1957 in Israel

The events of 1957 flowed directly from the 1956 Sinai Campaign, in which Israeli forces, backed by Britain and France, swept through the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip and reached Sharm el-Sheikh at the entrance to the Gulf of Aqaba.[8] Though militarily successful, the campaign left Israel under pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Nations to relinquish its gains without a formal peace settlement.[9] Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion's government consequently sought security and navigation assurances before completing the withdrawal.[2]

Israel's principal objectives were to preserve free navigation through the Straits of Tiran and access to Eilat, prevent Gaza from again becoming an Egyptian military base, and ensure that the United Nations Emergency Force could not be removed solely at Egypt's request.[1][2] In a February 11 discussion with American officials, Ambassador Abba Eban argued that Aqaba was vital because it opened a route to the Indian Ocean, supported a pipeline to the Mediterranean, and connected Israel commercially to the wider world.[10] Eban said Israel should become "a bridge for commerce through the Middle East instead of a stunted ghetto dependent upon international relief."[10]

Israeli forces continued their staged departure in January 1957, withdrawing from the Sinai Peninsula and the El-Arish area on January 8 and 9.[11] On March 1, Foreign Minister Golda Meir announced in the UN General Assembly that Israel would evacuate Sharm el-Sheikh and the Gaza Strip. After President Dwight Eisenhower sent a letter on March 2, the Israeli government approved the Gaza withdrawal and issued orders to the Israel Defense Forces.[12] The withdrawal from Gaza was completed on March 8, ending Israel's first period of military rule there.[9][8]

The diplomatic basis for the withdrawal included a U.S. State Department aide-memoire stating that no nation had the right to prevent free and innocent passage through the Gulf of Aqaba and its connecting Straits. It added that the United States was prepared to exercise that right for American-registered vessels and to join others in securing international recognition of the principle.[2] Eisenhower maintained that Israel had to comply with the relevant UN resolution without preconditions, and the aide-memoire amounted to a diplomatic assurance rather than an explicit promise of military enforcement.[2]

On March 5, Ben-Gurion reviewed the campaign before the Knesset. He said Israel had defeated three Egyptian divisions in five days, destroyed fedayeen bases in Sinai and Gaza, and captured or destroyed large quantities of Egyptian military equipment. He reported 170 IDF personnel killed and one taken prisoner and argued that the operation had reduced the immediate threat to Israel and weakened Egypt's military capacity.[12] The campaign also ended the contemporary fedayeen operations and helped secure freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran.[8]

The withdrawal generated immediate domestic opposition. On March 8, Menachem Begin addressed a large protest rally in Tel Aviv, demanded Ben-Gurion's resignation, and condemned what the demonstrators regarded as a practically unconditional withdrawal that left hundreds of fedayeen in Gaza.[8] Egypt declared on March 11 that it had restored its administration of Gaza and appointed a military governor. In a March 13 Knesset statement, Ben-Gurion declared that Israel reserved freedom of action if Egyptian forces remained in Gaza, which he said had never belonged to Egypt and served Egypt only as a base for attacks or threats against Israel.[13]

President Gamal Abdel Nasser subsequently declared that Gaza would remain under Egyptian administrative control while UNEF would be confined to the perimeter rather than deployed inside the Strip as Israel had sought.[1] Egyptian and Saudi authorities did not act against Israeli ships using the Gulf of Aqaba during the remainder of the year. Israeli-flagged ships did not attempt to transit the Suez Canal, although vessels under Israeli charter were sometimes permitted through after searches and delays.[14]

The Third Knesset, sitting from 1955 to 1959, was unusually active in early 1957. A Herut motion of no confidence was debated on January 15, followed by foreign-policy and defense debates on January 23 and on February 21, 22, and 25. A political-situation debate ran on March 5 and 6, overlapping with Ben-Gurion's address on the Sinai Campaign's results.[15] The Knesset also discussed James de Rothschild's bequest in July and held a memorial sitting for Colonel Nehemia Argov in November.[15]

On May 10, workers at the Ata textile factory launched a violent strike that the Knesset later listed among the major domestic events of the parliamentary term.[16] In July, the Knesset passed a Penal Revision (State Security) Law. A Communist parliamentary group also submitted a no-confidence motion over Ben-Gurion's policies; it was defeated after Mapam and Ahdut HaAvoda abstained.[11]

President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi was re-elected for a second term in October.[11] The month also brought a governmental crisis: Ben-Gurion resigned as prime minister on October 31, reportedly over disagreements within the coalition. The government was restored in its former composition after Mapai, the Progressive Party, the religious parties, and the General Zionists backed his return, while Mapam and Ahdut HaAvoda insisted on preserving the existing coalition framework.[11]

