How many can you identify? Some are obvious, some not quite as well known.
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Here's a crowdsourcing exercise: Pick a face or two or three, write up a three sentence biography (essentially the first paragraph of Wikipedia entries, such as #9: Mr. X, 18xx-19xx, born in Y, active in the Z movement, became Israel's first P, well known for coining the phrase "AAA BBB CCC".) Number them left to right, top to bottom.
I will put them on this page in a few hours so we can have a decent reference of Zionist pioneers, thanks to Fatah!
(In the Facebook page, clicking on any of them opens up a link to a short, anti-Israel bio of the people in Arabic. Between Google Translate, Google Image Search and Wikipedia, you should be able to figure out everyone pictured.)
Note that most of the people on the list had nothing to do with the so-called "Nakba." This shows, more than anything, that it is Jewish self-determination that upsets the Arabs, not anything that happened to Palestinian Arabs in 1948.
1. Ahad Ha'am, pen name of Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg (18 August 1856 – 2 January 1927), was a Hebrew essayist, and one of the foremost pre-state Zionist thinkers. He is known as the founder of cultural Zionism. With his secular vision of a Jewish "spiritual center" in Israel, he confronted Theodor Herzl. Unlike Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, Ha'am strived for "a Jewish state and not merely a state of Jews".
2. Menachem Begin (16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency.
Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political f ringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War), but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labour Party political dominance.
Begin’s most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Begin’s government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion,[3] Begin grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.
3. David Ben-Gurion (16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary founder and the first Prime Minister of Israel.
Ben-Gurion's passion for Zionism, which began early in life, led him to become a major Zionist leader and Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization in 1946. As head of the Jewish Agency, and later president of the Jewish Agency Executive, he became the de facto leader of the Jewish community in Palestine, and largely led its struggle for an independent Jewish state in Palestine. On 14 May 1948, he formally proclaimed the establishment of th e State of Israel, and was the first to sign the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which he had helped to write. Ben-Gurion led Israel during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, and united the various Jewish militias into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Subsequently, he became known as "Israel's founding father".
Following the war, Ben-Gurion served as Israel's first Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, he helped build the state institutions, presiding over various national projects aimed at the development of the country. He also oversaw the absorption of vast numbers of Jews from all over the world. A centerpiece of his foreign policy was improving relationships with the West Germans. He worked very well with Konrad Adenauer's government in Bonn, and West Germany provided lar ge sums (in the Reparations Agreement between Israel and West Germany) in compensation for Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust.
In 1954, he resigned and served as Minister of Defense, before returning to office in 1955. Under his leadership, Israel responded aggressively to Arab guerrilla attacks, and in 1956, invaded Egypt along with British and French forces after Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal.
He stepped down from office in 1963, and retired from political life in 1970. He then moved to Sde Boker, a kibbutz in the Negev desert, wher e he lived until his death. Posthumously, Ben-Gurion was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th century.
4. Leon Pinsker (1821, Tomaszów Lubelski, Kingdom of Poland, Russian Empire – 1891, Odessa, Russian Empire) was a physician, a Zionist pioneer and activist, and the founder and leader of the Hovevei Zion, also known as Hibbat Zion movement.
5. Shimon Peres. A first cousin to actress Lauren Bacall, Peres has had an extensive career in the Israeli government, served in a variety of capacities including Director of Defense, and Ministers for Immigration, Transportation, Information, twice as Prime Minister and at age 90 serves as President a role that is the ceremonial head of State. His career in diplomacy included creating close relationships with the French which helped jump start Israel’s nuclear program, however his controversial and optimistic endorsement of the Oslo Accords, while winning him a joint Nobel Prize also helped to revive the flagging political fortunes of Yasser Arafat. In 1994 Peres approached the Arab world as a technocrat, promoting "A New Middle East", one of trade and co-operation, which Arab critics rejected fearing Israel domination. Still Peres made diplomatic inroads - for example when he visited Qatar to make a deal for imports of natural gas, the Israeli national anthem was played in his honor.
