1. What was the US stance on Israel at its inception? I imagine the US would try to win the favor of the whole Middle East (gaining foundational regional influence over the Soviets) but when the Soviets won the social favor of anti-imperialist Arabs, the US made an anchor out of Israel

The original US stance was slightly muddied. The US was very, very keen to stay out of supplying weapons or military aid to Israel, and was very stringent on keeping arms from flowing into the Middle East (for the most part). However, they did also become the first nation to provide de facto recognition to the state of Israel, within 11 minutes. While the Soviets were the first to provide de jure recognition, 3 days later, the US' quick response (or rather, Truman's hasty one) and de facto recognition was still pretty significant. Still, the US did not have any special affinity for Israel: it provided no military aid, and the main ally of the Israelis was the French. They were repeatedly rebuffed by the US when they came to the US for a strategic partnership throughout the 1950s.

What did Israel's economy look like early on, and how/what did it develop into? Also, what/how did the US aid this (grants, resources, tech-transfers)?

Again, the US was not particularly huge in influencing the early Israeli economy and military. The economy was fairly industrialized but not too first-world-y. The Israelis faced huge problems: they had just fought a war, and had (over the course of the 4 years following) doubled their population with refugees who were mostly displaced persons in Europe or refugees from Arab states that left all their livelihoods and belongings/valuables behind (Iraq, for example, supplied over 130,000 Jews, and forced them to leave all their jewelry behind when they left). International aid was forthcoming, but didn't mean the Israelis didn't suffer and struggle. They tried to succeed economically and deal with this problem through a few methods:

1. Appealing for diaspora Jews to help - Golda Meir went on fundraising trips around the United States and other areas, and managed to raise far more than they even expected/asked for thanks to donations from Jews around the world. Still, this was not enough.

2. Settling Jews on Arab lands - Arabs who fled over the course of the 1948 war and were left outside the borders and refused re-entry, or those who remained in the borders and had their lands seized thanks to the very selective laws about absentee land seizure, lost their lands to the Israeli government. The government then filled many of these lands and homes with Israeli refugees who came to Israel. Still, this was not enough, and many Israeli refugees were stuck in refugee camps (ma'abarot) similar to the Palestinians. These refugee camps were gone within a decade, however, thanks to the help of the international community, Israeli government, and land seizures.

3. Appealing to the US for help - Israel received $100 million in bank loan format from the United States Congress at Truman's urging, for the absorption of new immigrants.

Israel didn't just build homes at breakneck pace, and resettle people that way. It also took huge steps to jumpstart the economy and get people employed and working. Because most of the immigrants were unskilled, a huge public works program was initiated, and afforestation was one of the main things the Jewish National Fund encouraged during this program (Israel is known for planting many new trees during this time, and past it).

That's a basic overview of that, but yeah. Throughout the rest of the 1950s Israel would receive some mixture of loans and grants from the United States, which helped it get on its feet, but militarily it didn't begin getting even loans until 1959, and aid didn't really start in earnest until after the 1967 and 1973 wars in terms of tech sharing and military grants/loans. Table here on page 27.

When/why did the Soviets lose control of Israel when they were mostly socialist/leftist to begin with? Why did they gravitate to the US?

