# Israeli History/Challenges for a New State

Israel faced many problems in between 1949 and 1967. The ethnic cleansing of Arab towns had (temporarily) set aside the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but impoverished Jewish refugees from angered Arab nations created an entirely new set of ethnic problems, and the deeply divided government was barely functioning.

## Jews in Arab Countries

More than a thousand Jews were killed in antisemitic rioting during the 1940s in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and Yemen which helped trigger the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries. The Law of Return provided all Jews the legal right to immigrate to Israel and immediately become citizens of Israel if they choose to do so. the only exception are those whom the Minister of Interior considers a threat to the public health, welfare, or security of the state
The Right to Return was not written until 1950, but hours after the declaration of independence, olim came flooding in. There were 100,000 in the first six months, then over 250,000 in 1949.
June 1941: Mufti of Jerusalem, who had fled Palestine, inspired the pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali. this sparked rioting and a pogrom in Baghdad. Jews had lived in Iraq for 2,700 years. armed Iraqi mobs with the complicity of the police and the army . murdered 180 Jews and wounded almost 1,000. additional outbreaks 1946-49. after establishment of Israel in 1948, Zionism became a capital. In 1950, Iraqi Jews were permitted to leave the country within a year, provided that they forfeit their citizenship. 1951 the property of Jews who emigrated from Iraq was frozen and economic restrictions were placed on the remaining Jews.
From 1949-1951 Jews were evacuated from Iraq in Operations Ezra and Nehemiah. another 20,000 were smuggled out through Iran. 1952 Iraq's government barred Jews from emigrating. Jews were publicly hanged after false charges of hurling a bomb at the Baghdad office of the US Information Agency
1944 after Syria gained independence from France, the new government banned Jewish emigration to Palestine. the teaching of Hebrew in Jewish schools was severely restricted. attacks escalated and boycotts were called against Jewish businesses. 1947 after partition, Arab mobs in Aleppo destroyed the 2,500 year old community. scores of Jews were killed. over 200 homes, shops, and synagogues were destroyed. thousands of Jews illegally fled Syria to go to Israel. Jews only minority group whose passports identified their religion. freedom of movement was severely restricted. Jews who tried to flee faced either the death penalty of imprisonment at hard labor. Jews could not have government or bank jobs. Jews could not acquire telephones of driver's licenses, and could not purchase property. Jewish bank accounts were frozen. the Jewish cemetery in Damascus was paved over to build an airport road. Jewish schools were closed and handed over to Muslims
Across the world, from Burma to America, Jews were emigrated to Israel by diplomats and Mossad agents-- usually at expensive prices as part of an economic deal. These early immigration movements did not distinguish between ethnicities such as Sephardic and Arabic, focusing only on the political and economic situations of the Jewish populations of each country, and emphasizing communities in distress. In Morocco, for example, the Jewish Agency found an entire village that had gone blind due to trachoma. Some countries did not want their Jews to leave at all. In these instances Mossad arranged secret smuggling operations on cargo boats, camels, and caravans. However, Mossad also extracted profits from Zionist agencies for each new olim, and made a habit of filling every boat to capacity and bringing in olim ahead of schedule. By 1952 it was disbanded and replaced with an official Secret Service.
Immigration to the new state of Israel rose to four times the maximum estimated capacity. Survivors of pogroms came to Israeli ports only to be offloaded into squalid camps, and ironically deloused with sprays of DDT, akin to Nazi concentration camps. Medical assistance was nonexistent, floors were covered in human waste, food portions were meager-- sometimes only bread, milk, and a few olives-- and inhabitants were kept in the camps for months on end. Once immigrants left the camps, the kibbutzim and other agricultural systems were also overwhelmed with applicants and trainees. When the camps were shut down in 1949, olim were scattered around Israel to work for their food.

### Operation Magic Carpet

But Israel was similarly unprepared for another influx of olim from Yemen, Operation Magic Carpet; a doctor described 12,000 starving immigrants, many of them naked or half-naked, crowded into a "transit" site that was meant to hold 500 without as much as a tent to protect them from the elements. This reflected not only the slow progress of systematizing aliyah but also the conditions in Yemen, where child mortality was estimated at 80 percent, most of the population was constantly sick, and surviving children were quickly married to other Jews to prevent them from being kidnapped by the sultan and converted to Islam. While Israel was not an immediate improvement over Yemen, Zionist agencies quickly began discussing an investnment in the future of the Yemenites, aiming to improve literacy, women's rights, health and social conditions. It was written in a Jewish Agency pamphlet that "we must not allow them to become ... the shoeshine boys of our society."
Even years after the fact, opinions about the outcome of Operation Magic Carpet were mixed:

## Government

Government formed in 1948 included representatives from all the various segments of the Zionist movement, religious factions, and anti-Zionists. to assure this unity, secular leaders had to make concessions guaranteeing that aspects of Jewish law would be institutionalized in the new government such as: observance of Shabbos and dietary laws.
A constitution was first proposed in 1949. Leftists objected on the basis that the document did not declare the basis of the State to be Socialism. Religious factions feared that a written constitution would cement the values of secular Zionism. They argued that constitution was not necessary because the Torah was in essence the constitution
U.S. officials were concerned that Israel might not be a democracy, as many Jews came from parts of the Soviet Union, and a large percentage of these were associated with socialist political parties and ideologies. American policymakers feared Israel would become a Soviet ally - particularly those policymakers hostile toward Zionism in the first place. The Soviet Union was key to the adoption of the partition resolution in the United Nations. The USSR was also second nation to recognize Israel, after the US.
Israeli government pursued some socialist economic policies: state ownership of major institutions -airline -telephone company -utilities. But Israel was committed to the western democratic camp and had rejected communism. As a result, the USSR then turned on Israel and supported Israel's enemies politically, economically, and militarily

## References

* ↑ Segev 1986, p.95.
* ↑ Segev 1986, p.162
* ↑ Segev 1986, pp.95-113
* ↑ Segev 1986, pp.117-138
* ↑ Segev 1986, pp.182-185
* ↑ Segev 1986, p.187
* ↑ 229
* ↑ 229