ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the demise of the agrarian policy paradigm within the Zionist policy discourse in the 1930s, and the emergence of a new policy paradigm, that of rapid development. It traces how the Zionist Movement’s economic strategy during the 1930s was shaped, on the one hand, by national security issues, particularly the escalation of the Jewish-Arab conflict in Mandatory Palestine, and, on the other hand, by the arrival of new economic ideas from United States that emerged in the context of the New Deal. The chapter traces the process of the translation of these new ideas into the local political, economic and institutional environments. It focuses on the role of David Horowitz—who would later become the first Governor of the Bank of Israel—and of Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Labor Movement and Chairman of the Jewish Agency, in the formation of the rapid development paradigm.
