THE HISTORY OF ISRAEL

The new state established a 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, which first met in Tel Aviv but moved to Jerusalem after the 1949 ceasefire. In January 1949, Israel held its first elections. The first President of Israel was Chaim Weizmann. David Ben-Gurion was elected prime minister.From 1948 until 1977 all governments were led by Mapai and the Alignment, predecessors of the Labour Party. Early on, a religious status quo agreement was reached between Ben-Gurion and the Rabbinate. One component of the agreement was the exemption of yeshiva students from military service.

1948 - 1953: Ben Gurion and mass immigration.

In the early years, Labour Zionists led by David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics and the economy was run on primarilysocialist lines. In 1950 the Knesset passed the Law of Return which granted all Jews the right to immigrate to Israel.Over the next few years, virtually the entire Jewish populations of Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt were driven out.Jews were not permitted to live in or enter Saudi-Arabia. About 500,000 Jews left Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia by the late sixties. The property these Jews abandoned (much of it in city centres) is a matter of dispute.From 1948 to 1951, mass immigration brought some 700,000 Jews to Israel, doubling the population and leaving an indelible imprint on Israeli society.[31] Most immigrants to Israel in the early years were either Holocaust survivors or Jews fleeing Arab lands; the largest groups in the first 3 years (over 100,000 each) were from Iraq, Romania and Poland, although immigrants arrived from all over Europe and the Middle East.[32]From 1948 to 1958, the population rose from 800,000 to two million. During this period, food, clothes and furniture were rationed in what became known as the Austerity Period (Tkufat haTsena). Immigrants were mostly refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot.By 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in temporary tents or pre-fabricated shacks built by the government. Most of the financial aid Israel received were private donations from Jews outside the country (mainly in the USA).[33]The need to solve the economic crisis led Ben-Gurion to sign a reparations agreement with West Germany. During the Knesset debate some 5,000 demonstrators gathered and riot police had to cordon the building. During the debate, the Herut leader Menachem Begin and Ben-Gurion called each other fascists and Begin branded Ben-Gurion a "hooligan."[34]Dalia Ofer estimates that by 1952 about 400,000 Israelis were Jews who had been severely displaced by the Holocaust, and the Israeli government's demand for German reparations was in lieu of the expenses involved in resettling them.[35] Israel received several billion marks and in return Israel agreed to open diplomatic relations with Germany.

1954 - 1955: Moshe Sharett and the Lavon Affair

In January 1954 Moshe Sharett became Prime-Minister of Israel, however his government was brought down by the Lavon Affair, a crude plan to disrupt US-Egyptian relations, involving Egyptian Jews planting bombs at American sites in Egypt. The plan failed when the eleven agents were arrested. Defence Minister Lavon was blamed despite his denial of responsibility.[37]In the aftermath of the affair the government resigned and Ben-Gurion returned to the post of Prime-Minister winning the 1955 election.

1955 - 1963: Ben-Gurion II: Sinai Campaign & Eichmann Trial

1963 - 1969: Levi Eshkol and the Six-Day War

1969 - 1975: Golda Meir and Yom Kippur War

1975 - 1976: Yitzhak Rabin I: Operation Entebbe, start of Religious Settlements

1977 - 1981: Menachem Begin I: The Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty

1981 - 1983: Begin II: The First Lebanon War

1984 - 1988: Yitzhak Shamir / Shimon Peres rotation government and first Intifada

1988 - 1992: Shamir II: The Gulf War and Soviet immigration

1992 - 1995: Rabin II: Oslo peace talks

1996 - 1999: Binyamin Netanyahu - the peace process slows

1999 - 2001: Ehud Barak and withdrawal from South Lebanon

2001 - 2006: Ariel Sharon and withdrawal from Gaza and the Northern West Bank