ISRAEL: THE FIRST HUNDRED

YEARS
 CASS SERIES: ISRAELI HISTORY, POLITICS
AND SOCIETY
Series Editor: Efraim Karsh
ISSN: 1368-4795
This series provides a multidisciplinary examination of all aspects of Israeli
history, politics and society, and serves as a means of communication
between the various communities interested in Israel: academics, policy-
makers, practitioners, journalists and the informed public.
1. Peace in the Middle East: The Challenge for Israel, edited by Efraim
Karsh.
2. The Shaping of Israeli Identity: Myth, Memory and Trauma, edited by
Robert Wistrich and David Ohana.
3. Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security, edited by
Efraim Karsh.
4. U.S.-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads, edited by Gabriel Sheffer.
5. Revisiting the Yom Kippur War, edited by P. R. Kumaraswamy.
6. Israel: The Dynamics of Change and Continuity, edited by David
Levi-Faur, Gabriel Sheffer and David Vogel.
7. In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture, edited by Dan
Urian and Efraim Karsh.
8. Israel at the Polls, 1996, edited by Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel
Sandler.
9. From Rabin to Netanyahu: Israel's Troubled Agenda, edited by Efraim
Karsh.
10. Fabricating Israeli History: The ‘New Historians’, second revised
edition, by Efraim Karsh.
11. Divided Against Zion: Anti-Zionist Opposition in Britain to a Jewish
State in Palestine, 1945-1948, by Rory Miller.
12. Peacemaking in a Divided Society: Israel After Rabin, edited by
Sasson Sofer.
13. A Twenty-Year Retrospective of Egyptian-Israeli Relations: Peace in
Spite of Everything, by Ephraim Dowek.
14. Global Politics: Essays in Honour of David Vital, edited by Abraham
Ben-Zvi and Aharon Klieman.
15. Parties, Elections and Cleavages; Israel in Comparative and
Theoretical Perspective, edited by Reuven Y. Hazan and Moshe Maor.
16. Israel at the Polls 1999, edited by Daniel J. Elazar and M. Ben Mollov.
17. Public Policy in Israel, edited by David Nachmias and Gila Menahem.
Israel: The First Hundred Years (Mini Series), edited by Efraim Karsh.
1. Israel's Transition from Community to State, edited by Efraim Karsh.
2. From War to Peace? edited by Efraim Karsh.
3. Politics and Society Since 1948, edited by Efraim Karsh.
4. Israel in the International Arena, edited by Efraim Karsh.
 Israel:
The First Hundred Years

VOLUME III
Israeli Society and Politics Since
1948: Problems of Collective Identity

Editor
Efraim Karsh
 First published in 2002 by
FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS

This edition published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2002 Frank Cass & Co. Ltd

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Israel : the first hundred years

Vol. 3: Israeli society and politics since 1948 : problems
of collective identity editor, Efraim Karsh. – (Israeli
history, politics and society)
l.Jews – Palestine – History – 20th century 2. Palestine –
History – 20th century
I.Karsh, Efraim
956.9′4′05

ISBN 0 7146 4961 9 (cloth)

ISBN 0 7146 8022 2 (paper)
ISSN 1368-4795

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

This group of studies first appeared as ‘Israeli Politics and Society Since 1948: Problems of
Collective Identity’, a special issue of Israel Affairs, Vol.8, Nos.1&2 (Autumn/Winter 2002),
published by Frank Cass and Co. Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.
 Contents

COLLECTIVE IDENTITY

Israel 1948–98: Purpose and Predicament in

History Mordechai Nisan

The Fracturing of the Jewish Self-Image:

The End of ‘We Are One’? Judith Elizur

Shifting the Centre from Nation to Individual

and Universe: The New ‘Democratic Faith’ of
Israel Oz Almog

Zionism in the Israeli Theatre Dan Urian

POLITICS

To Fantasy and Back: David Ben-Gurion's First

Resignation, 1953 Yechiam Weitz

Labour and Likud: Roots of their Ideological-

Political Struggle for Hegemony over Zionism,
1925–35 Yaacov N. Goldstein

Likud and the Search for Eretz Israel:

From the Bible to the Twenty-First Century Colin Shindler

The Delicate Framework of Israeli Democracy

During the 1980s: Raphael Cohen-
Retrospect and Appraisal Almagor
State–Religion Relations in Israel: Efraim Ben-Zadok
The Subtle Issue Underlying the Rabin
Assassination

Referenda in a Post-Consociational Democracy:

The Case of Israel Dana Arieli-Horowitz

SOCIETY

Kibbutz or Moshav? Priority Changes of

Settlement Types in Israel, 1949–53 Yossi Ben-Artzi

Mass Immigration and the Demographic

Revolution in Israel Dvora Hacohen

The IDF and the Mass Immigration of the Early

1950s: Aid to the Immigrant Camps Moshe Gat

Public Service Broadcasting vs Public Service

Broadcasting: The Crisis in the Service as the
Outcome of the Clash between State and Civil
Society – The Israeli–Lebanese War, 1982 Mira Moshe

The Bank-Shares Regulation Affair and

Illegality in Israeli Society: A Theoretical David De Vries and
Perspective of Unethical Managerial Behaviour Yoav Vardi

Abstracts

Index
COLLECTIVE IDENTITY
 Israel 1948–98: Purpose and
Predicament in History
MORDECHAI NISAN

