Israel: (Medinat yisrael)

There were several major markers on Israel’s political calendar for 1990 which significantly influenced basic developments in public life: the start of mass Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union at the year’s outset, the fall of the National Unity Government in March, and the onset of the Gulf crisis after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August. The Israeli political community tended to be preoccupied with national security, a dominant consideration in policymaking. The military responses to the Palestinian uprising challenged the rule of law in Israel. For the first time in Israel’s history, ultra-Orthodox religious parties rather than Zionist parties determined who would be prime minister and who would join the government. Israel’s foreign policy of nonalignment in the 1950s was aimed at facilitating the eventual immigration to Israel of Jews from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. During 1990 Israel was still engaged in nation-building.