Editing David Ben-Gurion (section)

=== Attitude towards conquering the West Bank ===
[[File:Flickr - Israel Defense Forces - Life of Lt. Gen. Yitzhak Rabin, 7th IDF Chief of Staff in photos (17).jpg|thumb|David Ben-Gurion with [[Yigal Allon]] and [[Yitzhak Rabin]] in the [[Negev]], during the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]]]]

After the ten-day campaign during the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War|1948 war]], the Israelis were militarily superior to their enemies and the Cabinet subsequently considered where and when to attack next.<ref name="BM315">Benny Morris (2008), pp. 315–316.</ref> On 24 September, an incursion made by the Palestinian irregulars in the Latrun sector, killing 23 Israeli soldiers, precipitated the debate. On 26 September, Ben-Gurion put his argument to the Cabinet to attack Latrun again and conquer the whole or a large part of West Bank.<ref name="autogenerated1967">Benny Morris (2008), p. 317.</ref><ref>Uri Ben-Eliezer, ''The Making of Israeli Militarism'', Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 185 writes: "Ben-Gurion describes to the Minister his plans to conquer the entire West Bank, involving warfare against entire Jordan's Arab Legion, but to his surprise the ministers rejected his proposal."</ref><ref name="BG-latrun"/><ref name="Benny Morris 2008, p. 318">Benny Morris (2008), p. 318.</ref> The motion was rejected by a vote of seven to five after discussions.<ref name="Benny Morris 2008, p. 318"/> Ben-Gurion qualified the cabinet's decision as {{transliteration|he|bechiya ledorot}} ("a source of lament for generations") considering Israel may have lost forever the Old City of Jerusalem.<ref>Mordechai Bar-On, ''Never-Ending Conflict: Israeli Military History'', Stackpole Books, 2006, p. 60 writes: "Originally, this was an idiom that Ben-Gurion used after the government rejected his demand to attack the Legion and occupy Samaria in the wake of a Mujuhidin's attack near Latrun in September 1948."</ref><ref>Yoav Gelber, ''Israeli-Jordanian Dialogue, 1948–1953'', Sussex Academic Press, 2004, p. 2.</ref><ref name="autogenerated1968">Benny Morris (2008), pp. 315.</ref>

There is a controversy around these events. According to Uri Bar-Joseph, Ben-Gurion placed a plan that called for a limited action aimed at the conquest of Latrun, and not for an all-out offensive. According to David Tal, in the cabinet meeting, Ben-Gurion reacted to what he had been just told by a delegation from Jerusalem. He points out that this view that Ben-Gurion had planned to conquer the West Bank is unsubstantiated in both Ben-Gurion's diary and in the Cabinet protocol.<ref name="Shalom2002p155"/><ref name="Shalom2002p160"/><ref name="Tal2004p406"/><ref name="Bar-Joseph2013p115"/>

The topic came back at the end of the 1948 war, when General Yigal Allon also proposed the conquest of the West Bank up to the Jordan River as the natural, defensible border of the state. This time, Ben-Gurion refused although he was aware that the IDF was militarily strong enough to carry out the conquest. He feared the reaction of Western powers and wanted to maintain good relations with the United States and not to provoke the British. Moreover, in his opinion the results of the war were already satisfactory and Israeli leaders had to focus on the building of a nation.<ref name="Shapira2014p173"/><ref name="Morris2009p79"/><ref name="Shalom2002p174"/>

According to Benny Morris, "Ben-Gurion got cold feet during the war. ... If [he] had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country -the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion rather than a partial one- he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."<ref>Ari Shavit, ''Survival of the fittest : An Interview with Benny Morris'', Ha'aretz Friday Magazine, 9 January 2004.</ref>