ABSTRACT
Israel's population dispersal policy is one of the longest ongoing attempts to defend territorial sovereignty by directing population settlement to areas of strategic national importance. This chapter reviews the development of population dispersal policy over the course of the country's history. It also examines the policy's strategic importance in defending Israel's border regions and its impact on the country's civilian population. This policy has proven very versatile, remaining relevant despite major geo-political and socioeconomic changes that have occurred over the past six decades. Between 1948 and 1951 Israel's population doubled. This was primarily due to the influx of impoverished Jewish refugees from Europe and the Arab world. In 1949 Prime Minister Ben-Gurion presented the Defence Service Law to the Knesset. Government planners sought to develop a hierarchy of settlements, with small and medium-sized towns designed to serve peripheral agricultural settlements.
