De balans van 60 jaar Israel

In 1958, Israel had a total population of slightly over two million - less than two million Jews. Then as now, there were plenty of Arabs in the surrounding states, and then as now, most of them did not wish us well. Not a single Arab state had signed a peace treaty with Israel. Egypt had a huge army equipped with modern Soviet weapons. Egyptian President Nasser, the Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of those days, threatened Israel with destruction. Of the major powers, only the French were allies of Israel. The USSR was actively hostile, the British were aloof after the international imbroglio caused by the Sinai campaign, and the Americans continued the pro-Arab policies of the Eisenhower administration. Jerusalem was divided by barbed wire. Jews could not even visit the wailing wall. Diaspora Jews were largely indifferent to the existence of Israel. In the USSR, Jews were barely aware of it. In the United States, most Jews viewed Israel as a convenient repository for those of their brethren who were not fortunate enough or presentable enough to be worthy of American citizenship. Some new immigrants still lived in Maabarot slums, Israeli Arabs lived under a military administration. Israeli industry was virtually non-existent, and commerce consisted mostly of buying items for 4 cents and selling them for 2 cents at a one cent profit, the difference being made up by government subsidies. Just beneath the surface, the Lavon affair was eating away at the Israeli political establishment.

Nonetheless, almost nobody who witnessed that celebration would have expressed the slightest doubt about Israel's viability or Israeli determination. To be sure, there were always those who ridiculed the Zionist project from its inception, and they continued to express their doubts in 1958 and thereafter, as they had done before. An endless stream of Cassandra pronouncements has accompanied the Zionist movement and Israel from their inception: The Zionists could never get the Turks to relinquish Palestine, the Zionists could never get significant numbers of Jews to come to the country, the Jewish community in Palestine would be overwhelmed by the Arabs, the new state would be rent asunder by Ashkenazi-Sephardi divisions, Israel would be bankrupt by 1975... None of these prophecies ever came to pass, but that has never prevented so-called analysts from generating new ones.