Chaim Weizmann deaths and the beginning of a new path leading to life. Two days after the proclamation of the State of Israel, Weizmann succeeded Ben-Gurion as chairman of the Provisional State Council, a collective presidency that held office until Israel's first parliamentary election, in February 1949. On 2 July 1948 a new kibbutz was founded facing the Syrian Heights overlooking the Jordan River, only 5 miles from Syrian territory. Their forces had already seized Kibbutz "Mishmar Ha-Yarden". The new kibbutz was named (President's Village) "Kfar Ha-Nasi". When the first Knesset met in 1949, Weizmann was nominated as Mapai's candidate for president.
Chaim Weizmann would be more support among politicians for the then-current offer in Uganda, called the British Uganda Programme. Following mainstream Zionist rejection of that proposal, Weizmann was credited later with persuading Balfour, by then the Foreign Secretary, for British support to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, the original Zionist aspiration. The story goes that Weizmann asked Balfour, "Would you give up London to live in Saskatchewan?" When Balfour replied that the British had always lived in London, Weizmann responded, "Yes, and we lived in Jerusalem when London was still a marsh." Nevertheless, this did not prevent naturalization as a British