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Israel's Political History
1948-1963
For the first 29 years of Israel's existence, 1948 through 1977, all governments were headed by the Labor Party, which was known in th early years of statehood as Mapai.
With the exception of one year, David Ben-Gurion served as prime minister for the first 15 years of statehood. Only in 1954-5 was he replaced by the veteran foreign minister, Moshe Sharett. Ben-Gurion presided over a variety of coalition governments. Sometimes he had a cabinet more inclined to the lef, and sometimes more to the center, but all his coalitions included the National Religious Party.
 The two parties which Ben-Gurion refused to bring into his governments were the Herut Movement (at the time, the most right-wing party, which advocated a Greater Land of Israel on both banks of the Jordan River, and was headed by Menachem Begin) and the Israeli Communist Party. During the years of Ben-Gurion's premiership the country's population grew from just over 600,000 to over two million. The economy grew rapidly, even though there was rationing in the early years of the state.
Following the War of Independence (1948-9) there were many border skirmishes and terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens, and the country fought its second war against its neighbors, the 1956 Sinai Campaign, in coalition with France and Great Britain. Among the major controversial issues that emerged in these years were the 1952 Restitution Agreement with Germany, which was vehemently opposed by Begin, and the so-called Lavon Affair, which evolved around a Jewish spy ring caught in Egypt in 1954 and the question of who was responsible for the failure. Governments rose and fell (there were four governments in the course of the Second Knesset), over religious and political issues.
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