Download Israel in the 50s an..

Israel in the 50s and 60s
Radical discontinuity
• 1948 as a defining moment
• Sovereignty as internal control
• Sovereignty as external definition
State and economy
• State owned the railway system, postal
service, telephone and television systems
• State owned as much as 50% of
companies in oil, petrochemical, and
defense products
• More heavily engaged in agriculture than
in industry
• “European” country where taxes=40% of
GDP
Development
• Rapid population growth in the cities
• Increased water consumption from 230
million meters3 to 1900 million meters3
Jerusalem c. 1900
Jerusalem today
Conflict over water
• Sources of Jordan : Israel, Lebanon and
Jordan
• Lake Tiberias only overyear storage site
– If it is within Israel’s sovereignty
1964
• Clash at Dan headwaters
• Diversion of water from the Hasbani to the
Banias river
Water and sovereignty
• Conflict over the use of the Jordan directly
and indirectly between 1964-1967
– Could Syria build a diversion canal on the
Yarmouk?
– Could Israel prevent the canal and dam?
– The battle for air supremacy
On the Egyptian front
• After 1956 UN Forces were stationed on
Egyptian territory
• Israel had “innocent passage” through
Aqaba
• Inter-Arab conflict induced Nasser to
remove UN troops, re-instate the
blockade and prepare for war with Israel
Israeli strategic concerns
• Better to strike first
• Preference to weaken Egypt
• Recognition that the US had become the
dominant power in the world
National Unity
• In May 1967 Revisionists join the
government
• Capture of East Jerusalem and collapse of
the Arab armies = euphoria
Back to the beginning?
• Israel now controlled all of the Mandate
but with the large Palestinian population
• Would be plausible to “re-play” the 30s?
• A far more diverse Jewish society had
replaced the Zionist movement
• Integration of Israel into a global economy
required economic change
The emergence of “Likud”
• Begin as electoral leader
• The Mizrahim search for power
• The Labor Old Guard exhausts itself