ABSTRACT
The contemporary foreign policy struggle within Israel has its roots deep within the Mandatory period. Early in the Yishuv period Zionist pioneers transplanted to Palestine socialist and religious parties which had been established in the Diaspora. The political struggle within the Yishuv revolved, in substantial measure, around the conflict over foreign and security policy. The ideological self-definition of the labor parties had a major impact upon their foreign policy views and positions, and hence upon the pace of the Yishuv’s march to statehood. The dispute over military policy toward the Arabs echoes down to the present; it was highlighted most dramatically in the dispute over the Lebanon War. In the years following the War of Independence Herutniks charged Ben-Gurion with responsibility for the failure to conquer East Jerusalem and the West Bank during the war. With the massacre of European Jewry during the Second World War the compelling demographic need for the West and East Banks no longer existed.
