Page 189 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

A little over two weeks after the elections, on February 10, the Provisional State Council, the body that had served since the Declaration of Independence, convened in Tel Aviv for its final meeting, in which its accomplishments were summarized. The Council Chairman, Yosef Sprinzak, had said: "The work of the Provisional State Council has concluded. This is the first chapter in the life story and the daily business of the State of Israel. [...] we have made a beginning, and a continuation will indeed come."
The continuation was not in Tel Aviv but rather in Jerusalem, which at the time was and was not a full part of the State of Israel. This was due to the UN Resolution for November 29, 1947, which decreed that alongside the two new states that would be established in the area of the Mandatory Land of Israel, the Jewish state and the Arab state, a Corpus Separatum would be created for Jerusalem and its surrounding areas. The nascent State of Israel did not agree with this resolution, but did not oppose it at that stage. The Government of Israel faced several weighty matters, first and foremost the conducting of the final battles of the War of Independence, achieving armistice agreements with the Arab countries that attacked Israel, and approving Israel's accession to the UN, an issue that was on the UN's agenda back then. David Ben-Gurion, who was Prime Minister and Defense Minister in the winter of 1949, was not interested in a confrontation with the UN over
Ben-Gurion arrives at the opening ceremony to the Constituent Assembly, which would soon become the First Knesset
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