BETWEEN EXISTENCE AND IDENTITY

One hundred years of modern Zionism and fifty years of the State of Israel
provide convenient historical landmarks to reflect on the political return of
the Jewish people to history. It was a vibrant collective memory that
enabled this people to imagine that a national renaissance could be wrought
from the legacy of an extraordinary march through time. The memory bank
of the Jews meandered comfortably from Abraham to Moses, to David and
Hillel – and from exile to homeland: it constituted the spiritual strength of
an ancient people, which was compromised by contact with modernity and
its assimilationist pull. The history of the Jews demanded a reconstruction
to escape the dim shadows of Diaspora life, its indignities and insecurities,
on the way toward redirecting the path of Jewish history, in concrete
ideological, geographical and political ways. Memory, in short, provided
the Jewish people with the springboard for a return to history.
Yet, the political return that culminated in the founding of the State of
Israel in 1948 is but one aspect of this extraordinary human triumph. The
broader context of Israel's place in the Middle East and the world touches
on the civilizational and religious matrix of its situation in relation to both
the Muslim East and the Christian West. While the Zionist movement
addressed the ‘Jewish Question’ of powerlessness and homelessness by
proposing (and achieving) a radical territorial and political solution, it was
unable to transcend the deeper and older problem of the Jewish people as
outcasts in history. Israel has inherited the traditional ‘Jewish Problem’ and
it has become an aspect of modern international political history.
 A most original and powerful Israeli thinker, the late Moshe Ben-Yosef,
exposed the truth encapsulated within the myth of Zionism's triumph in
1948. Israel faced a cultural challenge in its struggle not to be swallowed up
by the West or the East. In particular, Ben-Yosef conceived the period of
1933–45 not only as the vortex for what will be styled as the ‘Final Solution
to the Jewish Problem’, but also as the Holocaust of humanity. The basic
malaise of the West, which he considered to mean the end of Christian
history and its moral mission, was a message that the Israelis, however,
failed to learn in 1948. Three years after the full disclosure of Auschwitz,
Israel nevertheless sought to become a cultural and political appendage of
the civilization that perpetrated and permitted the ovens of Auschwitz to
mass-murder the Jewish people over a period of years. The virtual
‘Westernization’ of Israel would not only prove politically fatal, but could
in addition deny the shaping of an old-new Jewish national culture in Eretz
Israel.1
This perspective provided no room for a synthetic weaving of tradition
with modernity, a particular religion with a universal culture, owing to the
fundamental incompatibility between Israel and the Western nations. Jews
could reside comfortably in America, but a Jewish people should not
comfortably accommodate Americanization in Israel.
It is important to mention that Jewish history in the ancient past, though
always the struggle of a small and endangered people, did not and could not
avoid confrontation with major world civilizations. Jewish holidays
commemorate this heroic tapestry, of war and liberation from Egypt,
victory over Persia, and triumph over Greece. Nor does it overlook the
terrible losses inflicted by Babylon and Rome. Much of Jewish history is
embedded within the fabric of clashing civilizations. In fact the clash is a
series of civilizational assaults by large and expansionist powers against the
vulnerable but proud Jews. Manifestations of Jewish national self-assertion
express the spirit of independence, not always a calculus of power vis-à-vis
the predatory hegemonic forces in history.
The contemporary state of Israel is necessarily committed to affirming –
despite some native misunderstandings at home – a narrow and bold
political claim to authenticity and independence. This devolves on the
national enterprise by virtue of the cultural mandate dictating Jewish
history. The fact that the Israel airline company El Al officially observes the
Sabbath day of rest, and that Israel's official terminology for the West Bank
is Judea and Samaria, highlight that the modern Zionist movement is
grounded in the appropriate Jewish national and religious context.
Being surrounded by twenty Arab states in possession of 5 million square
miles of territory (larger than the United States) – and a Palestinian state
edging its way toward political birth and poised against Israel's ‘soft
underbelly’ – is a strategic nightmare for Israel, as one tiny country with
less than 8,000 square miles of land (excluding the miniscule areas of Judea
and Samaria). Israel's size approximates that of New Jersey and is but one-
seventh the size of Florida. Its population of just under five million Jews is
dwarfed by an Arab world of over 230 million people. Nor should one
forget the one billion Muslims in the world altogether.
Modern Israel is a sensational success story on many fronts, which
hostile ‘Israel-bashing’ sensationalist journalism and, admittedly, domestic
Israeli ills sometimes distort or camouflage. The ‘ingathering of the exiles’
(or continuing waves of immigration-repatriation) and the rejuvenation of
Hebrew as the spoken national language are testimony to the integrity of
Jewish peoplehood and a sign of cultural authenticity. An earthy spiritual
revival and buttressing of proud Jewish identity proceed apace. Military
strategy and boldness have defeated Arabs in war and deterred them from
attack. The Ofeq satellite and the Arrow missile place Israeli technology at
the forefront of world technology. As do information technologies,
developments in biomedical science, and innovations in agriculture.2
The impressive economic talent and energy of Israel have brought the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to a figure of $100bn. This exceeds the
GDP of Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority
combined. Israeli exports quadrupled from 1980 to 1996, exceeding $20bn.
In 1997, Israel's chemical industry exports alone rose to more than $2.4bn.
In the same year, 13 million books were sold in Israel, the tenth highest
number of books sold relative to population in the world. Israeli Jewish
males reached an average life expectancy of 75.9 years, the third highest in
the world. Female life expectancy was yet higher and reached 79.8 years.3
All this has been achieved in the face of almost permanent warfare, urban
terrorism, international pressures and a growing and hostile domestic Arab
minority.
 It should be noted that, despite all this, 75 per cent of Israelis are satisfied
with their lives in comparison to 64 per cent of people in Canada and the
United States.4 This statistic should be considered when tales of Israeli
demoralization are told – political tensions and economic ills fill media
reports emanating from Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Ofakim in the Negev. A
sense of proportion is required in focusing requisite attention on the positive
sides and successes in contemporary Israeli society.
Israel's triumph is essentially if not mysteriously that of the spirit, that is,
the special inner code of a people with particular virtues in multiple
domains. ‘Talent goes where it is needed’, commented the late Gershom
Scholem regarding the appearance of brave Jewish soldiers and warriors in
modern times. The explanation for that truism lies deep in the mental and
emotional wellsprings of the Jewish people. Central biblical encounters at
Shechem and Sinai have physically sustained the Jews – and virtually
assured their spiritual survival – until today.5 Israel is beyond its secular,
socialist, Westernized, liberal aspects, no less so and much more so a
Jewish venture buoyed by an arcane current of continuity animating its
collective life.

