As political debate over Israel’s legitimacy intensifies across global forums, long-buried archival records and biographical details about the men who led the Zionist movement are receiving renewed scrutiny. Chief among them is a pattern of name changes, shifting nationalities, and naturalization certificates issued under the British Mandate of Palestine — documents which challenge today’s common political narratives about “eternal” statehood and indigenous return.
Across Israel’s prime ministerial lineage — from David Ben-Gurion to Yair Lapid — a striking trend emerges: most were either born outside the land they would one day govern or were the children of recent European settlers. Many held foreign nationalities, often changing names to shed Slavic, Polish, or Belarusian origins in favour of Hebrew-sounding identities.
From Grün to Ben-Gurion
Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was born David Grün in Poland. Like many Zionist activists of the era, his legal status transitioned across several imperial administrative categories: from Polish, then Ottoman, to British Mandate Palestine. His contemporaries followed a similar path. Moshe Sharett began life as Moshe Chertok in Kherson, Ukraine. Levi Eshkol was born Levi Shkolnik in Kyiv. Golda Meir, born Golda Mabovitch, emigrated first to the United States before reaching Palestine.
Others arrived from regions that today exist within Belarus, Russia, or Ukraine. Menachem Begin — born Menachem Volfovitch Begun in Brest-Litovsk — reached Palestine with the Polish Anders’ Army during the Second World War. Yitzhak Shamir entered political history as Yitzhak Yezernitsky of Brest.
This wave of migration from Eastern Europe formed the political and ideological nucleus of the Zionist project, but the adoption of new names — and later, new nationalist narratives — raises questions that historians continue to debate.
The Case of Shimon Peres
Few documents symbolise this phenomenon more clearly than the 1937 British Mandate naturalization certificate issued to Szymon Perski, better known to the world as Shimon Peres, who would later serve as Israel’s prime minister and president. At the time, Palestine was an internationally administered geopolitical entity, and Perski deliberately applied for Palestinian citizenship.
The file, reproduced in recent documentary work, includes Perski’s request to change his first name to Shimon — on the grounds that “Sheiml” was a “corrupted Polish version.” Critics argue that this was not merely personal preference, but part of a broader cultural reinvention designed to obscure European origins.
A Pattern of Reinvention
The record extends well beyond Peres:
- Yigal Allon, born Yigal Peikowitz, to Belarusian settlers.
- Benjamin Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Mileikowsky, immigrated from Poland and the United States.
- Ariel Sharon was born Ariel Scheinerman to Belarusian parents.
- Ehud Barak was born Ehud Brog, son of Lithuanian settlers.
Notably, some current officials still carry surnames tied to European villages — a living reminder of the state’s recent immigrant foundations.
For critics, the pattern is not merely cosmetic. It reflects a deliberate effort to sever links with diaspora roots and construct a seamless national mythos in a land undergoing profound demographic transformation.
Historical Context: When Britain Called Zionist Militias “Terrorists”
The British Mandate period also reveals an often-forgotten reversal in the language of political violence. Contemporary archival footage from British Pathé and official government reports routinely described armed Jewish underground organisations — including the Irgun and Lehi (Stern Gang) — as terrorist groups, not calling Palestinians terrorists, as is so often the case now and since, but labelling the Israelis as the real terrorists. These Jewish militias carried out a campaign of bombings, assassinations, and attacks on British officials to pressure London into withdrawing from Palestine.
The most notorious incident was the 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Orchestrated by the Irgun under Menachem Begin — who later became prime minister — the explosion killed 91 people, including British servicemen. Britain condemned the attack as “an act of terrorism,” launching widespread arrests and counter-insurgency operations in response.
During this period, several men who later led the State of Israel were wanted fugitives by the very power administering Palestine.
The Nakba: Displacement, Violence, and the Birth of a State
As the British withdrew and Zionist leadership declared independence in 1948, the region descended into mass ethnic cleansing of the indigineous population and extermination. For Palestinians, this period is remembered as the Nakba — “the catastrophe” — in which approximately 750,000 Palestinians were driven from or fled their homes.
Historical scholarship and survivor testimony describe:
- village-to-village expulsions,
- executions and massacres by paramilitary units such as Irgun and Haganah formations,
- the use of incendiary weapons and, in some cases, flamethrowers,
- systematic rape, torture and the destruction of homes to prevent return.
