Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, surrounded by…

Israel's Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, surrounded by enemies and having to integrate thousands of immigrants into the new state, has attempted to make the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) the new unifying symbol of the fledgling state.

He realizes that the socialism of the Histadrut is ill suited to solving the problems facing the new state.

Above all, Israel needs a unity of purpose, which in Ben-Gurion's thinking can only be provided by a strong army that will defend the country against its enemies and help assimilate its culturally diverse immigrants.

Thus, Ben-Gurion adds to the socialist ethos of the Histadrut and kibbutz movements an aggressive Israeli nationalism spearheaded by the IDF.

To carry out this new orientation, he cultivates a "new guard" Mapai leadership headed by technocrat Shimon Peres, appointed deputy director general of the Defense Ministry and dynamic young General Moshe Dayan. (Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the Dayan-Peres supporters in Mapai and the "old guard" Labor establishment will compete for power.)

Ben-Gurion appoints as minister of finance his long-time colleague Levi Eshkol, who had worked untiringly for the future Israeli state, and had been instrumental during the Second World War in the movement of people and goods from Germany to Palestine.