The bitter war for Israel's existence
had left the small state shaken,
but still standing proud,
her arms wide open to her dispersed Jewish people.
Yet, when the financial burden of high immigration
was coupled with growing security threats,
Israel depended on her citizens to fight for her survival.
(tense music)
While the Cold War split the world,
1949 heralded Israel's triumphant victory
in its war for independence.
2,000 years of exile came to an end,
and at last the wandering Jews could come home.
And not a second too soon.
Over half of the million Jews living
in the Middle East sought refuge
in Israel after recent waves of violent anti-Jewish riots.
Many had their property and belongings confiscated
and journeyed to Israel under great risk.
Yemenite Jews, for example,
walked miles to stuff themselves
on to an overly crowded flight
when most of them had never seen an airplane before.
They did the math.
The state needed about $3,000
for each immigrant it absorbed,
which was less than Israel's entire state budget.
There simply wasn't enough food, housing, employment,
or healthcare available
to support the tsunami of immigrants.
There were fears that the absorption would overwhelm Israel,
but the Knesset swept the figures aside.
In 1950, Israel passed the Law of Return,
granting citizenship to any Jew immigrating to their nation.
Israel's immigrants, many penniless,
were housed in tents or shoddy one-room dwellings
in makeshift settlements called maabarot.
Even this small effort had to be heavily-fundraised
by diaspora Jews.
Many Middle-Eastern immigrants were stuck
in these poor conditions for years,
growing resentful of the dominant Ashkenazi populations.
However, life in Israel was austere for all.
Food staples such as cooking oil and sugar
and even furniture and footwear were strictly rationed.
Each family was allotted a monthly limit of food:
a mere 1,600 calories a day for the average person.
In order to develop its agricultural resources,
Israel faced the daunting mission
to "make the desert bloom."
Citizens went to work planting forests
and terracing rough land to make arable farmland.
They also explored various options
for providing water for far-flung villages
and farming communities.
But all these efforts required
what seemed to be an impossible sum of funding.
Desperate to make ends meet,
Ben-Gurion announced negotiations with West Germany in 1951.
Germans were willing to pay financial reparations
for the billions in property and possessions
that they systematically robbed from Jews
during World War 2.
Holocaust survivors would be paid
via the World Jewish Congress,
but Israel would become heir to those victims
who had no surviving family.
A few thousand, led by Ben-Gurion's rival, Menachem Begin,
were horrified by the notion.
Begin was a Polish Jew whose own family
had been butchered in the Holocaust.
He believed that financial reparations
would alleviate German guilt for conducting mass murder,
which could never be compensated for.
His supporters stormed the Knesset, throwing rocks.
Despite this uproar,
the majority government voted to accept reparations.
West Germany paid Israel a sum of 3 billion marks,
which was crucial in ending Israel's austerity measures
and advancing infrastructure.
But Israel's biggest obstacle still loomed ahead: security.
Despite Israel's many diplomatic efforts,
all neighboring Arab countries
refused Israel's peace entreaties.
By the mid 1950s, terrorist attacks from Jordan
and the Gaza strip, often instigated by Egypt,
which controlled the Gaza strip, were at an all-time high.
Between 1951 and 1956,
over 6,000 terrorists crossed Israel's borders,
an average of nearly three each day,
and murdered a total of 400 Israelis.
In 1956, Ben-Gurion secretly reached out
to Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser,
in UN-brokered peace talks.
Nasser communicated a personal desire
for peaceful relations,
but feared his people would reject the notion.
But Nasser's words proved to be hollow.
In September 1955, Egypt closed the Straits
of Tiran to Israel,
which was not only vital to Israel's import and export,
but it also signaled a legal act of war.
Soon after, Egypt signed a military alliance
with Syria and Jordan.
Egyptian troops moved to the Sinai border,
backed by a large supply of Soviet military arms,
planes, and tanks.
The US, however, refused to sell Israel more arms.
Nasser gave a series of inflammatory speeches
about his intent to annihilate Israel,
and Israel knew better than to take this threat lightly.
Israeli women donated jewelry to raise money
for the Israel Defense Forces,
and schoolchildren offered their lunch money.
Volunteers flocked to dig trenches
in the southern border.
In July of 1956,
Nasser announced his plan to nationalize the Suez Canal.
This didn't sit well with British investors
who owned shares of the canal,
and it interfered with both British
and French trade ventures.
So, Britain and France made a secret alliance
with Israel to initiate
a covert joint attack against Egypt.
On October 29, 1956, the IDF attacked Egypt,
one force taking the Gaza Strip
and another parachuting deep into the Sinai.
The next day, Britain and France demanded
that Israel and Egypt cease hostilities
and retreat from the Suez Canal.
As expected, Egypt rejected the ultimatum.
On October 31, Britain and France launched an aerial attack,
destroying Egypt's air force.
Within eight days, the combined forces
had captured the entire Sinai Peninsula.
US pressure, however,
soon put a halt to the military advance
and coerced Israel to give back the Sinai,
and Egypt quickly moved back in control of the Gaza strip.
Still, Israel gained a lot by the short military venture.
For 10 years, Egyptian terror attacks abated,
Israel enjoyed free trade routes,
and Israel's southern Negev desert
was allowed the security to flourish.
By Israel's 10-year anniversary,
more towns and villages developed,
and many Jewish immigrants settled
into permanent work and housing.
Formerly sidelined Middle Eastern Jews started
to find a voice in Israeli politics.
Much of the larger world had doubted that Israel,
a poverty-stricken, tiny state besieged in a sea of enemies,
would survive her experimental phase.
But the ingenuity and dedication of Israel's leaders
and people helped her not only survive, but thrive.
Today, it's easy to take the mighty,
economically robust, and international powerhouse
of Israel for granted.
Yet, this is only a testament to the bravery,
creativity, stamina,
and determination of the Jewish people,
once they were finally replanted in their homeland.