ISRAEL IN THE EAST

From near and far the Muslim world demonstrates its manifest rejection of
Israel's existence. On 9 December 1997, President Mohammed Khatami of
the Islamic Republic of Iran addressed the Islamic Summit Conference in
Tehran on the ‘shining civilization of the Muslims’ in history. He delineated
the high moral purposes of Islam that were initially evoked and applied by
Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, in Medina in the seventh century. Islam,
said President Khatami, advocates the rights of peoples and tolerance for
all, except for the ‘hegemonic, racist, aggressive, and violent Zionist
regime’.
Khatami's programme for the realization of the rights of the Palestinian
people, including self-determination, statehood and the return of refugees,
will guarantee that the ‘Zionist regime’ be eliminated. No less a personage
than an Arab Member of Israel's Knesset, Abdul Wahab Darwashe, declared
in August 1997, before a cheering crowd of 20,000 Palestinian refugees in
Syria, that the ‘right to return to Palestine is a holy right of the Palestinian
people’.6 This code-language for Israel's immolation and elimination
remains pivotal in the perennial war of Islam against Israel, toward the
demographic transformation of the Jewish state into Arab Palestine.
The tradition of Islam records that Muhammad exalted jihad as the
gateway to paradise and the pathway to martyrdom, in a way in which
religion is virtually coterminous with war. He said, ‘the head of the whole
affair is Islam; its central pillar is prayer and the tip of its hump is jihad’7
Although this desert imagery conjuring up the tent and the camel is no
longer common in Arab rhetoric, Jews continue to be defamed, as in the
period of classical Islam, as ‘sons of monkeys and dogs’. Their
unchangeable and hideous nature legitimizes the eternal struggle against
Israel and its demonization as the embodiment, no less, of ‘Nazi Zionism’.8
Portraying Yitzhak Shamir and Binyamin Netanyahu, and even the late
and lionized Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as Hitler was not beyond the
malicious creativity of Arab caricaturists. The introversion of the truth is a
standard vituperative discourse in the scandalous onslaught on Israel's
moral right to exist. For the Arabs, the Middle East is equivalent to the
Arab world, with no room for non-Arab sovereignty, let alone that of a
Jewish state. It is in this fashion that the advocacy of Palestinian national
rights implies the denial of any Jewish claim to national rights in the
Hebrew homeland.
Strategic conceptions underpinning the Arab and Muslim positions point
to de-Zionizing and ‘orientalizing’ or ‘Arabizing’ Israel as cultural
processes to deny her Jewish identity and Zionist purpose. These notions
are buttressed by the absolutist, and thus rejectionist, core at the level of
Islam as a religion and Arab nationalism as an ideology. The Palestinian
Hamas and the Lebanese Hizballah are, for their part, only two of the
better-known practitioners of jihad warfare against any, and all, Jewish
targets, civilian and military, toward the fulfilment of Khatami's ‘shining
civilization’ of Islam in this era of history.
Israel's existential predicament is, then, rooted in a dogged pursuit of life
and liberty in the predatory environs of contemporary Arab-Muslim
civilization. The melodious music of the ‘peace process’ and the ‘new
Middle East’ reverberate in the councils of international diplomacy and on
the airwaves of political utopianism. But doubts linger as to how many of
these sloganeering hopes are politically feasible or whether they are not,
perhaps, delusory.
The election of Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel in May 1996
represented the victory of two prominent ideas. The first was the reassertion
of Jewish national and religious identity in the face of global and regional
realities. The second was the recovery of both political realism and political
savvy in manoeuvring through the narrow corridors of Israeli diplomatic
dealings with Americans and Arabs. Netanyahu signalled that Israel was
Jewish, and indeed the galvanizing last minute election campaign slogan
declared, ‘Netanyahu: this is good for the Jews’. Peres, by implication, was
good for someone else.
The mix of peace and war has been an ambiguous political reality in the
unchanging Muslim Middle East. Diplomatic efforts, launched on the
European continent, no less, with the 1991 Madrid Conference and the 1993
Oslo Declaration of Principles between Israel and the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO), have not eliminated or superseded the military build-
ups, strategic threats and border and terrorist warfare across the tense
Middle East region. Egypt's acquisition of weaponry and its military up-
grading are formidable developments, though markedly ignored in the
public press and beyond.9
Non-conventional weaponry of a biological and chemical variety has also
swelled the arsenals of a number of Arab states, Syria and Iraq included.
