Pinchas Rosen

Pinchas Rosen (Hebrew: פנחס רוזן‎, 1 May 1887 – 3 May 1978) was an Israeli statesman, and the country's first Minister of Justice, serving three times during 1948–51, 1952–56, and 1956–61.

(In 2019 Israel's Supreme Court ruled that drafts of the declaration, commissioned by Rosen from fellow-lawyer Mordechai Beham, were of national importance and State, not private, property).

In 1950, when David Ben-Gurion was unable to form a coalition, the President gave the task to Rosen, as head of the Progressive Party.

The new party won the third largest number of seats in the 1961 elections but was not invited into the coalition, and Rosen lost his ministerial position.

In order to consolidate opposition to Mapai's hegemony within Israeli politics, the Liberal Party merged with Herut to form Gahal.

Rosen was a long-term ally of David Ben-Gurion although their relationship was sometimes strained, not least after the Lavon affair, a botched Israeli sabotage operation in Egypt, in which Rosen sided with Lavon who had been (almost certainly falsely) accused of masterminding the mission, while Ben-Gurion wanted the embarrassing affair quietly forgotten.