ABSTRACT
Although seeds of modern industry can be traced to the late nineteenth century, the Land of Israel, which was then Palestine, remained basically a traditional pre-industrial region throughout the era of Turkish-Ottoman rule until its termination in 1918. The industrialisation process did not really commence until the period of the British Mandate (between 1918 and 1948). However, the industrial sector remained rather small in absolute terms and its growth was limited due to the non-protectionist laissez-faire policy of the British government (Nathan et al. 1946; Shaliv 1981). Zionist organisations were engaged mostly with agricultural settlement, and industrial development was left to the rather weak private sector (Gaathon 1963).
