Moshe Sharett

Born in Kherson in the Russian Empire (today in Ukraine), Sharett immigrated to Ottoman Palestine as a child in 1906. For two years, 1906–1907, the family lived in a rented house in the village of Ein-Sinya, north of Ramallah.[4] In 1910 his family moved to Jaffa, then became one of the founding families of Tel Aviv.

He graduated from the first class of the Herzliya Hebrew High School, even studying music at the Shulamit Conservatory. He then went to Constantinople to study law at Istanbul University, the same university at which Yitzhak Ben-Zvi and David Ben-Gurion studied. However, his time there was cut short due to the outbreak of World War I. He served a commission as First Lieutenant in the Ottoman Army, working as an interpreter.[5]

In 1922, Sharett married Tzippora Meirov,[6] with whom he had two sons, Ya'akov and Haim, and a daughter, Yael.[7]

Moshe Shertok (Sharett) (standing, right) at a meeting with Arab leaders at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 1933. Also pictured are Haim Arlosoroff (sitting, center) with Chaim Weizmann (to his right), and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (standing, to Shertok's right)

After the war, he worked as an Arab affairs and land purchase agent for the Assembly of Representatives of the Yishuv. He also became a member of Ahdut Ha'Avoda, and later of Mapai.[8]

In 1922, he attended the London School of Economics, and worked for the British Poale Zion and actively edited the Workers of Zion. One of the people he met while in London was Chaim Weizmann.[9] He then worked on the Davar newspaper from 1925 until 1931.[8]

In 1931, after returning to Mandatory Palestine, he became the secretary of the Jewish Agency's political department.[10] After the assassination of Haim Arlosoroff in 1933 he became its head.[8]

During World War II, via his wife Zipporah, Sharett became embroiled in the question of emigration of refugee Jews stranded in Europe and the East. Some Polish refugees, children with and without parents were deported to Tehran with Soviet agreement.[11][12][13]

The success of these negotiations and others was a hallmark of Sharett's more cerebral approach to practical problems. He met with Tel Aviv bound Hungarian Jewish refugee representative Joel Brand, fresh off the plane from Budapest. Yishuv leadership mistrusted Brand, and the British thought him a criminal.

Sharett's response was to hand the self-appointed liberator over to the British authorities, who drove Brand to prison in Egypt. Sharett's General Zionism was deeply concerned in making Palestine a commercially viable home land; secondary was the deep emotional concerns of the murder in the Diaspora, which, by 1942, was in German hands.

Like Weizmann, whom he admired, Sharett was a principled Zionist, an implacable opponent of fascism, and a practical realist, prepared to co-operate fully with the Mandate.[14]

Sharett, as Ben-Gurion's ally, denounced Irgun's assassination squads on 13 December 1947, accusing them of playing to public feelings. Atrocities escalated, mainly upon Jews, but with reciprocal revenge killings; by the end of the war 6,000 Palestinian Jews, 1% of the population, had died. Sharett held the foreign policy post under the Agency until the formation of Israel in 1948.[15]

Zionist leaders, arrested in Operation Agatha, in detention in Latrun (L-R): David Remez, Moshe Sharett, Yitzhak Gruenbaum, Dov Yosef, Mr Shenkarsky, David Hacohen, and Isser Harel (1946)

Sharett was one of the signatories of Israel's Declaration of Independence. Sharett was elected to the Knesset in the first Israeli election in 1949, and served as Minister of Foreign Affairs during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. On 10 March he was made part of the first cabinet.[16] An armistice was signed with Lebanon that led to Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon on 23 March. International negotiations hosted by Britain took place on the Greek island of Rhodes at Suneh, King Abdullah's residence when Israel's emissaries, Yigael Yadin and Walter Eytan signed with Transjordan. Knowing the Jordanian position on the Hebron Hills, Yadin told Sharett that surrounded by hostile Arab states, Israel had to sign the Transjordan over to Iraq. American Dr. Ralph Bunche, who drafted the UN treaty for Sharett's office, received the Nobel Peace Prize. The final agreement was signed at the "Grande Albergo delle Rose" in Rhodes (now the Casino Rodos) on 3 April 1949.

Ominous violence lay ahead for the new state, warned Sharett during a debate on 15 June, in which he reminded the Jewish people of their vital interests. A fourth and final agreement was signed with Syria on 17 July; the 1947–1949 Palestine war had lasted one year and seven months. In the elections that followed, Mapai formed a coalition, deliberately excluding Herut and the Communists at Ben-Gurion's behest.[17]

As Foreign Minister, Sharett established diplomatic relations with many nations, and helped to bring about Israel's admission to the UN.[18] He continuously held this role until he retired in June 1956 including during his period as Prime Minister.[19]

Sharett met with Pius XII in 1952 in an attempt to improve relations with the Holy See, although this was to no avail.[20]

David Ben-Gurion retired from politics (temporarily as it turned out) in 1953, and Sharett was chosen by the party to take his place.[16] During his time as Prime Minister (the fifth and sixth governments of Israel), the Arab-Israeli conflict intensified, particularly with Nasser's Egypt. The Lavon Affair, which resulted in the resignation of Pinhas Lavon, the Defense Minister, brought down the government. When David Ben-Gurion returned to the cabinet, Pinchas Lavon was a civilian adviser to Prime Minister Sharett. But when he returned from the war, he was presented with a fait accompli; it had been the convention, but no longer for a career diplomat, to be chosen to become a Minister of Defense, a portfolio once controlled by the Prime Minister's office, now taken by Ben-Gurion.[16]