6. Moshe Dayan (Kitaigorodsky) (20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. He was the second child born on the first kibbutz. As commander of the Jerusalem front in Israel's War of Independence, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–58) during the 1956 Suez Crisis, but mainly as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War, he became to the world a fighting symbol of the new state of Israel. After being blamed by some for the army's lack of preparation before the outbreak of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, he left the military and joined politics. As Foreign Minister Dayan played an important part in negotiating the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
7. Nahum Goldmann (July 10, 1895 – August 29, 1982) was a leading Zionist and the founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress from 1948 to 1977. He was born in Vishnevo, Russian Empire but moved as a child to Frankfurt, Germany, and he narrowly escaped being arrested by the Gestapo in 1933. In 1936, Goldmann and Reform Rabbi Stephen S. Wise established the World Jewish Congress (WJC). He is credited with the early prediction of the threat posed by Hitler and Nazi Party. Addressing the Zionist Organization of America in October 1942, having heard the reports of genocide, he lamented, "Our generation is in the tragic position that one-half of the generation is being slaughtered before our eyes, and the other half has to sit down and cannot prevent this catastrophe."
8. Theodor Herzl (May 2, 1860 – July 3, 1904), born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl, was a Jewish journalist and writer from Austria-Hungary. He is considered to have been the father of modern political Zionism and in effect the founder of the State of Israel. Herzl formed the World Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish migration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state.
9. Levi Eshkol (born Levi Shkolnik, 25 October 1895 – 26 February 1969) served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.
10. Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (1801 –1885). Born and married into a prominent English family Earl Shaftesbury was a major politician in Victorian England, a philanthropist and advocate for social reform. Introduced legislation for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, factory reform to ameliorate the terrible
working conditions of the industrial revolution including restricting working hours for children, mandatory education and outlawing the employment of boys as chimney sweeps.
Shaftesbury argued for a Jewish return to Israel for religious reasons as a committed Christian and because of what he saw as the economic advantages of developing the land of Israel in sponsorship with the British Empire. Public articles and private letters articulate Shaftesbury's view “a country without a nation” in need of “a nation without a country... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!"
12. Sir Moses Haim Montefiore (24 October 1784 – 28 July 1885) was a British financier and banker, advocate of social reform, philanthropist and Sheriff of London. Born to an Italian Jewish family, he donated large sums of money to promote industry, education and health amongst the Jewish community in the Levant, including the founding of Mishkenot Sha'ananim in 1860, the first settlement of the New Yishuv. As President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, his correspondence with the British consul in Damascus Charles Henry Churchill in 1841-42 is seen as pivotal to the development of Proto-Zionism.
13. Moses (Moshe) Hess (January or June 21, 1812 – April 6, 1875) was a Jewish philosopher and socialist, and one of the founders of Labor Zionism.
14. Benjamin Netanyahu (October 21, 1949- ). Israeli politician and writer. Current Likud chairman and Prime Minister of Israel. Served in the Sayeret Matkal unit during the 1973 war. Lost his brother Yonatan in the Entebbe hostage rescue mission. Author of several books on fighting terrorism, and founder of an anti-terrorism center named after his brother. Known for the phrases "wolf in sheep's clothing" (on Ruhani) and "This Scud's for you, America" (on Iran, play on the Budweiser slogan "This Bud's for you").
15. Yitzhak Rabin (1 March 1922 – 4 November 1995) was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995.
In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Shimon Peres and Yasir Arafat. He was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical Yigal Amir, who was opposed to Rabin's signing of the Oslo Accords. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel, the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Lev i Eshkol.
He was voted number one in a 2005 Ynet poll of greatest Israelis.
16. Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, Baron de Rothschild (8 February 1868 – 27 August 1937), a scion of the Rothschild family, was a British banker, politician, and zoologist.
As an active Zionist and close friend of Chaim Weizmann, he worked to formulate the draft declaration for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. On 2 November 1917 he received a letter from the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, addressed to his London home at 148 Piccadilly. In this letter the British government declared its support for the establishment in Palestine of "a national home for the Jewish people". This letter became known as the Balfour Declaration.
