He made major, multifaceted contributions to the creation and development of the State of Israel, related primarily to the facilitation of the construction and import of Uzi submachine guns into then British-Mandated Palestine.
[4] Levine was a member of the original group of thirteen who, years before Jewish statehood, grasped Dr. Chaim Weizmann’s vision of the potential for science to grow the resources of Palestine.
The Weizmann Institute of Science emerged to take its place as a principal instrument for the advancement of human progress, and as a cornerstone of Israel’s survival and development.
[6] As early as 1945, Levine financed research at Harvard University on the purification of brackish water in the Negev, a desert in Southern Israel.
His gifts to the Weizmann Institute include, in addition, a $1 million pledge to expand the Harry and Leona Levine Institute of Applied Science, to make possible mission oriented research; endowment of the Abba Eban Professorial Chair in international relations in 1966, and two mathematics prizes in 1970, each at $1,000, to encourage studies in the field.
The know-how of the Weizmann Institute could be applied with equal effectiveness to the Mideast region, once there is peace with Israel's Arab neighbors.
That resolve was fortified by the full disclosure of the decimation of European Jewry by Adolf Hitler, and by the refusal of the British to permit the survivors to enter Palestine.
Slavin was an engineer from Russia who worked with Pinhas Rutenberg on building a power station at Naharayim, and managed the clandestine arms industry Ta'as in Mandatory Palestine from 1937 to 1952.
Slavin and Levine had trouble finding a location in the United States where they could develop a plant to make weapons and acquiring the necessary tools, jigs and fixtures.
Slavin, Levine and their team set up an engineering department, made individual blueprints of component pieces of the weapon, and distributed those to approximately 20 machine shops in Toronto to ensure that the project remained a secret.
The Pledge, made up of first-hand correspondence and interviews, is a narrative of a little-known subplot to the story of the state of Israel's birth.
[19] Harry Levine understood early on that a primary prerequisite of modern and viable statehood is basic and all-encompassing applied scientific research, which allows a society to be able to anticipate and serve the country's economic and industrial needs at all times and on many levels.
The IDF uses weapons manufactured by Israel Military Industries (IMI), previously referred to as Ta'as before statehood; their small arms are some of the most popular in the world.
Ultimately, Levine ran a risk by participating in the development of armaments factories in Palestine as a highly respected business man.