At the next elections in November 1955, Ben-Gurion replaced Sharett as head of the list and became prime minister again. Sharett retained his role as Foreign Minister under the new government of Ben-Gurion.[29] Ben-Gurion justified much of his policy on the siege mentality of a minority of Jews living within 57 times as many Arabs living in 215 times the land area. Sharett came to see Nasser as "suffering from delusions of grandeur" with an almost Hitlerite ambition to export revolution abroad.[30]

Shimon Peres was sent to London and Paris to drum up arms. He made a significant deal with France for jets and artillery. Peres, later a Prime Minister of Israel, was praised from the Knesset for handling the complexities of the 4th Republic.[31] The uneasy diplomatic language between Nasser and Israel that had characterised the post-1949 period turned into open hostility. Nasser ended even secretive clandestine contacts. Within days of the Gaza Raid Iraq aligned in a Baghdad Pact with Turkey.[32]

Ben-Gurion decided to replace Sharett as Foreign Minister with someone more sympathetic to his views, Golda Meir. The cabinet voted 35 to 7 in favour of resignation, but 75 members of the Central Committee abstained.[33] The British and French would provide a shield for Israel against sanctions. Nasser proclaimed a determination to set the Palestinians free. The Egyptian army was very certain of success; the Syrians announced a "war against imperialism, Zionism and Israel". According to Ben-Gurion, the Soviet Encyclopaedia now declared the Arab-Israeli War of Independence in 1948 "was caused by American Imperialism".

After stepping down as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 18 June 1956, in protest at the new government's bellicose policy which he thought dangerously precipitate, Sharett decided to retire. During his retirement he became chairman of Am Oved publishing house, Chairman of Beit Berl College, and Chairman of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency. He died in Jerusalem in 1965, and was buried in Tel Aviv's Trumpeldor Cemetery.[34]

A portrait of Moshe Sharett on the 20 New sheqalim banknote issued by the Bank of Israel

Sharett's personal diaries, first published by his son Yaakov in 1978, have proved to be an important source for Israeli history.[35] In 2007, the Moshe Sharett Heritage Society, the foundation that Yaakov established to care for Sharett's legacy, discovered a file of thousands of passages that had been omitted from the published edition.[35] They included "shocking revelations" about defense minister Pinhas Lavon.[36] A new edition published was complete, apart from a few words still classified.[36]

Many cities have streets and neighborhoods named after him.

From 1988 to 2017, Sharett appeared on the 20 NIS bills. The bill first featured Sharett, with the names of his books in small print, and with a small image of him presenting the Israeli flag to the United Nations in 1949. On the back of the bill, there was an image of the Herzliya Hebrew High School, from which he graduated.[37] In 1998, the bill went through a graphic revision, with the list of Sharett's books on the front side being replaced by part of his 1949 speech to the UN. The back side then featured an image of Jewish Brigade volunteers, part of a speech by Sharett on the radio after visiting the Brigade in Italy, and the list of his books in small print.[38] In November 2017, Sharett's portrait was replaced with that of Rachel Bluwstein.[39]

• 
  Sharett in Ottoman uniform with sister, Rebecca, 1917
• 
  Sharett with Dov Hoz, 1930, Sharett's wife on left
• 
  Moshe Sharett, 1936
• 
  Israeli President Chaim Weizmann (left) with first Turkish ambassador to Israel, Seyfullah Esin (c), and Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, 1950
• 
  Amin Gargurah (left), the Mayor of Nazareth, and Moshe Sharett, 1955

Bibliography

• Bialer, Uri (1990). Between East and West: Israel's Foreign Policy Orientation, 1948-1956. London: Cambridge University Press.
• Cohen, Israel (1945). The Zionist Movement. London: Frederick Muller.
• Louise Fischer, ed. (2009). Moshe Sharett: The Second Prime Minister, Selected Documents (1894–1965). Jerusalem: Israel State Archives. ISBN 978-965-279-035-4.
• Russell, Bertrand (1941). Zionism and the Peace Settlement in Palestine: A Jewish Commonwealth in Our Time. Washington.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Sharett, Moshe (1978). Yoman Ishi. Tel Aviv.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Sheffer, Gabriel (1996). Moshe Sharett: Biography of a Political Moderate. London and New York: Clarendon Press of Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-827994-9.
• Zohar, David M. (1974). Political Parties in Israel: The Evolution of Israel's Democracy. New York.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Moshe Sharett.

• Moshe Sharett Heritage Society, official website
• "Moshe Sharett" at Jewish Virtual Library
• "Moshe Sharett" at Jewish Agency for Israel
• The Central Zionist Archives in Jerusalem site: The Office of Moshe Sharett (S65), Personal papers (A245).
• Livia Rokach: Israel's Sacred Terrorism: A Study Based on Moshe Sharett's Personal Diary and Other Documents, foreword by Noam Chomsky, 1980.
• Yaakov Sharet's fall from Zionism and the Sharett family saga in Haaretz, 19 Sep 2021 (registration needed).