Video: Before Hebrew immigrants arrived as 'vulnerable refugees', Palestine was like Spain

The claim compares Palestine in 1945 with postwar Spain, suggesting an economic and social similarity before immigration.

## An agrarian economy and relative backwardness

The picture painted of **Palestine** in **1945**, just before the mass arrival of immigrants from the **Soviet Union**, places it at a level of development that some compare with **Spain** at the same time. It is described as a predominantly agrarian economy, with social and productive structures that might evoke the hardship and isolation of postwar Europe. At that time, the region was under the British Mandate, and its economy was characterised by subsistence farming in many areas, alongside incipient urban and industrial development in places like **Tel Aviv**. Infrastructure was limited, and reliance on agriculture, often with traditional techniques, shaped the daily life of much of the population.

## A country of contrasts

The comparison with postwar **Spain**, marked by autarky and scarcity after the Civil War, may allude to a situation of general backwardness. In **Palestine** in **1945**, however, diverse realities coexisted. Alongside the rural areas with subsistence economies, there were urban centres with more dynamic commercial and professional activity, driven in part by earlier immigration and British investment. The Palestinian economy of the time was not monolithic; it showed pockets of modernisation that contrasted with the prevailing rurality. The potential for development was there, though conditioned by the political and social context of the era.