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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
Old city gate of Jaffa, outside Tel Aviv
Courtesy Les Vogel
In February 1950, the Israeli government had discreetly
negotiated a draft treaty with King Abdullah of Transjordan,
including a five-year nonaggression pact, open borders, and free
access to the port of Haifa. In April Abdullah annexed the West
Bank and East Jerusalem, thus creating the united Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan. Ben-Gurion acquiesced because he thought this would mean
an end to independent claims on Israeli territory and material
claims on confiscated Arab territory. Abdullah, however, was
assassinated in July 1951. Moreover, Israel was boycotted by all
its Arab neighbors, and from the end of 1951 the Suez Canal and the
Strait of Tiran (at the southern end of the Gulf of Aqaba, where it
opens into the Red Sea) were closed to Israeli shipping.
Surrounded by enemies and having to integrate thousands of
immigrants into the new state, Ben-Gurion attempted to make the IDF
the new unifying symbol of the fledgling state. He realized that
the socialism of the Histadrut was ill suited to solving the
problems facing the new state. Above all, Israel needed a unity of
purpose, which in Ben-Gurion's thinking could only be provided by
a strong army that would defend the country against its enemies and
help assimilate its culturally diverse immigrants. Thus, Ben-Gurion
added to the socialist ethos of the Histadrut and kibbutz movements
an aggressive Israeli nationalism spearheaded by the IDF. To carry
out this new orientation, he cultivated a "new guard" Mapai
leadership headed by dynamic young General Moshe Dayan and
technocrat Shimon Peres. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s the
Dayan-Peres supporters in Mapai and the "old guard" Labor
establishment would compete for power
(see Multiparty System
, ch.
4).
In November 1953, Ben-Gurion tendered his resignation, and the
less militaristic Moshe Sharett took over as prime minister. Under
Sharett's weaker leadership, the conflict between the old-guard
Mapai leadership and Ben-Gurion's new technocratic elite festered
openly. This led to a major scandal in the Labor Party called the
Lavon affair. Defense Minister Pinchas Lavon, an important figure
in the old guard, had authorized intelligence chief Benjamin Gibly
to launch Israeli spy rings in Cairo and Alexandria in an attempt
to embarrass Egyptian president Gamal Abdul Nasser. The Egyptians,
however, caught and later executed the spies, and the affair proved
to be a major embarrassment to the Israeli government. The
commission authorized to investigate the affair became embroiled in
a test of strength between the young military establishment--
including Dayan and Peres--and the Mapai old guard, whose support
Lavon solicited.
In February 1955, Ben-Gurion returned to the Ministry of
Defense, and with the malleable Sharett still as prime minister was
able to promote his hard-line defense policy. This position
resulted in a number of raids against the Egyptians in response to
attacks on Israeli settlements originating from Egyptian-held
territory. Subsequently, Ben-Gurion was restored to leadership of
the Mapai government. At this time, his biggest concern was the
rising power of Nasser. By October 1955, Nasser had signed an
agreement to buy arms from the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia,
while President Dwight D. Eisenhower refused to supply Israel with
weapons.
Ben-Gurion sought to inflict a mortal blow on the Egyptian
regime. Because Nasser threatened Western interests in the Suez
Canal, Ben-Gurion entered into secret talks with Britain and France
about the possibility of Israel striking at the Sinai Peninsula,
while Britain and France moved in on the Suez Canal, ostensibly to
help protect Western shipping from combat. In late October, the IDF
routed the Egyptian army at Gaza and after a week pushed to the
Gidi and Mitla passes. On November 5, 1956, the French and British
took over the Suez Canal area. After intense pressure from the
Eisenhower administration, which was worried about the threat of
Soviet military involvement, the European powers acceded to a
cease-fire.
In March 1957, Israeli troops were forced to withdraw. The war
served to spur Ben-Gurion's drive toward greater militarization.
Although Israel was forced to withdraw from Sinai, Ben-Gurion
deemed the war a success: the raids from Gaza ceased, UN
peacekeeping forces separated Egypt and Israel, greater cooperation
with France led to more arms sales to Israel and the building of a
nuclear reactor, and, most important, the army's near-perfect
performance vindicated his view on the centrality of the IDF.
Data as of December 1988
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