ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that there is an inherent contradiction between government intervention in planning, on the one hand, and the realities of internal migration and population distribution in Israel, on the other. Studies of internal migration within Israel are closely linked to the nature of settlement planning and population distribution. A willingness to learn from the migration processes which operate in other Western post-industrial societies, rather than dismissing them as being irrelevant to the "unique" Israeli experience, would, it is argued, better serve the long-term policies of regional and settlement planners in Israel. Rural-urban migration brought about the demographic depletion of many rural and peripheral regions, on the one hand, and the growth of towns and metropolitan areas, on the other. The construction of urban neighborhoods and rural settlements by the state is an important tool for immigrant absorption. Migration from the periphery to the core has continually taken place, especially with respect to the Jewish inhabitants of the country.
