Back to 1947
I recently read the report prepared by the committee for the UN's 1947 Partition Plan. It was interesting to read about the committee members' pessimism regarding the possibility that the Land of Israel could fully solve the Jewish problem. In their view, it was overly crowded, lacked sufficient water, and was deficient in natural resources. They noted, for instance, the absence of oil; they had not heard then of the natural gas that would be found in the Mediterranean Sea many decades later. One might have expected them to know about desalination plants, which began to be used in the Gulf states shortly thereafter, in the early 1950s, yet this option is not mentioned. The citrus fruit sector is mentioned. At the time it seemed like the great economic hope for the flourishing of the land. Regarding the population density in the country, which was seven times less than it is today, the committee noted that a higher level of density than what existed then made sense only in countries with a strong industrial base, and considered it unrealistic in a country lacking natural resources except for potash from the Dead Sea. The general Arab embargo that was imposed, starting in 1946, on the produce of the Hebrew settlements raised fears of severe economic harm. The Mufti indeed believed that such a boycott could collapse the settlements.
There are also things that remained valid. The committee members note that although they are allocating a larger portion to the Jewish state than to the Arab state, it includes the area of the land south of latitude 31, which is completely barren and desolate. One can look at a map and see that in this respect nothing has changed. Between Eilat and Yeruham, an area that is about half the size of Israel within the pre-1967 borders, there is almost nothing. Even when ideas for developing the Negev arise, like expanding Be'er Sheva or building a Haredi city in Kasif, they are mostly focused on the area north of latitude 31. The IDF, which defines almost the entire area below latitude 31 as firing zones, remains its sole ruler.
Of course, the committee was unaware that hundreds of thousands of Arabs would abandon their homes due to the war, and it noted that within the boundaries of the Jewish state there would be a huge Arab minority, which would not really be a minority, but about half of the population. The Arab communities, such as Jaffa which is located next to Tel Aviv, were interspersed among Jewish populations. Consequently, it was impossible to establish a contiguous Jewish territory without including a substantial Arab population. The committee even wrote that the natural growth taking place among the Arab residents of Palestine was such that there was nothing like it anywhere else. In this, it indeed characterized a pattern that continued in the first decades of the state: Arab birth rates in Israel were so extreme that they even dwarfed the Haredi birth rates today!
From a demographic standpoint, the State of Israel as envisaged by the partition plan seemed unviable. The only conceivable way for it to exist would have been through adopting harsh measures to curb Arab birthrates. The Jewish population anticipated significant immigration, yet the challenge of managing the rapid natural increase of the Arab population was formidable. However, the conflict initiated by the Arabs and the subsequent population shifts addressed this demographic issue. On the economic front, Israel, with a population now ten times greater than projected in the 1947 plan, boasts a GDP per capita ranking as the 14th highest in the world, according to the most recent data I found on Wikipedia.
Reflecting on the committee's somber predictions from a standpoint 75 years later, the current situation seems almost miraculous. However, reading the committee's report conclusion, which optimistically envisioned that the two ancient Semitic peoples coexisting in their historical homeland might create a harmonious synthesis, leveraging their collective talents, is a stark contrast to today's reality. This envisioned unity is partially realized in Israel's relations with its Arab citizens, who have equal rights and many of them are well-integrated into Israeli society, including in fields like science and medicine. However, the relationship with the Palestinians, particularly those in the Gaza Strip, has been marred by challenges in overcoming religious extremism and harsh realities.