Missile capabilities assure that available delivery systems can transport the
weaponry in the direction of civilian Israeli targets. Meanwhile, five of the
seven states supporting terrorism posted on the US list of ignominy and
sanctions are Muslim: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Sudan. Narco-terrorism,
as practised by Syria, Iran and Lebanon, and the direct terrorism of a
Palestinian and Shiite variety, constitute effective weaponry in a continuous
war against Israel and the West.
The Arabs' territorial ambitions and aggressive activities vis-à-vis Israel
can be summarized as follows: Syria demands the Golan Heights and part
of eastern Galilee; the Lebanese Shiites seek to penetrate northern Galilee
(‘on the road to Jerusalem’, they declare); Jordan desires more of the Arava
down to Eilat; Egypt covets the southern Negev desert; while the
Palestinians demand all of Judea-Samaria, Gaza and east Jerusalem as a
first instalment in readiness further to acquire western Galilee and the 1947
UN Partition Plan borders, on the path toward the ‘complete liberation of
Palestine’.
The strategic incompatibility between Israel and the Arab-Muslim world
in the Middle East is an aspect of a broader cultural contradiction and
religious conflict that divide these historical protagonists. This nexus
juxtaposes Israel's democratic vibrancy, if not extravagances, with the
Muslims' authoritarian politics; it pits Israel's civilian culture with the
Arabs' military culture, without ignoring contemporary efforts, yet in their
infancy, in forging a civilian polity in Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere. The
Jewish value placed on individual human life seems incongruent when
compared with the Islamic imperative of martyrdom in Holy War.
It is the art, and rather artful manner, of doing politics that also conveys
the chasm differentiating the Israelis from the Arabs. It is true that a vast
terrain of mutual mistrust and suspicion characterizes relations between the
two sides. But it is also true that the Arabs incessantly call for peace with
Israel – radically different from the pre-1967 period when they incessantly
called for war against Israel. It is, however, critical to understand that for
Islam peace is a code-term for victory, if not conquest, certainly equivalent
with the acquisition of land presently in the hands of Israel.
Thus peace is a strategy, not a value in itself: a way of proceeding toward
a goal – perhaps that of Israel's ultimate demise – no different conceptually
from war as a vehicle to the same end. For Israel, peace represents a mode
of transforming the quality of a conflict into accommodation, whereby
respectful co-existence and normalization are to replace and eliminate
tension and warfare. Peace for Israel is a cultural substance and therefore a
political objective; for the Arabs, it is a cultural ruse serving a more
substantive political gain at the expense of Israel. It is noteworthy that the
Arab understanding of peace is linked to the demand for justice: this was
Anwar Sadat's clear message in 1977 and remains that of his successor
Hosni Mubarak and all other Arab leaders ever since. ‘Justice’ carries the
substantive corollary that Israel's policies, if not her very existence,
represent manifest injustice in history.
Pertinent to this inquiry into peace is the diplomatic process of
negotiations toward its realization. The bartering method of peace-making
is designed to arrive at a reasonable trade-off between Israel and the Arabs:
give-and-take is the essence of the negotiation exercise, in addition to
shaping human and political expectations for confidence-building between
the parties. But the record of diplomacy's efficacy is not an encouraging one
in the Arab-Israeli experience. The Camp David Accords of 1978–79
formally established peace between Israel and Egypt, but the reality is that
Israel's gain following a complete withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula is
hardly more than a precarious ceasefire, not a warm and solid relationship
of peace.
Israel can only with great difficulty identify any clear-cut strategic,
political or economic achievement since the final Sinai pullback in 1982.
Likewise, withdrawal from parts of Judea and Samaria since 1993 has not
lowered the Arab war profile, since the Palestinian Authority maintains
40,000 fighters geared psychologically and practically for a confrontation
with Israel's defence forces. The political climate characterizing the Israeli-
Palestinian dialogue, no less the ideological and Islamic climate within the
Palestinian community itself, is even more strident and violent than before
the dramatic signing ceremony on the White House lawn between Rabin
and Yasser Arafat. The nature of political negotiations is such that Israel
gives concrete resources – land – but gets no concrete gain in return. Here is
the political nub of the clash of cultures at the heart of a bitter national
struggle in one small land.