On May 21, the government formally declared its support for the Eisenhower Doctrine, the American policy authorizing assistance against communist-controlled aggression in the Middle East.[17] Discussions of American aid were already advanced in Washington, with an Export-Import Bank delegation expected in connection with a proposed $75 million loan.[11] Ben-Gurion later announced Israel's acceptance of the doctrine in the Knesset.[18] An agreement concerning pig breeding was also reached, and municipalities were empowered by law to prohibit the sale of pork.[14]

The most dramatic single event of the year occurred on the evening of October 29, when a hand grenade exploded during a Knesset plenary session at Beit Frumin, the temporary parliamentary home in central Jerusalem.[4] The attacker was Moshe Dwek, a Yemenite Jewish immigrant who entered the visitors' gallery with an undetected grenade.[19] Shortly after 6:00 p.m., while Member of Knesset Yitzhak Rafael was addressing the chamber on international and security matters, Dwek threw the grenade into the assembly hall.[4]

Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Foreign Minister Golda Meir, Transport Minister Moshe Carmel, and Minister of Religious Affairs Moshe Shapira were wounded; Shapira suffered the most serious injuries.[4] Ben-Gurion initially refused to leave but was taken to a hospital and remained under care for several days.[19] Parliamentary proceedings were suspended at 6:17 p.m. and resumed at 8:52 p.m. after the chamber was cleared. All four ministers ultimately recovered.[4]

Dwek was reportedly motivated by declining health, difficulty obtaining national insurance, and an unsuccessful legal claim against the Jewish Agency. Police found no nationalist motive, and Dwek said he acted alone to draw public attention to what he regarded as an injustice.[19][4] His lawyer argued that he was psychologically unbalanced, but Dwek was found fit to stand trial and was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He served part of the sentence in psychiatric institutions, and his requests for a new trial and a pardon were denied.[19][4] Ben-Gurion wrote to Dwek's parents that although their son's actions were "despicable and nonsensical," he forgave him.[19]

The attack prompted an immediate overhaul of Knesset security. An armored barrier was installed between the visitors' gallery and the assembly hall, entry procedures were revised, and the Knesset Guard was formally established in 1958.[4]

A second act of political violence marked the early months of 1957. Israel Kastner, the Hungarian-Jewish leader whose wartime conduct had become the subject of a deeply divisive Israeli libel trial, was shot at the entrance to his home on March 4 and died eleven days later.[3] The case began after Malchiel Gruenwald accused Kastner of abandoning Hungarian Jews to the Nazis and profiting from abandoned Jewish property. The libel action initiated against Gruenwald effectively became a trial of Kastner, with Judge Benjamin Halevy acquitting Gruenwald and writing that Kastner had "sold his soul to the devil."[3] Kastner did not live to see the Israeli Supreme Court overturn the trial court's finding and clear him of the accusation of Nazi collaboration on January 17, 1958.[3]

The year marked a clandestine milestone in Israel's defense posture. On September 30, 1957, French Prime Minister Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury backdated his signature on a letter granting Israel's request for French cooperation in building a heavy-water nuclear reactor and reprocessing facility. He actually signed the document on October 1.[5] The secret cooperation helped initiate the nuclear project at Dimona in the Negev.[5][18] A retrospective account of the Sinai episode listed the acquisition of a 24-megawatt French nuclear reactor among the benefits Israel obtained.[20]

On the conventional military side, Israeli paratroopers underwent intensive training in 1957. A contemporary newsreel described the training as a consequence of the Sinai Campaign, during which Israeli paratroops had landed 200 miles behind Egyptian lines and disrupted communications.[21] The Institute for National Security Studies later characterized the decade beginning with the March 1957 withdrawal as the "golden age" of Israel's military-activism concept. Its analysis describes a strategy based on deterrence, Arab perceptions of IDF strength, and the assumption that Arab leaders, especially Nasser, would accept the status quo while it remained tolerable.[22]

Immigration was a dominant feature of Israeli society in 1957. A demographic table based on Central Bureau of Statistics data records 71,224 immigrants during the calendar year, of whom 58 percent were born in Europe or America and 42 percent in Asia or Africa.[6] Contemporary sources reported higher figures: one annual report counted more than 80,000 arrivals, while a United Israel Appeal document reported approximately 75,000 during the first eleven months. The differences may reflect reporting methods, periods, or categories.[14][23]

The immigration was diverse. Mass Jewish emigration from Poland peaked in 1956–1957, when tens of thousands of people who had survived the war in the Soviet Union departed the country.[24] The United Israel Appeal attributed the broader Eastern European exodus to antisemitism, physical assaults, inadequate housing and employment, and parents' desire for their children to grow up within Jewish society.[23] Many immigrants from Egypt and Eastern Europe were skilled craftspeople or professionals, although language training and occupational retraining were required. A contemporary report said that immigrants from Morocco and Algeria, who had been accustomed to difficult conditions, experienced a considerable rise in their standard of living after arrival.[14]

