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‘Next year in Jerusalem. Every Passover, we feast and tell the story of our Exodus from the land of Egypt. After all is said and done; after the meal is done and the afikoman is found, and wine set out for Elijah, we hold our glasses high and proclaim, “Next year in Jerusalem!”

‘This is because, for two thousand years, the Children of Israel have wandered. Jews can be found on every land in the world, from Alaska in the West, to New Zealand in the East. When Marco Polo traveled to China in Thirteenth Century, he was shocked to find Jews there when he arrived!
‘Yet, for all the places that the Jews have traveled, for all the languages we have adopted, and all the skin colors we have acquired, we have had no home. The Jews have always been a transient people, considered simply to be like traveling Gypsies, even in a land that we had been as loyal subjects for a dozen generations. No amount of assimilation has solved this problem: there are pogroms in Russia against Jews who have farmed that land for centuries, and served in the armies of the USSR, and before that of the Tsar. The unfair conviction of Alfred Dreyfus, not thirty years past, stands to show us that even a progressive and liberal nation like France still clutches the serpent of anti-Semitism to its breast. As Theodore Herzl notes in his book, The Jewish State, this persecution will continue as long as we are seen as vagrants and parasites, with no nation of our own.

‘Thus it is with the greatest joy that I can declare that we have, through the grace of God and His Majesty George V, the Jewish people have finally found our state again, in our ancestral lands of Israel and Judea. And so I say:
‘This year in Jerusalem!’

-Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, 1st Governor General of Palestine, at the 29 March 1920 session of Parliament formally declaring the Dominion of Jewish Palestine



Chapter א: Twelve Answers, a review of the state and government of Palestine immediately following independence

‘If you have a question of the Halakha, and in your foolishness dare to pose the question to ten different rabbis, you will finish with twelve different answers.’
-Traditional Jewish saying

‘The typical problem that Colonial Secretary deals with when the Empire adds a new territory is organization. While the position thankfully does not involve itself with the logistics of any military force stationed in a colony – usually – there nevertheless remains a great deal to be done. A governor must be appointed, and all his affairs cared for. A local bureaucracy must be established; any useful natives must be found and recruited, and the disruptive forces preemptively calmed. All of these affairs are made more difficult by the lack of organization in a typical colony: the natives are inevitably a primitive, tribal people, whose idea of large-scale government is the family clan.

‘In Palestine, we have entirely the opposite problem: there is too much organization. A more politically minded people I have never encountered. Part of this, of course, may be because the Jews are a European and not a primitive people, but – if I may speak frankly – I swear before God and King that I have never before encountered such a politically minded group. From one meeting to the next, I may find that a party has split, then split again, and then that the third generation party has returned to merge with the first. For fewer than 100,000 people, there are some 50 or more parties, at least two thirds of which suppnsort various forms of socialism! These range, if I recall correctly, from the labour-oriented, anti-Marxist “Joseph Trumpeldor Work and Defence Battalion” to the outright Bolshevist “Workers of Zion”. There are, too, parties further to the right, such as Jabotinsky’s fascists. How can so few support so many differing opinions and hold them so strongly? The only thing they all agree on is that the land must be Jewish, and that Jews must look unflinchingly to the future.’
- Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, Secretary of State for the Colonies, private correspondence (February 1921)

On 1 August 1922, the sun dawned on a Jewish state for the first time since Bar Kochba. The sun dawned first on the southernmost of the Hermon’s three mighty peaks, and shortly afterwards the Jordan Valley. The sun crawled across the Negev Desert, the Judean Hills, and the Golan Heights, before finally it to the narrow strip of flatlands along the coast, and thence to the glittering Mediterranean.

It dawned upon a country inhabited by approximated 500,000 Muslims, 100,000 Christians, and 100,000 Jews – per the census the British had taken in early 1922, while the region was still under military control. It dawn upon a country with a handful of cities; a country utterly devoid of modern infrastructure. And it dawned upon the country that would, in the next quarter century, see perhaps the largest influx of population and capital per dunam per annum in history.

In 1922, Zionists had already founded a number of yishuvim (lit: “settlements”). Most famously, the New City in Jerusalem was largely Jewish; there were also burgeoning Jewish neighborhoods in Jaffa (Tel Aviv), Haifa, Hebron, Schem (Nablus), Be’er Sheva, and Stzur (Tyre), and independent settlements like Petach Tivka, Rishon leTziyon, Herzliya, Rosh Pinah, Zichron Yaakov, Hadera, Rehovot, and others – as well as the ever-growing kibbutz movement of farming communes.

