Israel

on the World Today

IT IS the peculiar tragedy of Chaim Weizmann that while he was the architect of Israel, the working drawings were Ren-Gurion s. From the emergence of the state in 1948, modern Israel’s first President had no effective control of its destinies. The brilliant chemist, whose research sustained the British offensive of World War I and won the gratitude of the Lloyd George Government, ended his long and fruitful career in semiretirement, honored, revered, and politically ignored.

His autobiography, Trial and Error, is the handbook of Zionism, a journal of Weizmann’s long, bitter, complicated struggle for Jewish political equality and human coexistence. It takes the selfstyled “Jew from Motol” from his modest beginnings in a Russian village through the growth of the Zionist organization, on to a professorship at the University of Manchester and to the historic Balfour Declaration, which began a quarter century of strife and progress under the British Mandate in Palestine.

Israelis concede that the new state came into being too late for its founder. Statehood was gained through war and under fire; Weizmann abhorred bloodshed as a violation of the Jewish heritage. And the hard fact of Israel’s sovereignty was less attributable to Weizmann’s diplomacy than to Ben-Gurion’s military daring and political realism.

The President’s death had long been held imminent, and his last years were plagued by growing infirmities. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion’s eulogy anticipates his place in history—"the greatest after Herzl.” (Theodore Herzl was the founder and spiritual father of Zionism.) The passing of Weizmann focuses attention on the situation of Israel today. How far has the new state come in four and a half years, and what are its prospects?

The stuggle for survival

Israel is now engaged in an intense struggle for survival, however affirmative the reports of progress. The heady tonic of independence has worn off and the difficult, monotonous routine of consolidation has set in. Her problems, both internal and external, while probably not insuperable, are ubiquitous and gigantic.

There is no one overriding problem. There are large social, economic, and political questions which cannot be passed off as the normal concomitants of growth. Free immigration — the “ingathering of the exiles” — has been a keystone of the Ben-Gurion administration’s policy.

In 1952, as a result of economic pressure from within and political change abroad, the flood of immigrants was slowed to a trickle. Officially, the doors are still open; practically, they are only ajar, for the newcomers have imposed a heavy burden on the young republic and have literally transformed its character. The feeding, clothing, and housing of the immigrants and their constructive absorption into the life of the country have imperiled the economy, overtaxed the skills and capacities of foremen and teachers, and drastically lowered the standard of living.

The last “wave” of immigration, bringing Jews from Morocco, Iraq, and Yemen, has wrought a further, profound change. For the first time since the Jews received a homeland in Palestine, Orientals now outnumber Europeans. Since a Lithuanian Jew is about as far removed from a Yemenite, ethnically and environmentally, as a Texan is from an Arab, the successful amalgamation of divergent social groups represents a serious challenge.

The chameleon character of Israeli politics continues to hamper the development of the state. In 1951, after dissolving his government in protest against the “religious bloc,” Ben-Gurion found that the electorate once again would not give his Mapai (Socialist) party a clear majority, so that he was thrown back into an uneasy coalition with a minority group who are the unpopular advocates of a ritualistic, theocratic practice of government.

Ben-Gurion has now split again with the religious bloc and has dissolved the coalition, so that the wheels of legislation have ground to a standstill. The French have a phrase for it —plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.

Weizmann’s death, coupled with the passing of several of Ben-Gurion’s cabinet members and closest advisers within the past year —notably the brilliant Finance Minister, Eliezer Kaplan - has seriously depleted Israel’s shallow reservoir of leadership. The early Zionists, occupying positions of eminence and responsibility, are aging men, and there has been insufficient time to give the requisite training and experience to the succeeding generation.

Germany pays a debt

On the economic front, Israel has reached what an American adviser calls “the critical stage.” Her trade balance in the first half of 1952 was appreciably worse than in the previous year, the adverse gap between imports and exports having widened by some 30 per cent. If, as it has sometimes been suggested, Israel believes in government by miracles, then the latest miracle is the restitution agreement with Bonn, whereby the West German government, upon ratification, will pay Israel some $700 million in goods over a period of years, as reparation for the mistreatment and material damage suffered by the Jews under the Nazis.

While it is recognized that the German payments come to the rescue of the economy at its lowest ebb, opinion is sharply divided on the issue of effective disposition. Should the payments be utilized for investment in longterm benefits or to ease the present crisis? The latter course is tempting in the light of the grave shortages which exist in almost every conceivable commodity. The austerity program, involving the strictest rationing of food, clothing, and consumer products, continues relentlessly. So great is its severity that the country’s productive capacity is threatened by inadequate worker nutrition, the morale of the people goes ever lower, and the black market — actual and psychological — grows apace.

The German reparations bring new hope along with material relief. In some quarters it is fell that Israel will now have the funds and time with which to stabilize her economy; elsewhere the reasoning is that this is stopgap assistance at best, and no substitute for internal development and enterprise.

American aid-how much?

