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The anarchist instincts that live within Jews are strong. Citizenship is a deep psychological characteristic. If the English have any greatness . . it is their sense of citizenship, perhaps unmatched by any other nation in the world, and the sense of citizenship is not measured by whether people are willing to give their lives to protect their land. . Citizenship is when people pay taxes. . European Jews have no such sense. I am afraid that it does not exist in this room either. . In Europe, Jews only make demands, and rightly so.

It is England that has political genius. True, it was not always so; England was once a corporate state. But it is a great political genius of a people. We have none of their character. We must fashion it. 17 This belief in social engineering was widely held in Britain at the time, and among Ben-Gurion’s peers. Only in time – in our time – are its costs and damages being discussed, particularly in the context of the ethnic “melting pot” and under the influence of contemporary American and British concepts and values: The foundation of democracy in our times, when direct government by the entire citizen body is no longer possible, is the election of representatives who derive their power from the general [electorate] and are answerable to it.

Now the task was to move from pre-state forms to those of statehood. If Ben-Gurion saw no way to accomplish this via comprehensive political reform of the various coalition bodies during the transition from Yishuv to statehood immediately after the War of Independence, he now viewed the establishment of the national army and the determination of its special complexion and duties as an instrument for public action that could not be accomplished by conventional means. The first pressing problem was the depolitization of the army, after which came the initial decisions about the power structure of the regular forces, the consolidation of the reserve system, and preparations for a possible “second round” should the Arabs attack again.