History UsefulNotes / DavidBenGurion

He was born in UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} in 1886. In response to the anti-semitism he fled to Palestine and became a DeterminedHomesteader. During the feuding with local Arabs he was a VigilanteMan in the Hashomer militia, an embryo version of the Hagganah which was in turn later to become UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles. He served in the British army in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and then came back to take part in local politics, in which he rose rapidly.

He was born in UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} in 1886. In response to the anti-semitism he fled to Palestine and became a DeterminedHomesteader. During the feuding with local Arabs he was a VigilanteMan in the Hashomer militia, an embryo version of the Hagganah which was in turn later to become UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles. He served in the British army in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and then came back to take part in local politics,in which he rose rapidly.

During the Mid-century he directed the policy of the pre-independence "Yishuv" (a labor union alliance that was evolving into a de facto state), and that of the new state of UsefulNotes/{{Israel}}. He led during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and during the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict War of Independence]] and helped build a nation that survives to this day.

Nerds who don't keep up with middle-eastern history or politics may recognize him as the visual inspiration for the [[Franchise/GreenLantern Guardians of the Universe]]...or [[Franchise/GhostInTheShell Section 9 Chief Aramaki Daisuke]].

David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) was the primary founder and the first Prime Minister of UsefulNotes/{{Israel}}.

David Gruen was born in UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} in 1886. In response to the anti-semitism he fled to Palestine and became a DeterminedHomesteader. During the feuding with local Arabs he was a VigilanteMan in the Hashomer militia, an embryo version of the Hagganah which was in turn later to become UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles. He served in the British army in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and then came back to take part in local politics,in which he rose rapidly.

Nerds who don't keep up with middle-eastern history or politics may recognize him as the visual inspiration for the [[Franchise/GreenLantern Guardians of the Universe]]...or [[Frnachise/GhostInTheShell Section 9 Chief Aramaki Daisuke]].

David Ben Gurion was born in UsefulNotes/{{Poland}} in 1886. In response to the anti-semitism he fled to Palestine and became a DeterminedHomesteader. During the feuding with local Arabs he was a VigilanteMan in the Hashomer militia, an embryo version of the Hagganah which was in turn later to become UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles. He served in the British army in UsefulNotes/WorldWarI and then came back to take part in local politics,in which he rose rapidly.

%%!!Tropes as portrayed in fiction:

!!Associated Tropes:
* AnImmigrantsTale
* BadassBookworm
* BadassIsraeli
* TheChessmaster
* FightingForAHomeland
* LaResistance
* TheMagnificent: Ben-gurion means "son of a lion." Of course, he chose it because it sounded like "Grün," but between "Son of a Lion" and the literal translation "Green" (especially when the Hebrew word for "green" is the rather uninspiring "Yaroq"), which would ''you'' choose?
* TheSpock: Especially compared to Moshe Sharett/Shertok's [[TheMcCoy McCoy]].
* TheSpymaster : Part of his job was this.
* TheStrategist
* TeamDad
* VindicatedByHistory: People seem to ignore some glaring faults of his nowadays:
** The party he lead, ''Mifleget Po‘alei Eretz Yisrael'' ("Workers' Party of the Land of Israel", or "Mapai" for short), ruled Israel through almost dictatorial means, including firing teachers who voted for the ‘wrong’ party (or even weren’t members of the workers’ association associated with the party) and bribing workers during elections. In one notorious case, a labourer slid his vote into the ballot box and, realising his blunder, quickly exclaimed, ‘I slid the five ''lirot''[[note]]Sing. ''lira'', Israel’s first currency[[/note]] together with the ''alef''[[note]]The letter that was used for Mapai on the notes slid into ballots[[/note]]!’
** Blaming (at least in his diary) all sorts of atrocities committed by the IDF in its early days (the most notorious case being [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Qasim_massacre the massacre at Kafr Qasim]]) on [[TheWoobie Holocaust survivors]][[note]]Until the Eichmann trial, Holocaust survivors were almost universally assumed to be some sort of entirely immoral human beings, assuming they couldn’t have survived otherwise.[[/note]], referring to them as ‘human dust’, and later on on non-Ashkenazi Jews. In both cases he was dead wrong: the atrocities were committed by Ashkenazi Jews who were born and raised in Israel, or at least assimilated willingly and quickly, the kind of people Ben-Gurion was mostly fond of.
** [[RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment And let’s not go into]] his role in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus 1948 Palestinian exodus]]...
* XanatosSpeedChess: He was very good at this.
----

During the Mid-century directed the policy of the pre-independence "Yishuv" (a labor union alliance that was evolving into a de facto state), and that of the new state of UsefulNotes/{{Israel}} . He led during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and during the [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict War of Independence]] and helped build a nation that survives to this day.

Ben Gurion was in some ways an InsufferableGenius but he was in the right place at the right time. His personality was more like TheSpock than TheMcCoy, and he led policy through his brilliant grasp of strategy, a gift which Israel badly needed in it's formative years.