A select-country table records 2,893 immigrants in 1957: 1,324 from the former Soviet Union, 665 from Argentina, 313 from the United States and Canada, 267 from France, 223 from the United Kingdom, 96 from South Africa, and five from Ethiopia. The table explicitly excludes major sending countries and several categories of arrivals.[25] Across the broader 1955–1957 period, approximately 160,000 North African and Eastern European Jews arrived in Israel.[26]

The United Israel Appeal's 1957 budget was based on receiving 60,000 newcomers and spending $60 million on their reception and first-year absorption.[23] The proposed overall budget of the Jewish Agency, United Israel Appeal, and Keren Hayesod was $164.254 million, including funds for immigration and resettlement, eliminating the transit-camp settlements known as ma'abaroth, developing post-statehood settlements, education and culture, and Youth Aliyah.[23] Israel's population reached 1,976,000, up from 1,872,000 in 1956.[7]

The withdrawal opened a period later described as one of relative quiet, during which Israel devoted substantial resources to economic development, infrastructure, industrialization, defense expansion, and military training.[22] Free access to Eilat restored a trade outlet to Africa and Asia, while Israel's reliance on oil imported through the Straits gave freedom of navigation direct economic importance.[2][17]

National telephone dialing between Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa was introduced in 1957.[18] Israeli radio began daily programs for UNEF personnel in Sinai, broadcasting from 16:00 to 17:00 on Reshet Bet in Swedish, French, and English. On April 27, the radio program "Three Men in a Boat" reached its highest audience.[27]

Ghana became the second developing country, after Burma, to enter joint technical projects with Israel in 1957. This cooperation preceded the creation in 1958 of the Foreign Ministry's International Cooperation Division.[17] Jerusalem also experienced a major snowfall in February 1957, with cars buried, children building snowmen, and traffic and communications brought almost to a halt.[28]

On June 4, Ben-Gurion wrote to Moshe Unna, deputy minister of education and a member of the National Religious Party, criticizing the sweeping yeshiva-student military exemption established in 1948.[29] Ben-Gurion proposed limiting the exemption to 100 students who would teach for four years, complete three months of basic military training, have their teaching recognized as equivalent to full military service, and then register as IDF reservists.[29]

The Israel Prize was awarded in 1957 across a wide range of fields.[30] Recipients included Hanna Rovina in theatre; Haim Shirman in Jewish studies; Yohanan Levi in humanities; Yaakov Fichman and Uri Zvi Grinberg in literature; Paltiel Daykan in jurisprudence; Siegfried Lehman in education; Shlomo Hestrin, David Feingold, and Gad Avigad in exact sciences; Saul Adler in medicine; Shmuel Horowitz in agriculture; Paul Ben-Haim in music; Reuvein Margolies in rabbinical literature; and Eliezer Smoli in children's literature.[30]

The Knesset's recorded business also reflected public remembrance and philanthropy, including its July 22 discussion of James de Rothschild's bequest and its November 18 memorial sitting for Colonel Nehemia Argov.[15]

By the end of 1957, no further organized raids had been launched from Egyptian territory, and Israel's borders with Syria and Jordan remained relatively quiet despite continuing incidents. When Jordan halted the Israeli convoys to Mount Scopus permitted under the armistice agreement, mediation by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld led to their resumption. No comparable progress was made toward resolving the underlying Arab-Israeli conflict.[14]

In the longer term, the withdrawal was followed by a decade of relative southwestern-border quiet and accelerated economic and infrastructure development.[22][17] The navigation arrangements remained vulnerable, however. In May 1967, Nasser again closed the Straits of Tiran, and the international assurances Israel believed it had received in 1957 did not produce effective intervention.[2]

The political and legal meaning of the March 1957 withdrawal remains debated. Accounts differ over whether the American aide-memoire on navigation through the Straits of Tiran constituted a guarantee or a more limited diplomatic assurance, a distinction that became critical when Egypt closed the Straits in May 1967.[1][2] Sources also report different immigration totals for 1957—71,224 for the calendar year, approximately 75,000 during the first eleven months, and more than 80,000 in a contemporary annual report. These discrepancies may reflect different definitions and reporting practices, but the figures should not be treated as interchangeable.[6][14][23]

The description of the post-1957 decade as a "golden age" of military activism and national development is an analytical interpretation rather than a neutral period label.[22] The French-Israeli nuclear agreement publicly emphasized peaceful power generation, while the Center for Israel Education states that the off-the-books project was intended to facilitate weapons programs; Israel has never officially acknowledged possessing nuclear weapons.[5] The Kastner affair likewise remained historically and politically contested even after the Supreme Court posthumously cleared Kastner of the accusation of Nazi collaboration.[3]