ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the proposed research question in the Israeli context, regarding the experience of Israel's Jewish population in dealing with the task of peopling the frontier. The Jewish frontier in British Palestine ran along a conflict zone existing between Arabs and Jews, where new Jewish settlements were established and maintained by their national institutions, who strove to expand the Jewish presence. Pioneer settlement groups were immediately formed by veterans of the Arab-Jewish War of 1948 and settled in the outlying areas now under the control of the Jewish state. In the 1950s, new immigrants were peopling Israeli frontier regions not only in the form of agricultural villages, but also by settling in newly established towns. The policy of populating the outlying areas with new immigrants, though it achieved some territorial aims, did harm the prospects of integrating those immigrants into the mainstream of Israeli society.