ISRAEL AND THE WEST

Francis Fukuyama's ‘The End of History?’ and ‘The Triumph of the West’,
along with VS. Naipaul's ‘Our Universal Civilization’ and the American
affirmation of the right to ‘the pursuit of happiness’, represent the apogee of
the American Century and beyond.10 Graced with civility and civil rights,
democracy and the rule of law, a multi-party system and free elections, the
West conveyed a superior form of civilization to the totalitarian, militaristic
or authoritarian forms in most other parts of the world. To be considered a
Western state, in substance and image, was therefore for Israel a
membership card into an exclusive, though universally inclined, elite
political club. But acceptance by the Western nations was not automatic or
simple. The United States rejected Israel's request to join the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance in the early 1950s, although the
European Common Market, predecessor to the European Union, did begin
to open its economic doors to Israel in the 1960s. Israelis should not easily
forget that, when Jewish statehood was proclaimed in May 1948 in
accordance with UN authorization, no Western country – including the US
– offered any assistance when five Arab armies invaded their country with
the intent of massacre and destruction.
It is no less important to point out that Israel has received extraordinary
benefits from its relationships with the West, and with America in
particular. Diplomatic backing and economic aid, certainly arms sales and
strategic co-operation, have been an essential part of these relationships in
supporting Israel's national interests. A balanced judgement is required and
Israeli gratitude should be voiced, but nothing bordering servility and
fawning at the foot of the ‘American ally’.
The political philosophy of Western civilization rests upon values and
ideals that Israel can agree with in theory, but may consider destabilizing or
threatening in practice. The principle of equality is sacrosanct in the West,
but in Israel it challenges the priority of Jews over Arabs in the Jewish state.
The moral pathos of minority rights is in its Diaspora context of great
communal significance in modern Jewish history, yet it is an ideological
weapon against the integrity of Israel when wielded by a radicalized and
Islamicized Arab minority within the pre-1967 borders.
No one can easily or publicly reject the validity of self-determination as a
political right for small peoples, though its application in the name of
Palestinian independence bodes ill for Israel's territorial and national
viability. Thus, Israel cannot conduct itself with intellectual sloppiness and
political blindness, nor agree with all ideas of Western political vintage,
because the circumstances of its existence demand extraordinary prudence
regarding their relevance in the Israeli context. To see Israel through an
American prism alone is to deprecate its own historic identity and national
existence.
American policy in the Middle East has been characterized by – some
would say dominated by – the Arabist diplomatic school of thought. With
sympathy for the Arabs and a familiarity with their history and language,
the Arabist diplomats promoted American-Arab relations and cooperation
at Israel's expense.11 Examples on the Arabist ledger include the
ARAMCO-Bechtel-CIA-Saudi connection,12 the 1955 Baghdad Pact,
Kennedy's outreach to Nasser in 1962, Carter's marked preference for Sadat
over Menachem Begin at Camp David in 1978, co-operation with Saddam
Hussein in the 1980s, and contacts with the PLO and American recognition
of the terrorist organization in 1988.
Certainly the political proximity of the George Bush-Arab connection
was obvious to all, and the Clinton-Peres linkage was merely the other side
of the coin in the name of the same political outlook. The conceptual
rigidity of Arabism, regardless of diplomatic success or failure, demotes the
role of Israel in American considerations, though without erasing her value
from certain moral and strategic perspectives. Indeed, the recognition of
Israel as a strategic partner of the US became a component of Washington's
policy in the Middle East during the Reagan presidency.13
This said, the US has been Israel's ‘best friend’, in the oft-repeated
phraseology of Israeli politicians and ministers, but not in a way that has
disinclined Washington to exercise pressure on, compel behaviour in and
threaten sanctions against Israel, or collaborate with her Arab adversaries.
In 1953, Washington constrained Israel's Jordan Water Diversion Project. In
1956, she browbeat Israel into withdrawing from captured Gaza and Sinai.
In 1967, she disclaimed a written pledge of support. During 1973, she
ignored pleas for weaponry in the early days of the Yom Kippur War and
thereafter denied Israel victory on the battlefield – she then pressured Israel
to withdraw in favour of Egyptian and Syrian demands. During the 1980s,
she condemned Israel's attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, and distanced
herself from Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the war against the PLO.
In 1991, the US prevailed on Israel to refrain from responding to Iraqi
missile attacks on metropolitan Tel Aviv. Being pressured and punished by
one's ‘best friend’ is not the political substance of an authentic alliance or
true friendship. Certainly, Washington's steady acceptance of the Arab
demand for Israeli withdrawal back to the pre-1967 borders, along with its
non-recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, is tantamount to a lethal
strategic and ideological abandonment of Israel.
In a tone of moral certitude and censure, the renowned Albert Einstein
stated, ‘the world is too dangerous to live in, not because of people who do
evil, but because of people who sit and let it happen’. The Armenian
genocide and the Biafran massacre, the tragedies of Cambodia, Sudan,
Lebanon, Rwanda and East Timor, and more, testify that Israel's present
predicament of abandonment is a danger – which others have already
encountered as destruction. The lesson, post-Holocaust no less, is: to
recognize realism and strength as the bedrock essential imperatives of
Israeli survival.

MORALITY AND VICTORY

While the West prevaricates with Israel's well-being, and America assists
but also admonishes, the forces of Islam persevere in their quest for global
hegemonic domination. This is pursued through international and UN
agencies and diplomatic influence, oil wealth and capital purchasing power,
media penetration and religious activism, terrorism and demographic
expansion. The temptation for the West lies in seeking to mollify the
Muslims and Arabs in the currency of Israel's miniscule territory: buy Arab
co-operation, that of Egypt and Syria, for example, by pressuring Israel to
surrender land to the PLO, thereby solidifying the Arabist inclination and
bias in US policy-making in the Middle East. It is less understood that, if
Jerusalem falls to Islam and Judaism is thereby emasculated, Christianity
would be dead as a moral and civilizational force in history.
In his book Cultures in Conflict, Professor Bernard Lewis, the eminent
scholar of Islam and Arab history, has stated with clarity and courage the
mood of the times, the drift of history, and the dangers facing the West and
the world. ‘It may be that Western culture will indeed disappear: the lack of
conviction of many of those who should be its defenders and the passionate
intensity of its accusers may well join to complete its destruction’.14
But it is the Western stance toward Israel that constitutes the most
elemental test of its civilizational integrity and moral posture. The
diplomatic bludgeoning of Israel proceeds apace: consecutive Israeli prime
ministers of whatever political party are blamed for impeding peace in the
Middle East, while Palestinian violations of agreements are ignored. These
violations include harbouring murderers and accumulating weaponry,
ignoring anti-Semitic and warlike declarations, turning a blind eye to the
dictatorial and corrupt character of Arafat's Palestinian Authority regime,
and most recently open warfare on the streets. Should we not consider
America's political leanings as nothing less than a disclosure of moral
bankruptcy in high places? The only pertinent change in the region since
the Labour Party came to power in 1992, has not been in Arab intentions or
American policies, but in Israel's willingness virtually to give something for
nothing while enduring jihad in Jerusalem.
The politics of the Middle East cannot be separated from the prophecies
of the Middle East, just as political issues cannot be divorced from more
comprehensive cultural questions. Jewish rabbinic sages from two millennia
ago understood that biblical tales are symbolic narratives for penetrating
truths. The struggle of the people of Israel is guided by a destiny
determined from above. This might mean in human or secular terms that
Israel's deficiency in geography and demography is compensated by an
abundance of spirituality and mental power.
But on the path blocking Israel's national restoration stand the formidable
foes of the past: Ishmael representing the Muslims, and Esau representing
the Christians. Bound by a common antipathy, Israel is their nemesis and
prey. They will collaborate in the war against the Jews. But as the prophets
of the Bible predicted and the flow of modern history confirms, Israel's
restoration – in these end of days of the final redemption – will withstand
the dangers and thwart the enemies. This ‘Return to Zion’, despite faltering
Jews and antagonistic gentiles – and in the teeth of a clash of cultures –
constitutes a breakthrough that will not be reversed.

