David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) was raised within an active Zionist household. In 1906, he immigrated to Erav Israel, where he first started formulating and writing about his belief in pragmatic socialism and Jewish nationalism. After serving in the British Army in World War I, Ben-Gurion moved back to Palestine and was elected as secretary of the Histadrut, a labor organization focusing on Jewish workers. He continued to participate in Israeli labor politics throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

In June 1937, the British Peel Commission released a report recommending the partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, in reaction to growing Arabic riots. Ben-Gurion and other Zionist leaders accepted this proposition, believing that even a small Jewish state was better than none.

This edition is a brochure, published by a German press in Tel Aviv in 1938. It is a transcript of a speech given by David Ben-Gurion at the Zurich Congress in 1937. At this meeting, Ben-Gurion addressed his thoughts on the implementation of separate Jewish and Arab states.