David Ben-Gurion, who believes that economic power…

David Ben-Gurion, who believes that economic power is a prerequisite of political power, foresees that the fate of Zionist settlement in Palestine depends on the creation of a strong Jewish economy.

This aim, he believes, can only be accomplished through the creation of a Hebrew-speaking working class and a highly centralized Jewish economic structure.

He sets out to create the immense institutional framework for a Jewish workers' state in Palestine.

The British had already defeated the Turks when the Jewish Legion reached the battlefield, and, when Britain receives the mandate over Palestine, the work of realizing the "Jewish national home" has begun.

For Ben-Gurion, the "national home" is a step toward political independence.

To implement it, he calls for accelerated Jewish immigration to Palestine in the effort to create a Jewish nucleus that will serve as the foundation for the establishment of a Jewish state.

That nucleus is the Histadrut, or HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael (General Federation of Laborers in the Land of Israel)—the confederation of Jewish workers in Palestine founded in 1920 by Ben-Gurion (who is elected its first secretary-general) and his colleagues, among them Levi Eshkol and Itzhak Ben-Zvi.