Israel: the Emergence of a Democracy

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LESS than three years have elapsed since the state of Israel proclaimed its independence at the termination of the British Mandatory régime. Within the brief period of its national life, events have unfolded with a speed and intensity rarely equalled in the history of political institutions. Israel is still beset by all the preoccupations which attended its struggle for birth; but each of its three infant years has seen a marked shift in the primary center of its concern. The year 1948 was characterized by a struggle for sheer physical survival. Military experts had not placed a high estimate on the ability of Palestine Jewry to organize its defense against a combined and simultaneous onslaught by all the neighboring states; and these doubts were not resolved until the end of the year, when Israel's improvised forces passed from tactical defense to a victorious counter-offensive and swept the entire southern desert clear of hostile forces.

In 1949, with physical survival assured, the central theme became the struggle for international recognition. Surrounded on all its land frontiers by unreconciled Arab states, Israel was driven to compensate for its regional isolation by an attempt to establish strong links with more distant countries and to achieve a secure status in the organized world community. Membership in the United Nations was of particular importance to a state whose very right to exist was fiercely challenged by its neighbors and whose most vital interests were still to be the subject of international deliberation and judgment...