NOTES
1. The Hebrew writings of Moshe Ben-Yosef include From the World of the Epigones, Tel Aviv,
1977 and Cultural Coercion, Jerusalem, 1979.
2. See Israel Yearbook and Almanac 1997, Vol.51, Jerusalem, 1997, pp.281–2.
3. See Central Bureau of Statistics, Data from Statistical Abstract of Israel 1997, No.48,
Jerusalem, 1997.
4. Israel Yearbook and Almanac 1997, p.288.
5. The events implied are: the promise given to Abraham, the first Hebrew, at Shechem (Nablus)
that Eretz-Canaan would be the eternal possession of his seed; and the revelation of the tablets
and the Law to Moses and the children of Israel at Sinai.
6. Ma'ariv, 11 August 1997.
7. See Ibn Taimiyya, Public and Private Law in Islam, trans. Omar A. Farrukh, Beirut, 1966,
p.138.
8. An array of recent Arab anti-Semitic caricatures and statements appeared in Nativ (Israel), No.6
(1997), pp.46–56, while a complete volume on the topic was prepared by Aryeh Stav, The Peace
 – Arab Caricature: A Study in Anti-Semitic Image, Tel Aviv, 1996 (in Hebrew). A shorter
English version of the material appeared in Aryeh Stav, Arab Anti-Semitism in Cartoons – After
‘Peace’, Tel Aviv, 1996.
9. Shawn Pine, ‘The Egyptian Threat and the Prospects for War in the Middle East’, Ariel Centre
for Policy Research, No.4 (1997). See also Christopher Barder, ‘Syria and Egypt: Preparations
for War?’, B'tzedek (Fall/Winter 1997–98), pp.63–8.
10. Francis Fukuyama, ‘The End of History?’, The National Interest, No. 16 (Summer 1989), pp.3–
18; and VS. Naipaul, ‘Our Universal Civilization’, The New York Review, 31 January 1991,
pp.22–5. For a yet more recent argument in favour of the normative and universal validity of
Westernization, no less addressed to the Muslim Middle East, see Martin Kramer, ‘The Middle
East, Old and New’, Daedalus, No.2 (Spring 1997), pp.89–112.
11. Robert D. Kaplan, The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite, New York, 1993.
12. John Loftus and Mark Aarons, The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage
Betrayed the Jewish People, New York, 1994. See especially chs.3, 7, 10, 11 and 15. ARAMCO
is an acronym for the Arabian-American Oil Company.
13. Camille Mansour, Beyond Alliance: Israel in United States Foreign Policy, New York, 1994, pp.
144–94.
14. Bernard Lewis, Cultures in Conflict: Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Age of Discovery,
New York, Oxford, 1995, p.79.

__________
Mordechai Nisan teaches Middle East Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the Rothberg
International School. An earlier version of this essay was presented as a paper at the International
Conference on World Affairs: A Clash of Cultures, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, 14
January 1998.
 The Fracturing of the Jewish Self-
Image: The End of ‘We Are One’?
JUDITH ELIZUR

The core of the Jewish self-image in the past, whether in the Diaspora or in
Israel, was vulnerability, either physical or psychological or both. The
peripheral attributes of the image varied from one community to the next,
but Jews all over the world shared the basic trait. Despite Salo Baron's
objections to what he termed the ‘lachrymosal view’ of Jewish history -that
is, that it is a succession of disasters and not much else, whereas he wished
to emphasize the positive achievements in the long-running story of the
Jewish people – the prevailing feeling among Jews worldwide prior to
1967, especially in the wake of the Holocaust, was to see themselves as the
eternal victim in history.
The victim self-image was based on the reality of twenty centuries
marked by recurring expulsions, forced conversions, pogroms, persecution
and flight. Minority status in the Diaspora created the need to maintain a
constant state of vigilance, a kind of functional paranoia that served as an
early warning system of dangers looming ahead. Rejecting this nervous,
haunted image, the Zionist founders of the pre-State Yishuv were trying to
create a new Jew, free of what they termed the ‘Galut mentality’, which
included a large dose of self-pity over Jewish victimhood in history. The
figure of the sabra, the native-born Israeli who is tough on the outside but
sensitive and caring on the inside, was an invention calculated to combat
the poor self-image of the Diaspora Jew.
It was hoped that the creation of a Jewish state would strengthen the
Jewish psyche in the Diaspora. It would not only enable Jews everywhere to
stand taller; it would elicit admiration from non-Jews and insure respect for
Jewish rights everywhere. (Theodor Herzl never anticipated that Israel
could become a stick with which to beat the local Jewish community, that
its support for Israel could give rise to charges of dual loyalty or of
conniving in the oppression of another people. Yet parties on both the right
and left in many places have done exactly that.)
What effect did the Six Day War have on the Jewish self-image, which
had not changed appreciably over the centuries? First of all, it demonstrated
the symbiotic relationship between Diaspora self-image and events in Israel
– which affect Israeli self-image as well – and therefore we must examine
what occurred at both ends of the equation. Secondly, and perhaps even
more significantly, it presaged the fracturing of the universal core of the
Jewish self-image, which we see so clearly today.

