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Israel was admitted as a member of the United Nations by majority vote on 11 May 1949.[85] In the early years of the state, the Labor Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics.[86][87] These years were marked by an influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab lands, many of whom faced persecution and expulsion from their original countries.[88] Consequently, the population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958

Immigration to Israel during the late 1940's and early 1950's was aided by the Israeli Immigration Department and the non-government sponsored Organization for Illegal Immigration, called Mossad le-aliyah bet. Both groups facilitated regular immigration logistics like arranging transportation, but the latter also engaged in clandestine operations in countries, particularly in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, where the lives of Jews were believed to be in danger and exit from those places was difficult. The Organization for Illegal Immigration continued to take part in immigration efforts until its disbanding in 1953.

During this period, food, clothes and furniture had to be rationed in what became known as the Austerity Period. Between 1948–1970, approximately 1,151,029 Jewish refugees relocated to Israel.[90] Some arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot; by 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in these tent cities.

The immigrants came to Israel for differing reasons. Some believed in the Zionist ideology, while others moved to escape persecution. There were others that did it for the promise of a better life in Israel and a sizable number that were expelled from their homelands, like Iraq. The refugees were often treated differently according to where they were from. Jews of European descent were considered to critical to the strengthening and peopling of Israel, so they were generally allowed to enter Israel first and thus were given abandoned Arab houses to live in. On the other hand, Jews from Middle Eastern and North African countries were viewed by many Ashkenazi Jews as lazy, poor, culturally and religiously backward, and a threat to established communal life in Israel and remained in transit camps for longer periods of time. During the 1950's, the standard of living gap between Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews widened so much that tensions developed between the two groups. This tension first moved to hostility during the Wadi Salib Uprising in 1959; other instances of domestic turmoil would occur over the following decades.