17. Yitzhak Shamir (born Icchak Jeziernicky; October 22, 1915 – June 30, 2012) was an Israeli politician and the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms, 1983–84 and 1986–1992. Before the establishment of the State of Israel, Shamir was a leader of the Zionist group Lehi. After the establishment of the State of Israel he served in the Mossad between 1955 and 1965, a Knesset Member, a Knesset Speaker and a Foreign Affairs Minister. Shamir was the country's third longest-serving prime minister after David Ben-Gurion and Benjamin Netanyahu.
18. Moshe Sharett (born Moshe Shertok 16 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was the second Prime Minister of Israel (1954–55), serving for a little under two years between David Ben-Gurion's two terms.
20. The photo is of Charles Dickens.They were meaning to describe Colonel Charles Henry Churchill (1807–1869), also known as "Churchill Bey", was a British officer and diplomat. He was a British consul in Ottoman Syria and created the first political plan for Zionism and the creation of the state of Israel in the region of Ottoman Palestine.
19. Ariel Sharon (February 26, 1928 – January 11, 2014) was an Israeli politician and general, who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel until he was incapacitated by a stroke.
Sharon was a commander in the Israeli Army from its creation in 1948. As a soldier and then an officer, he participated prominently in the 1948 War of Independence, becoming a platoon commander in the Alexandroni Brigade and taking part in many battles, including Operation Ben Nun Alef. He was an instrumental figure in the creation of Unit 101, and the Retribution operations, as well a s in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967, the War of Attrition, and the Yom-Kippur War of 1973. As Minister of Defense, he directed the 1982 Lebanon War.
Sharon was considered the greatest field commander in Israel's history, and one of the country's greatest military strategists. After his assault of the Sinai in the Six-Day War and his encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army in the Yom Kippur War, the Israeli public nicknamed him "The King of Israel".
Upon retirement, Sharon entered politics, joining the Likud, and served in a number of ministerial po sts in Likud-led governments from 1977–92 and 1996–99. He became the leader of the Likud in 2000, and served as Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006. In 1983 the Kahan Commission, established by the Israeli Government, found that as Minister of Defense during the 1982 Lebanon War Sharon bore "personal responsibility" "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge" in the massacre by Lebanese militias of Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The Kahan Commission recommended Sharon's removal as Defense Minister, and Sharon did resign after initially refusing to do so.
From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However, as Prime Minister, in 2004–05 Sharon orchestrated Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip. Facing stiff opposition to this policy within the Likud, in November 2005 he left Likud to form a new party, Kadima. He had been expected to win the next election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals.[4][5][6] After suffering a stroke on January 4, 2006, Sharon remained in a permanent vegetative state until his death in January 2014.
21. Chaim Azriel Weizmann (27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as President of the Zionist Organization and later as the First President of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann convinced the United States government to recognize the newly formed state of Israel.
Weizmann was also a biochemist who developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone through bacterial fermentation. He founded the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
22. Rabbi Judah ben Solomon Chai Alkalai (1798 – October 1878) was a Bosnian Jew Sephardic rabbi in Zemun in the Austrian Empire's Military Frontier (in present day Serbia) and one of pioneers of modern Zionism.
He became noted through his advocacy in favor of the restoration of the Jews to Palestine. By reason of some of his projects, he may justly be regarded as one of the precursors of the modern Zionists such as Theodor Herzl.
23. Yigal Allon (October 1918 – 29 February 1980) was an Israeli politician, a commander of the Palmach, and a general in the IDF. He served as one of the leaders of Ahdut HaAvoda party and the Israeli Labor party, and acting Prime Minister of Israel. He was a Knesset member and government minister from the third Knesset through the ninth.
24. Israel Zangwill (January 21, 1864 – August 1, 1926) was a British humorist and writer.
Zangwill was also involved in specifically Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and a territorialist. Zangwill left the Zionist movement in 1905 to lead the Territorialist movement, advocating a Jewish homeland in whatever piece of land might be available.
25. Ze'ev Jabotinsky; born Vladimir Yevgenyevich Zhabotinsky (18 October 1880 – 4 August 1940), was a Revisionist Zionist leader, author, poet, orator, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization in Odessa. With Joseph Trumpeldor, he co-founded the Jewish Legion of the British army in World War I and later established a number of Jewish organizations such as Beitar, Hatzohar, and the Irgun.
(h/t Bob Knot cisjew, L. King, IronyDome)