Though a large wave of immigrants fleeing Soviet persecution would arrive in 1924 forcing a crisis in absorption, the very earliest years of the Dominion were primarily spent establishing a coherent government. The problem, interestingly, was the pre facto existence of a number of governing bodies already in the region. From the Guild of Watchmen that would eventually evolve into Palestine’s national police force, to the Legion of Labor that would form the core of the Ministry of Labor and Construction, and to the many, many political parties vying for a place, it almost seemed as though a Zionist government had been in place prior to the state’s establishment, just waiting for a chance to step in. Baron Rothschild remarked that the Palestinian government reminded him of Athena, ‘Bursting fully formed from Zeus’s forehead. And carrying a spear.’[1]

Though it took some months until elections could be held, the interim Cabinet bore a striking resemblance to that of the first government. The obvious choice for Prime Minister was Chaim Weizmann, whose role in the establishment of the state and centrist politics made him the only leader everyone could agree on. David Ben-Gurion, the most prominent leader of the Labour Zionists, turned down the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs (considered the most powerful position), instead opting for a dual portfolio of Interior and Labor; Weizmann would adopt this portfolio as well, due to his strong ties to the British, and thus placing the two strongest Cabinet positions in the hands of a relatively moderate force. Ze’ev Jabotinsky, war hero and leader of the Zionist right, was the obvious choice for Minister of Defence. Israel Shochat, of Hashomer, was appointed Minister of Police. The rest of the Cabinet was filled primarily with a collection of leftists of various stripes, though strong British pressure led to the appointment of the rightist Avraham Tehomi as Minister of Immigration; though this move was made solely with the hopes of preventing the government from being overrun by Bolsheviks, this appointment would have profound and unexpected effects. The forced appointment of minority party members in this first Cabinet also originated the purely Palestinian tradition of always including opposition members in any Cabinet, though often in small and unimportant positions.[2]

The Palestinian parliament, or “Knesset” (lit. gathering), has 120 members, and is directly elected via district-free national elections, with party ranking based on the Sainte-Laguë apportionment system. Though the Palestinian system has no minimum threshold to hold a seat, Sainte-Laguë ensures that the situation of a party holding only a single seat seldom occurs (though two-seat parties are fairly common!). Immediately after the state’s birth, the Knesset would be dominated by socialist parties, much to the concern of the British, who responded by propping up the religious, and Jabotinsky’s rightist factions. This fact, however, would change.

The sticky problem of the citizenship status of native Arabs was oddly easy to solve, by theoretically allowing all residents of Palestine at the time of independence to automatically receive citizenship upon application, but issuing applications (like all other government documents) solely in Hebrew and English, allowing the more educated and assimilated Arabs to claim citizenship, but effectively blocking the vast majority (who were monolingual in Arabic). It is interesting to note, however, that even most Anglophone Arabs did not take advantage of this offer, preferring to emigrate to Faisal’s Syria or, if Christian, French Lebanon.[2] The various ethno-religious minorities, such as the Samaritans, Druze, and Baha’i, largely chose to remain; in fact, some few of the Druze in the Syrian controlled portions of the Golan and French Lebanon would choose to immigrate to Palestine, a policy tacitly supported by the Syrian government.

First Cabinet of the Dominion of Jewish Palestine (1921-25)
Prime Minister – Chaim Weizmann (Independent)
Minister of Defense – Ze’ev Jabotinsky (Hatzohar)
Minister of Agriculture - Aaron David Gordon (Hapoel Hatzair)
Minister of Finance – David Horowitz (Gdud HaAvoda)
Minister of Foreign Affairs – Chaim Weizmann (Independent)
Minister of Health - Yosef Sprinzak (Hapoel Hatzair)
Minister of Immigration - Avraham Tehomi (Hatzohar)
Minister of Internal Affairs – David Ben-Gurion (Ahdut HaAvodah)
Minister of Justice - Yitzhak Sadeh (Ahdut HaAvoda)
Minister of Labour and Construction – Mendel Elkind (Gdud HaAvoda)
Minister of Police - Israel Shochat (Hashomer)
Minority Affairs Minister of Israel – Golda Meir (Hashomer Hatzair)
Minister of Religious Affairs - Yehuda Leib Maimon (Mizrachi)
Minister of Trade and Industry – Levi Eshkol (Ahdut HaAvoda)
Minister of Transportation - Avraham Elmalih (Histadrut Ha’Sephardim)
Minister of Welfare - Manya Shochat (Ahdut HaAvoda)

First Knesset of the Dominion of Jewish Palestine (1921-1925)
76 - Socialist
23 - Ahdut HaAvoda
18 – Histadrut Ha’Sephardim
15 – Hapoel Hatzair
5 – Advanced Party
2 – Craftsmen’s Centre
2 – Women’s Union
2 – Burkharan Group
2 – Clerk’s Union
2 – Youth of Israel Union

17 - Religious
14 – Haredi Party
3 - Mizachi

21 - Revisionist
11 - Hatzohar
6 – Hitahdut Halkarim

4 – Yemenite Association
6 - Independents



Administratively, the nation was divided into 6 districts: north, south, east and west, plus special districts for Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The borders of the Northern District were set roughly to include the Carmel Mountains and hilly Galil region, as well as the Palestinian strip of the plain northeast of the Galilee; the capital was set to Haifa. The Southern District was to the Negev Desert, though the borders were carefully drawn to include the entirety of the Dead Sea; the capital of the Southern District is Be’er Sheva. The Eastern District includes the Jordan Valley, the Judean Hills, and the entirety of the Dead Sea; its capital is Schem. The Western District was drawn along the coastal plain, from just south of Zichron Yaakov all the way to the Egyptian border; though Herzliya was floated as a possibility for the district capital, Hadera was chosen out of fear that Herzliya or one of the other nearby settlements would become suburbs of Tel Aviv in the future. The district of Tel Aviv’s borders were drawn basically to be as large as possible without including Petach Tivka, Rishon leTzion, or Herzliya; the district of Jerusalem, to include the airfield at Atarot as well as very holy sites. Though there are plans to include a system of urban localities and rural “regional councils”, for the time being the Knesset has decided that the districts are small enough.

