Cooler heads among the Zionists prevailed. Ben-Gurion, ever the pragmatist, recognized the historic opportunity for international legitimacy and accepted U.N. Resolution 181 as, if nothing else, a good start. A decade earlier, when partition had first been discussed among the Zionist leaders, Ben-Gurion had argued, “I am certain we will be able to settle in all the other parts of the country, whether through agreement and mutual understanding with our Arab neighbors or in another way. Erect a Jewish state at once, even if it’s not in the whole land. The rest will come in the course of time. It
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