THE ISRAELI SELF-IMAGE BEFORE 1967

At the outset, Israelis in 1948 were unsure of their own strength. The War of
Independence was won at great cost in lives and suffering, particularly in
besieged Jerusalem. The hardships of the early years, especially the
austerity period at the time of the great immigration from the camps of
Europe and the mullahs of North Africa, did not inculcate any element of
strength into the self-image. When aliya slowed down to a trickle after the
first years of explosive growth – indeed the economic situation immediately
prior to 1967 was one of negative growth – the resulting phenomenon of
yerida, or emigration, gave rise to the classic joke, ‘Will the last person to
leave Lydda Airport please turn off the lights’.
Against this background of self-doubt as to economic viability and grave
concern as to Israel's military might against combined Arab armies, the
victory in June 1967 was indeed, as Haim Bar-Lev termed it, swift, decisive
and elegant. The immense relief at the war's outcome was in direct
proportion to the fears that had become more and more pervasive in the
three-week waiting period prior to the war's outbreak. (David Ben-Gurion
himself reputedly warned Yitzhak Rabin, then chief of staff, that he was
risking the destruction of the Third Commonwealth by going it alone
without the support of any of the Great Powers. Ben-Gurion had not
believed in Israeli invincibility to that extent in 1956.)
THE EFFECT OF THE 1967 WAR ON ISRAEL'S
SELF-IMAGE
There were three aspects to the euphoria that swept over Israel after the Six
Day War. First, the demographic: any doubts of the old-timers as to the
fighting ability of the post-statehood immigrants were set to rest. As a
result, Israelis could trust their own strength. Secondly, the geographic: the
conquest of the West Bank put an end to the claustrophobia caused by the
narrow pre-1967 boundaries, especially with regard to Jerusalem, which for
19 years had been isolated and hemmed in on three sides by Arab territory.
The retaking of the Old City was an incredible emotional high, not only for
Israelis but also for Jews all over the world. And finally, the economic
aspect underpinning the first two: a great leap forward took place after the
war. The overnight availability of a new, large pool of cheap labour (the
Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza) made possible the expansion of labour-
intensive agriculture and industry.
The result was an air of optimism arising from the general prosperity and
renewed confidence in the nation's ability to survive. This rise in self-
esteem was nowhere demonstrated as strikingly as in the first Independence
Day parade after the Six Day War. With the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in
the spotlight, the celebration was held in Jerusalem as the entire nation
rejoiced. Did this mean that for the Israelis the victim image had been
expunged once and for all – and had been replaced by the fulfilment of the
Zionist dream? Here we must turn to examine the Diaspora's reaction to the
victory, whence came reinforcement to Israel's euphoria, with an unforeseen
impact on the national self-image.

THE EFFECTS OF THE 1967 VICTORY ON THE

DIASPORA SELF-IMAGE
If one may be permitted a gross generalization, Diaspora Jewry before 1967
was not certain of the permanence of Israel. Indeed, at the outset not all
Diaspora Jews were united in support of political Zionism and the
attainment of political sovereignty for the Jews in Palestine. As Alfred
Moses, then head of the American Jewish Committee, recalled in a 1989
interview:
 Many American Jews sat on their hands during the War of Independence.
There was criticism, both from the left – at least from the extreme left,
the Bundists and so on – and from the right – not just the religious right,
but those who felt Israel was a socialist state or Communist state, the
distinctions weren't always made. There was a lot of sitting on the
sidelines by people who weren't embarrassed about their being Jewish
but who just didn't identify with Israel. And there were American Jews
who no doubt felt threatened by a Jewish state.1
True, Leon Uris's Exodus had managed to mythologize Israel's early
pioneering days and struggle for independence, and in becoming a
bestseller gave the Diaspora a new cast of Jewish heroes. Yet the reality
presented world Jewry with a different Israel, a frail body in need of much
support. It must be said that the organized community, especially in the
United States, responded without hesitation to the appeals of the Israeli
leadership to help the state absorb the mass immigration of the first years.
Arnold Forster, general counsel emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL), recalls the feeling of the American Jewish leadership in the first
years of statehood as follows: ‘we regarded it as a happy privilege to be
able to help – it was a matter of building affirmatively, constructively and
happily … it was a period in which Israel could do no wrong’.2 while
Bernice Tannenbaum, a former national president of Hadassah, describes
the emotions of those early years as follows:
There was such great pride. I remember in the beginning when I would
go out to speak, it was just a question of bringing news of Israel. And …
we cried. There was tzena, they didn't have enough food, there were
problems, ma'abarot and all, but it was not in any way negatively
oriented. It was very positive, what can we do to help.3
At the same time as the Diaspora – primarily American Jewry – mobilized
to aid Israel in the task of immigrant absorption, it was becoming more and
more sensitized to the consequences of the Holocaust, which had not yet
been fully grasped at the time of the War of Independence. Thus, when war
broke out in June 1967, there was near panic in world Jewry. The three
weeks preceding its outbreak – the waiting period during which Israel
mobilized, the United Nations evacuated Gaza and Nasser closed the Straits
of Tiran – led to fears of a replay of the Holocaust. Among the factors that
explain this reaction is one that is generally overlooked: the role of the
media.