The Soviets never really had control of Israel. They had some pretty similar ideologies, but the Soviets were pretty firmly allying themselves with the Arab states, who were more willing to work with them to get military technology and weaponry. This was a solid shift but the US refused to give up on working with the Arab states too at first. But since Israel fell into the Western camp for working with France, and later Britain during the Suez Crisis, it was hard for the Arabs to take the US seriously. And when, during the 1967 war and the lead-up to it, the Soviets took even bigger steps to arm the Egyptians and Syrians, it became clear which side was which. The shift was gradual, but the Soviets had never been all too great of friends with Israel to begin with: Stalin wasn't the biggest fan. Klinghoffer in "Soviet-Israeli Relations" (1990) writes that the question of Soviet Jewry's loyalty was the unresolved source of hostility between them, and the Soviets had taken some pretty anti-Semitic positions in the past in their treatment of Soviet Jews. Klinghoffer notes, as I said, that relations were warm at the start: fuel, weapons, and the like were flowing through the Soviet's influence (through Czechoslovakia especially) and the Soviets were the first to extend de jure recognition. But this died fairly quickly: ideologically Israel was different because of its democratic ideals, and it backed the UN against North Korea in the Korean war. The Soviets feared that Soviet Jews would leave for Israel, so they banned emigration, and the anti-Semitism of the cultural purges in 1947-1948 was noted and remembered by Israelis. In 1953 the Soviets accused Jews of working for Israel and the CIA to kill Soviet officials, and then Israelis bombed the Soviet legation in Tel Aviv. Relations were severed, then reassumed, and the shift of Arab vs. Israel where the Soviets appealed to the Arab side and were doing better, and the Israelis went with the French, cemented. That's a basic overview of that, I suppose.

What is Israeli Grand Strategy? What is the Arab geopolitical/social perspective of Israel and, knowing this, how has Israel sought to most effectively cease Arab attacks and harassment?

I don't know what you mean by Grand Strategy necessarily, but the Arab geopolitical view had been for a very long time that Israel had no right to exist and that it should be removed and replaced with an Arab state. This was the foundation of the Arab rhetoric socially, and geopolitically the Arabs sought to weaken Israel at any turn they could so long as it didn't also harm them. The Arab states also co-opted and used the Palestinian cause as the reason for their actions, refusing to integrate Palestinians effectively to keep them separate and keep their "identity" strong, and they also fostered false governments in the area like the "All Palestine Government" the Egyptians put in place that had no authority (placed in Gaza). They also allowed, and in some cases aided, Palestinian guerrilla operations against Israel, especially during the lead-up to the 1967 war (Fatah from 1965-1967 was especially important).

The general Israeli strategy was usually deterrence. They and the Arab states were engaged in a constant arms race, and there were rumors leading up to 1967 that the Israelis were building nuclear weapons capability, while they were also securing arms deals with the French that the Egyptians and Syrians would then seek to match through deals with the Soviet sphere. Israel's nuclear program does not appear to have been a huge contributor to the decision to go to war in 1967, but it definitely was a concern of the Egyptians in particular, who were also considering their own program and making longer-range missiles. Deterrence has always been a big strategy: when Egypt or Syria moved, Israel moved too. In the lead-up to the 1967 war, when Egypt mobilized, so did Israel. If Egypt backed down, so did Israel. And when guerrilla attacks came, especially from Syria, the Israelis retaliated harshly, sometimes prompting the Syrians to attack them so they'd have an excuse to "punish" the Syrians (as in April of 1967 with the air battle over Damascus that the Syrians lost badly).

I'm trying to gather an Israeli perspective, so how has partnership with the US helped their country (specific case studies if you have them)?

It's provided technology that helped the Israelis win wars and fight them (look at the Phantom F-4 deal in 1968, if I'm not wrong on the year), it's provided them with international cover (consider the UN Security Council proposals that have been vetoed or amended to be less harsh on Israel), it's provided them with a superpower that could counter the Arab superpower protection from the Soviet Union with funds and weapons (aid under Nixon increased greatly), and it's provided them with a backstop during times of war (the US airdrop didn't reverse the tides for Israel during the 1973 war, but it did embolden them and make it possible for them to keep momentum going their way without worrying about running out of supplies).

How/has Israel ever manipulated the US and/or other great powers to its advantage?

Manipulated? I guess by saying they had shared interests, attempting to use all methods possible to influence the government (ie. the Weizmann friendship with Truman or AIPAC), etc..

the US and Israel were pretty estranged until after the Suez Crisis when the US replaced France and Israels sugar daddy

This didn't happen until 1967. While the French and British became less involved in the Middle East after Suez, leaving the US to be the "overseer" of the region, France remained Israel's supplier until after 1967, by most accounts.