In Israel’s early years, Acre was an archetypal case of an “immigrant town”: a former Arab city that became a Jewish-majority city in the wake of the 1948 War. In September 1948, only some 3,400 Arabs remained in Acre, out of a prewar population of some 13,000. In mid-1949, following the arrival of Jewish immigrants, the city’s population was equal parts Arab and Jewish. Acre was the only mixed city in Israel in which the Jews did not comprise a solid majority until the early 1950s. Acre was also the only mixed city in which the military rule was not lifted until mid-1951, thus making it the only city in which Jews lived under military rule for almost three years.
The proposed paper will focus on the origins of the state-era Acre Municipality, from the occupation of the city by the Haganah in May 1948, until the voting for Acre’s first elected mayor in October 1951. The story of the municipality is a complex matrix that involved multiple players, from the army through government ministries to political parties, all vying for power in the transitional order. The paper will discuss the representation of the Arabs in the city council, the reasons behind the prolongation of the military rule and the city and the decision to end it, the effect of the military rule on the first municipal elections which took place soon after it was lifted, and the interrelation between the municipal politics and the general elections.