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Israel
The Jewish Community under the Mandate
The greatest asset brought by the Zionists settling Palestine
was their organizational acumen, which allowed for the institutionalization
of the movement despite deep ideological cleavages. The WZO established
an executive office in Palestine, thus implementing the language
of the Mandate prescribing such an agency. In August 1929, the
formalized Jewish Agency was established with a council, administrative
committee, and executive. Each of these bodies consisted of an
equal number of Zionist and nominally non-Zionist Jews. The president
of the WZO was, however, ex officio president of the agency. Thereafter,
the WZO continued to conduct external diplomatic, informational,
and cultural activities, and the operational Jewish Agency took
over fundraising, activities in Palestine, and local relations
with the British Mandate Authority (administered by the colonial
secretary). In time, the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish
Agency became two different names for virtually the same organization.
Other landmark developments by the WZO and the Jewish Agency
under the Mandate included creation of the Asefat Hanivharim (Elected
Assembly--see Glossary) and the Vaad Leumi (National Council)
in 1920 to promote religious, educational, and welfare services;
establishment of the chief rabbinate in 1921; centralized Zionist
control of the Hebrew school system in 1919, opening of the Technion
(Israel Institute of Technology) in Haifa in 1924, and dedication
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1925; and continued acquisition
of land--largely via purchases by the Jewish National Fund--increasing
from 60,120 hectares in 1922 to about 155,140 hectares in 1939,
and the concurrent growth of Jewish urban and village centers.
The architect of the centralized organizational structure that
dominated the Yishuv throughout the Mandate and afterward was
Ben- Gurion. To achieve a centralized Jewish economic infrastructure
in Palestine, he set out to form a large-scale organized Jewish
labor movement including both urban and agricultural laborers.
In 1919 he founded the first united Labor Zionist party, Ahdut
HaAvodah (Unity of Labor), which included Poalei Tziyyon and affiliated
socialist groups. This achievement was followed in 1920 by the
formation of the Histadrut, or HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim
B'Eretz Yisrael (General Federation of Laborers in the Land of
Israel).
The Histadrut was the linchpin of Ben-Gurion's reorganization
of the Yishuv. He designed the Histadrut to form a tightly controlled
autonomous Jewish economic state within the Palestinian economy.
It functioned as much more than a traditional labor union, providing
the Yishuv with social services and security, setting up training
centers, helping absorb new immigrants, and instructing them in
Hebrew. Its membership was all-inclusive: any Jewish laborer was
entitled to belong and to obtain shares in the organization's
assets. It established a general fund supported by workers' dues
that provided all members with social services previously provided
by individual political parties. The Histadrut also set up Hevrat
HaOvdim (Society of Workers) to fund and manage large-scale agricultural
and industrial enterprises. Within a year of its establishment
in 1921, Hevrat HaOvdim had set up Tenuvah, the agriculture marketing
cooperative; Bank HaPoalim, the workers' bank; and Soleh Boneh,
the construction firm. Originally established by Ahdut HaAvodah
after the Arab riots in 1920, the Haganah under the Histadrut
rapidly became the major Jewish defense force (see Historical
Background , ch. 5).
From the beginning, Ben-Gurion and Ahdut HaAvodah dominated the
Histadrut and through it the Yishuv. As secretary general of the
Histadrut, Ben-Gurion oversaw the development of the Jewish economy
and defense forces in the Yishuv. This centralized control enabled
the Yishuv to endure both severe economic hardship and frequent
skirmishes with the Arabs and British in the late 1920s. The resilience
of the Histadrut in the face of economic depression enabled Ben-Gurion
to consolidate his control over the Yishuv. In 1929 many private
entrepreneurs were forced to look to Ahdut HaAvodah to pull them
through hard economic times. In 1930 Ahdut HaAvodah was powerful
enough to absorb its old ideological rival, HaPoel HaTzair. They
merged to form Mifleget Poalei Eretz Yisrael (better known by
its acronym Mapai), which would dominate political life of the
State of Israel for the next two generations (see Multiparty System
, ch. 4).
The hegemony of Ben-Gurion's Labor Zionism in the Yishuv did
not go unchallenged. The other major contenders for power were
the Revisionist Zionists led by Vladimir Jabotinsky, who espoused
a more liberal economic structure and a more zealous defense policy
than the Labor movement. Jabotinsky, who had become a hero to
the Yishuv because of his role in the defense of the Jews of Jerusalem
during the riots of April 1920, believed that there was an inherent
conflict between Zionist objectives and the aspirations of Palestinian
Arabs. He called for the establishment of a strong Jewish military
force capable of compelling the Arabs to accept Zionist claims
to Palestine. Jabotinsky also thought that Ben- Gurion's focus
on building a socialist Jewish economy in Palestine needlessly
diverted the Zionist movement from its true goal: the establishment
of a Jewish state in Palestine.