In 1922, the Knesset was already planning a number of long term goals, most to be completed on a 10 or 15 year time-table. First and foremost was the development of the Port of Haifa, which would serve as Palestine’s primary port, as well as a major military port of call for the Royal Navy. Haifa was also planned by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company as the endpoint of a large oil pipeline and refinery from the Iraqi oil fields (Tripoli having been rejected due to the assumption that Haifa would attract more qualified personnel). Before 1 January 1923, construction had begun (with RN aid) on what was intended to be a world-class port at Haifa, deep enough for oil tankers and with facilities to dry-dock battlecruisers. Also critical was the construction of an airport: though there was a small air field at Atarot, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, a proper airport was planned, capable of receiving passenger flights from London, Berlin, Moscow, Vienna, and other major cities. Though the original plan was to expand the Atarot field, the hilly terrain made it expensive to flatten out a proper runway; instead, the airport was to be constructed along the coast north of Aza, near the site of the ancient Philistine city of Ashkelon. Construction of King George V International Airport began March 1923, with a combination labor from Jewish organizations like the Legion of Labor and Arab day workers from the nearby towns.

While the Palestinian government was very concerned with externally facing infrastructure, they also had plan for internal. First and foremost was the plan to install modern plumbing, electrical wire, and telephone wire in all Jewish settlements by 1932. To aid that, the extensive all-electric Israel Rail system was planned. The center of the system would be a “loop” of dedicated high speed rail connecting Tel Aviv, Haifa, Schem, Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva (and then back to Tel Aviv). Trains would circle the loop in both directions at speeds of 200km using electrical trains provided by Siemens & Halske, making it the fastest rail system in the world.[3] From the five hubs, slower local trains would extend along routes largely to be determined in the future, though several (like Haifa-Stzur-Hermon and Be’er Sheva-Eilat) were already mapped.

Electrifying towns and railways of course requires electrical power. On 1 October 1922, the Palestine Electric Company was established, owned 51% by the Government of Palestine and 24.5% each by the French and British Rothschild families. Though the idea of adopting Frank Shuman’s idea of concentrating solar power were briefly considered, it was decided that the small scale of the Shuman plant, and the high cost of large mirrors, meant that a more conventional approach was called for. With Palestine being near and friendly to a number of countries set to export petroleum, and a refinery set to be built in Haifa, it was decided that oil would be the most prudent source of power, and construction began in April 1923 on a 100 MW station north of the city. Due to concerns about pollution (and a desire to show off), the smoke stack was built 200m tall, making it the tallest chimney in the world. Though there were also plans to dam the Jordan and built a hydroelectric power station in the Golan, these plans were abandoned at first, due to the religious and cultural significance of the river.

Early in the nation’s history, water was primarily taken from the drainage of the Hermon, generally by way of rivers such as the Jordan, Hasbani, and Litani (whose water was split 50%/50% by treaty with French Lebanon); water was also taken from a number of artesian wells. Production of a vast waterworks to channel water south to the Negev was planned, but put on hold for the immediate future in order to focus on easier projects.

Though the Palestinian government began levying taxes starting 1 January 1923, very little of that money made it to the vast public works projects; rather, being sent for smaller, more local developments like municipal roads and schoolhouses. Much of the money was instead raised by of Israel Bonds (issued to the tune of some £2 million in the first year alone!), which came to be the standard gift for Jews around the world at birthdays, bar mitzvahs, weddings, and other family events. The remainder came from incredibly generous donations on the parts of several prominent Jewish families – including, of course, all of the branches of the famed Rothschild banking family, who would continue to play a very important role throughout the history of the nascent nation. Labor came both from Zionist labor organizations like the Legion of Labor, and from Arab day workers. This led the Knesset to institute in 1924 "labor conscription" - the requirement of all youths in country to spend 1 year providing free labor to the state, upon their 18th birthday or within a year of their immigration. Women were not exempted from this requirement, serving in positions that required less physical power than railroad construction an the like.

Next time: Arabs! Education! The Fourth Aliyah! What’s going on with Faisal and stuff?

[1] IOTL, when Israel actually formed in 1948, this was even more so the case. The Zionists had a full-blown parliament set up, with a military, an immigration office, an office for transportation, and many others.
[2]More on this in my next update, which is going to be largely about the Arabs getting resentful, and how the Zionists deal with it.Q
[3]Siemens and Halske did in fact test a train going at 203 kph in 1903; however, the technology did not catch on – either due to expense or do to the fact that most railways in Europe were not electrified at the time.
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