to form a coalition government, and Israel was very socialist-dominated until Likud took power in the 1977 elections).

OK; understood.
 
All of this appears to make sense. :)

OK; also, weren't Israel's Arabs under military rule until 1966 in our TL? If so, could this end a bit earlier in this TL?

OK; understood.

Israeli-Arabs were under military rule until November 1966, that's true, but Pinhas Lavon's enlistment idea of the early 1950s (enthusiastically supported by Moshe Sharett as well, though a large part of Mapai did not support Lavon's plan) would have ended military rule much earlier. Thousands of Arab-Israelis in OTL rushed to sign up for the draft, and it was a successful program - it was only the Lavon Affair that forced Lavon from power and restored Ben-Gurion to power, and before the Lavon Affair, people saw Lavon as the natural successor to Ben-Gurion.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Israeli-Arabs were under military rule until November 1966, that's true, but Pinhas Lavon's enlistment idea of the early 1950s (enthusiastically supported by Moshe Sharett as well, though a large part of Mapai did not support Lavon's plan) would have ended military rule much earlier. Thousands of Arab-Israelis in OTL rushed to sign up for the draft, and it was a successful program - it was only the Lavon Affair that forced Lavon from power and restored Ben-Gurion to power, and before the Lavon Affair, people saw Lavon as the natural successor to Ben-Gurion.
OK; understood. :)
 

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
Donor
Monthly Donor
I heard from reading some of Itamar Rabinovich's works I think that Moshe Sharett was considerably more dovish than Ben-Gurion and than Shimon Peres in his younger days.
 
I heard from reading some of Itamar Rabinovich's works I think that Moshe Sharett was considerably more dovish than Ben-Gurion and than Shimon Peres in his younger days.

Sharett was more dovish than Ben-Gurion but it was more that he opposed retaliatory strikes that were based on pure emotion and wanted to be pretty restrained. That was born from the havlagah ideology of the 1930s that he and Ben-Gurion created (basically, the idea was that the Jews will defend themselves, but will not attack others in revenge) for the Haganah (precursor to the IDF) and was adopted by almost the entirety of the Yishuv and political leadership (excluding Jabotinsky and the Revisionist movement).
 
Top