The appeal of Revisionist Zionism grew between 1924 and 1930
as a result of an influx of Polish immigrants and the escalating
conflict with the Arabs. In the mid-1920s, a political and economic
crisis in Poland and the Johnson-Lodge Immigration Act passed
by the United States Congress, which curtailed mass immigration
to America, spurred Polish-Jewish immigration to Israel. Between
1924 and 1931, approximately 80,000 Jews arrived in Palestine
from Central Europe. The Fourth Aliyah, as it was called, differed
from previous waves of Jewish immigration. The new Polish immigrants,
unlike the Bolshevik-minded immigrants of the Second Aliyah, were
primarily petty merchants and small-time industrialists with their
own capital to invest. Not attracted to the Labor Party's collective
settlements, they migrated to the cities where they established
the first semblance of an industrialized urban Jewish economy
in Palestine. Within five years, the Jewish populations of Jerusalem
and Haifa doubled, and the city of Tel Aviv emerged. These new
immigrants disdained the socialism of the Histadrut and increasingly
identified with the laissez-faire economics espoused by Jabotinsky.
Another reason for Jabotinsky's increasing appeal was the escalation
of Jewish-Arab violence. Jabotinsky's belief in the inevitable
conflict between Jews and Arabs and his call for the establishment
of an "iron wall" that would force the Arabs to accept Zionism
were vindicated in the minds of many Jews after a confrontation
over Jewish access to the Wailing Wall in August 1929 turned into
a violent Arab attack on Jews in Hebron and Jerusalem. By the
time the fighting ended, 133 Jews had been killed and 339 wounded.
The causes of the disturbances were varied: an inter- Palestinian
power struggle, a significant cutback in British military presence
in Palestine, and a more conciliatory posture by the new British
authorities toward the Arab position.
The inability of the Haganah to protect Jewish civilians during
the 1929 riots led Jewish Polish immigrants who supported Jabotinsky
to break away from the Labor-dominated Haganah. They were members
of Betar, an activist Zionist movement founded in 1923 in Riga,
Latvia, under the influence of Jabotinsky. The first Betar congress
met at Danzig in 1931 and elected Jabotinsky as its leader. In
1937, a group of Haganah members left the organization in protest
against its "defensive" orientation and joined forces with Betar
to set up a new and more militant armed underground organization,
known as the Irgun. The formal name of the Irgun was the Irgun
Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization), sometimes also called
by the acronym, Etzel, from the initial letters of the Hebrew
name. The more extreme terrorist group, known to the British as
the Stern Gang, split off from the Irgun in 1939. The Stern Gang
was formally known as the Lohamei Herut Israel (Fighters for Israel's
Freedom), sometimes identified by the acronym Lehi (see Glossary).
Betar (which later formed a nucleus for Herut--see Appendix B)
and Irgun rejected the Histadrut/Haganah doctrine of havlaga
(self-restraint) and favored retaliation.
Although the 1929 riots intensified the Labor-Revisionist split
over the tactics necessary to attain Jewish sovereignty in Palestine,
their respective visions of the indigenous Arab population coalesced.
Ben-Gurion, like Jabotinsky, came to realize that the conflict
between Arab and Jewish nationalisms was irreconcilable and therefore
that the Yishuv needed to prepare for an eventual military confrontation
with the Arabs. He differed with Jabotinsky, however, on the need
to make tactical compromises in the short term to attain Jewish
statehood at a more propitious time. Whereas Jabotinsky adamantly
put forth maximalist demands, such as the immediate proclamation
of statehood in all of historic Palestine--on both banks of the
Jordan River--Ben-Gurion operated within the confines of the Mandate.
He understood better than Jabotinsky that timing was the key to
the Zionist enterprise in Palestine. The Yishuv in the 1930s lacked
the necessary military or economic power to carry out Jabotinsky's
vision in the face of Arab and British opposition.
Another development resulting from the 1929 riots was the growing
animosity between the British Mandate Authority and the Yishuv.
The inactivity of the British while Arab bands were attacking
Jewish settlers strengthened Zionist anti-British forces. Following
the riots, the British set up the Shaw Commission to determine
the cause of the disturbances. The commission report, dated March
30, 1930, refrained from blaming either community but focused
on Arab apprehensions about Jewish labor practices and land purchases.
The commission's allegations were investigated by an agrarian
expert, Sir John Hope Simpson, who concluded that about 30 percent
of the Arab population was already landless and that the amount
of land remaining in Arab hands would be insufficient to divide
among their offspring. This led to the Passfield White Paper (October
1930), which recommended that Jewish immigration be stopped if
it prevented Arabs from obtaining employment and that Jewish land
purchases be curtailed. Although the Passfield White Paper was
publicly repudiated by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald in 1931,
it served to alienate further the Yishuv from the British.
The year 1929 also saw the beginning of a severe economic crisis
in Germany that launched the rise of Adolf Hitler. Although both
Germany and Austria had long histories of anti-Semitism, the genocide
policies preached by Hitler were unprecedented. When in January
1930 he became chancellor of the Reich, a massive wave of mostly
German Jewish immigration to Palestine ensued. Recorded Jewish
immigration was 37,000 in 1933, 45,000 in 1934, and an all- time
record for the Yishu of 61,000 in 1935. In addition, the British
estimated that a total of 40,000 Jews had entered Palestine without
legal certificates during the period from 1920 to 1939. Between
1929, the year of the Wailing Wall disturbances, and 1936, the
year the Palestinian Revolt began, the Jewish population of Palestine
increased from 170,000 or 17 percent of the population, to 400,000,
or approximately 31 percent of the total. The immigration of thousands
of German Jews accelerated the pace of industrialization and made
the concept of a Jewish state in Palestine a more formidable reality.
Data as of December 1988
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