On no single issue had Israelis been so fiercely unanimous as on the kibbutz galuyoththe ingathering of the exiles. Immediately after independence, the very first act of the new state was to declare immigration wide open. A year ago, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Israel's George Washington, said flatly: "It was for mass immigration that the state was established, and by virtue of this alone that it will stand."
In 3½ years the Israelis brought in 665,000 newcomers, more than doubling the population. It was as though the U.S. were.to import 50 million new people every year. At one point "Operation...
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