Entire communities which had initially welcomed or at least tolerated early European arrivals — offering work, land access, and in many cases cohabitation — found themselves under attack as Zionist strategic doctrine shifted toward demographic control.
More than 400 villages were depopulated. Many were razed. Their Arabic names were erased from maps.
The evacuated properties, orchards, farms, and homes were rapidly incorporated into the new state, later forming districts of what is now called Israel.
After the ceasefire, Israel passed laws preventing displaced Palestinians — now refugees — from returning. Their fencing, checkpoint architecture, and designated “shoot-to-kill zones” near borders and separation walls enforce this prohibition to the present day.
Meanwhile, the descendants of newly required European immigrants remained free to live on those properties.
Citizenship Debates and the “Non-Existence” of Palestine
Today, some Jewish political factions assert that there “was never a Palestinian state,” portraying Israel as their ancient national revival rather than a 20th-century political creation. Yet archival records show that the very founders of Israel carried Palestinian nationality under British administration — a jurisdiction recognised by the League of Nations.
For Palestinians, these documents invalidate claims that the land was empty, stateless, or devoid of civic identity before 1948.
Generational Amnesia and the Battle Over Symbols
Many Israelis born after statehood are unfamiliar with the complexities of Mandate-era citizenship. Post-1948 education centred on biblical ancestry, European trauma, and the narrative of “return.” Administrative paperwork, name changes, and naturalization certificates rarely appear in textbooks.
This historical anxiety helps explain continuing political effort to erase Palestinian identifiers. Flags, names, and historical continuity represent threats to a narrative of uninterrupted ownership.
The Modern Pivot: DNA, Ancestry, and State Control
Critics argue that the strict DNA-testing regime in Israel is about more than privacy or medical oversight. By insisting on court orders, refusing commercial ancestry kits, and tightly controlling recognised laboratories, the state limits individuals’ ability to trace their origins on their own terms.
If genetic heritage challenges dominant narratives — revealing European or non-Jewish ancestry, for example — these barriers prevent such discoveries from surfacing legally.
Under the Genetic Information Law (5761–2000), genetic testing is heavily regulated. It is defined broadly, and ancestry or relationship tests face the steepest hurdles; only court-ordered results from accredited Israeli labs are legally valid.
Even under the Law of Return, DNA is treated cautiously — often as secondary evidence.
Families attempting reunification, including Palestinian citizens of Israel separated from relatives in Gaza, have seen court-approved procedures delayed or altered abruptly, sometimes leaving loved ones stranded in war zones.
The “Hidden Suppression” Argument
Critics say the restrictions go beyond privacy. They argue that:
- national belonging is being biologically policed,
- ancestry that might contest origin myths is suppressed,
- and only state-approved identities are recognised.
Academic research notes that Israel has explored genetic criteria for determining Jewishness for immigration. That debate leaves unresolved philosophical questions: who defines identity — the individual, the community, or the state?
The Official Rationale — and Its Limits
Authorities emphasise the need to prevent:
- misuse of genetic data,
- insurance and employment discrimination,
- fraudulent claims,
- and unregulated laboratory processes.
But skeptics counter that these aims could be met with less intrusive methods elsewhere in the world. Instead, they see a deeper motive: control over historical narrative and biological legitimacy.
Personal Stories, National Stakes
Young Israelis who quietly suspect European, Arab, or mixed heritage may find their path to self-knowledge blocked. For some, the state controls not only their borders but their biology.
Communities whose histories are already marginalised — Palestinians, Bedouin, mixed-lineage citizens — feel the barriers most acutely. Attempts to prove lineage for land claims, residency status, or refugee return rights encounter a legal fortress.
The Future of Identity in a Contested Land
From early Zionist leaders’ name changes and Mandate-era naturalization certificates to the Nakba’s mass displacement and today’s regulated DNA-testing regime, identity in Israel/Palestine remains not merely personal, but political.
As time passes — and digital archives expand — history becomes harder to suppress. Whether through faded documents, family memories, or genetic markers, the question persists:
Who gets to decide who belongs?
And in a land saturated with competing memories, one truth remains stubbornly present: the struggle is not only for territory, but for the right to define history, ancestry, and the future itself.