American aid, so indispensable at the outset, is still a crucial factor in Israel’s economic dilemma. Having observed political and philanthropic storm warnings, the country has reason to wonder whether it may count on the continuance of grants-in-aid, bond purchases, private investments and contributions, at the high levels thus far established.

Israelis are apprehensive that the new American government will not be as generous as the Truman administration, and that the purchase of Israel bonds in quantity will detract from American philanthropic support. In this situation, a ranking American official has said that economic disaster can be averted only if all the elements of American aid to Israel, both public and private, remain in force, working without reserve and in complete harmony.

There is widespread concern over the sharp decline of tourism during 1952. Israel, to be sure, is not the tourist’s paradise; and at this moment of preoccupation with the country’s internal growth, marked by austere living and serious attention to business, Israel hardly considers herself in competition with the legendary pleasure spots of the Mediterranean. But Palestine is the Holy Land; besides, there are thousands of Jews the world over who have long dreamed of a Jewish homeland and who now wish to see the dream that has come true.

Jerusalem, of course, is the Zionist’s Mecca, so that Israel is a powerful magnet for the dedicated tourist. Practically speaking, American Jews constitute the bulk of Israel’s tourist trade and are its principal target because of the urgent need for dollars.

At the moment, there is only one large, first-class hotel in all of Israel; several more are under construction in and near Tel-Aviv and should be ready in time for the new tourist season this spring.

But geographical remoteness, heat, and the strict limitations on food and entertainment are factors militating against the success of the tourist program. Also, for many American Jews who travel widely, Israel is a curiosity, a place to be visited but not — like Paris, Switzerland, or the Riviera — to be revisited. As tourism is an important element in the drive for foreign currency, the experts are pondering the decline in volume, and the newspapers have been full of suggestions for travelers.

Any hope of oil?

In the realm of long-range economic progress, there are more encouraging signs. The twin phenomena of new construction and new industrial enterprises continue to amaze the foreign observer. There has been an appreciable slowdown in building during the past year, principally because of the lag in purchase and shipment of building materials from abroad. Yet it seems that almost daily a cornerstone is being laid or a new plant opened.

In the southern desert, copper mining is being stepped up, and extensive new chemical deposits have been found. Most tantalizing is the prospect of oil. An American geological survey has given the Israelis some hope that there is oil to be found beneath the sands of the Negev, and a joint Israeli-American drilling agreement is being concluded. The discovery of oil in quantity would be the latest and greatest of the miracles of modern Israel, and would transform the economy overnight.

In the last analysis, however, the only real panacea for Israel’s complicated afflictions is peace with her neighbors. No amount of American and German aid, no thousands of tourists, no drilling and mining, represent the same boon to Israel as a peace treaty with the Arab states and the reopening of the borders.

Israel is throttled by her enemies, not so much from the standpoint of blockade as in denial of trade. Israel cannot produce within her borders the wherewithal to feed, clothe, and equip her swollen population, whereas raw materials exist in abundance in the neighboring countries. Israel is handicapped by the artificiality of longdistance imports and exports. The adjacent Arab states are a natural and fruitful market for Israeli finished goods, which are being produced in ever-increasing quantity. And the excessive costs of military preparedness have stretched an overexpanded national budget to the breaking point.

Israel turns to Egypt

At present, the attitude of Western observers on the chances for peace in the Middle East is one of guarded optimism. Where a break in the solid Arab wall of antagonism might have been expected in Jordan prior to the assassination of King Abdullah, the hopes of peace-minded Israeli leaders now turn on Egypt.

The coup of General Naguib and his young officers presages the kind of social, political, and economic reform which is more in tune with the Israeli brand of democracy than the feudal practices of the Arab absentee landlords. Moreover, Naguib’s visits to Egyptian synagogues on Jewish holidays have prompted wide speculation. The gesture is considered less conciliatory than symbolic, but Naguib has not made political capital, in the traditional Arab manner, by excoriating Israel.

On the other side, Ben-Gurion has made one important speech affirming Israel’s desire for peace, directed obviously toward Naguib. Israel has conceded that she must share in the responsibility for resettling the Palestinian Arab refugees and has unfrozen approximately one quarter of their blocked accounts. She has also expressed new willingness to approach the problem of peace step by step.

Finally, Israel covets a place in the Middle East defense organization planned by the Western powers, and knows that she cannot participate while at war with members of the same alliance.

On the debit side, American aid to Israel and the implied favoritism of the Truman administration have long been a thorn in the Arab side, and the German reparations agreement has added insult to injury. General Naguib has even taken the initiative by heading up the Arab states’ strong protest to Bonn, with the attendant inference of a stoppage of Arab-German trade.

It is generally inadvisable, too, for any Arab leader, in the unstable political environment in which he finds himself, to express a tempered view of the Palestine problem. A leading Western diplomat says that the greatest obstacle to a peaceful settlement is the Arab “diplomacy of assassination,” which effectively silences each moderate voice as it is raised, and has included two enlightened leaders, Abdullah and Razmara, among its victims.