Today marks Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. In honor of the Jewish State’s 67th year of independence, here, from the February 1948 issue of COMMENTARY, is David Horowitz, then chief economic adviser to the Jewish Agency (established to oversee Jewish immigration to Israel), on “Founding the New State: An Expert’s Estimate of the Tasks Ahead”:

A world of dreams has come true against the background of twenty centuries of martyrdom and a tenacious struggle for survival—this was the first, the emotional reaction to the United Nations decision on Palestine. More than a state and a haven of refuge were created in that fateful hour. The ethnic identity and continuity of Jewish national existence was reasserted. An epoch of national renascence was inaugurated.

Click here to read it all.