David Ben-Gurion was the first prime minister of Israel. He officially proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel, and he was the first person to sign the Israeli Decleration of Independence. Ben-Gurion led Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and united the IDF. He was named one of Time’s 100 most important people of the 20th century.
Theodor Herzl was the founder of Zionism, which is Jewish nationalism dedicated to the formation of a Jewish state. He was an influential person regarding Israel’s formation and nationalism. Here is an excerpt from his essay The Jewish State."The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish State.
The world resounds with outcries against the Jews, and these outcries have awakened the slumbering idea.…
We are a people—one people…. Let the sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the rightful requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves."