As I showed in this month’s essay at Mosaic Magazine, David Ben-Gurion made sure that in 1948, Israel declared statehood without specifying its borders. So just what future borders did Ben-Gurion have in mind? This has been the source of a running debate in Israel, as proponents of this or that set of borders invoke certain statements by Ben-Gurion, and downplay or ignore others.

Avi Shilon is one of Israel’s most interesting younger historians, and is the author, inter alia, of the book Ben-Gurion: His Later Years in the Political Wilderness. Makers of the film Ben-Gurion: Epilogue credited that book with providing inspiration and background. In Shilon’s response to my Mosaic essay, he looks at Ben-Gurion’s pragmatic approach to Israel’s borders, and his preferences after 1967. I’ll have more to say on this issue in my “last word” next Monday. Read Shilon here.

And just a footnote: last week, Israel’s Channel 10 began to broadcast journalist Raviv Drucker’s six-part series The Captains, on crucial decisions by Israeli prime ministers. Ben-Gurion is the subject of the first episode. Drucker builds up the May 12, 1948 session of the People’s Administration very dramatically. But even he has to accept the record. “Ben-Gurion wins,” goes Drucker’s narration. “There isn’t even a vote. It’s clear that he has a majority, and no one wants to go down in history as someone who voted against establishment of the state.” Indeed. Unfortunately, Drucker doesn’t mention the fateful vote that banished mention of the UN partition borders from the declaration. Too bad: as I showed, it was one of Ben-Gurion’s greatest coups.