The Impact of Television

Whereas the War of Independence had been reported only in the press, now
there was a new medium that intensified the impact of the news. 1967 was
Israel's first televised war. True, the War of Independence had been reported
by giants of the foreign press corps such as American correspondents
Homer Bigart and Dana Adams Schmidt. But the printed word and the few
black and white pictures that appeared did not pack anything like the
emotional punch of the Six Day War television pictures of Jerusalem
burning. They traumatized Jews all over the world – except in Israel, which
did not yet have television.
If Christiane Amanpour of CNN had been in besieged Jerusalem in 1948,
reporting the shells falling on lines of people waiting for water – as she did
in Sarajevo – or if a television camera had accompanied one of the food
convoys running the gauntlet through Sha'ar Ha-gai to the beleaguered city,
the perils of that earlier struggle would have been brought home much more
powerfully to the Diaspora.

The Role of the Jewish Press

The 1967 combination of television plus reports in the world press
galvanized the Diaspora, which reacted with an unprecedented mobilization
of funds and manpower. In the US a supplementary information channel
came into play: the Jewish press in the English language played a role in
arousing the public to the dangerous situation, for outside of New York and
perhaps Washington, the general media gave little space in the early stages
of the crisis to events so far away.4 The Boston Jewish Advocate was
already warning of Middle Eastern war clouds in its editorial of 18 May,
calling for action at the UN in view of Nasser's threats. On 2 June, the
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent editorial, entitled ‘Be Strong and of Good
Courage’, reflected deep concern: ‘Israel is confident in the future: we wish
more Americans had as much faith in the people of Israel as Israel has’.
Also on 2 June, the Detroit Jewish News tried to be reassuring, calling Arab
war talk a bluff that was harming tourism to Israel. Nevertheless its first
page – like those in Jewish papers all over the country – was full of news
stories from Israel and the UN about the imminent outbreak of hostilities,
and the need to mobilize the local community in response to Israel's appeal
for help. Even though the war was concluded within a week, the emotions
aroused were profound. Volunteers flew in from every continent – a
response that was never repeated in any subsequent war. The day after the
Old City of Jerusalem was retaken, Diaspora leaders already stood at the
Western Wall, shoulder to shoulder with Ben-Gurion, Teddy Kollek and
other Israeli politicians and generals, all with tears in their eyes.
In the United States, the Jewish press gave vent to the general relief at the
war's outcome. The Philadelphia Jewish Exponent had two editorials on 9
June. The first, entitled ‘The Cease Fire’, reflected traditional (if well-
deserved) Jewish paranoia: ‘Suddenly all the powers want peace – why
should there not be two and a half million more Holocaust victims?’, but
the second editorial, entitled ‘The Israel Army’ was a vindication of the
Zionist thesis:
Is there one Jew in the world who today does not stand a little taller, a
little prouder?… all have something in common today – a bursting pride
in what the Israel Army has accomplished with so little material and so
much courage … ‘Say Chaim, did you hear about our boys at El Arish?’.
In the Jewish Advocate of 15 June, the New England chairman of the Bonds
organization wrote an open letter to his ‘Dear brethren in Israel’ on the
response of Boston Jewry:
It was a week of worry, hope and then heartfelt relief. It was a week of
unbounded admiration for the fighting qualities of Israeli men and
women in the defence forces. It was a week of prayer and action half a
world away from the battlefronts. There is no yardstick to anguish and
anguish was what was felt by all of us with the news of the outbreak of
hostilities.
On 9 June, Detroit's Jewish News topped its page one masthead with the
traditional phrase (in Hebrew) ‘Netzah Yisrael lo yishaker’ (The Eternal
One of Israel will not disappoint), and at the bottom of the page it added
(again in Hebrew), ‘Shomer Yisrael lo yanum ve-lo yishan’ (The Guardian
of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps). Its editorial stated as follows:
 Israelis are holding their heads high. Having straightened their backs,
which had been bent under the persecution of millennia, they refuse to
permit a return to humiliation and human bondage. Their kinsmen
everywhere have gained a new dignity by Israel's emergence. That
dignity, that sense of accomplishment of ending servility, must be
protected to the fullest. That's our duty … with these aims our self-
respect will be protected, our dignity will be retained.
These are but a few illustrations from the American Jewish press that
demonstrate, first of all, the interdependence between Jewish self-image in
the Diaspora and events in Israel. Secondly, they express the close
identification of American Jewry in 1967 with Israeli Jews on a family
basis: ‘Dear brethren’, ‘our brothers and sisters’, ‘our boys’. Thirdly, the
beneficial effect of the Israeli example on self-image is clear: no more
humiliation, a restoration of dignity and pride.

ORGANIZATIONAL RESPONSE IN THE UNITED

STATES
Excerpts from internal discussions in two of the leading American Jewish
organizations make the same points. Events in Israel caused the programme
division of the Anti-Defamation League to go way over its regular budget:
at the October meeting of the National Executive in Houston, it was
reported that 75 per cent of the director's time had been devoted to the crisis
situation, as the agency poured out material to fill the information gap
concerning Israel.5 Benjamin Epstein, the national director of the ADL,
reported at his National Commission meeting in May 1968 that the
Christian community had ‘failed to understand the familial relationship
between American Jews and the State of Israel’.6 Dore Schary, a major
figure in the movie industry and lay chairman of the ADL National
Commission, expressed the pride of American Jews in the victory in telling
the following anecdote at the same meeting:
Just recently I heard of an Israeli tank brigade commander whose first
order when Jordan attacked Israel last June was to advance and capture
the city of Ramallah. In a swift and slashing attack he completed his
mission, took a deep breath and sent a short report: ‘Have taken
Ramallah; shall I proceed to Jericho?’ The answer was just as
 economical. It read: ‘Proceed to Jericho. P.S. Take plenty of trumpets.’
He did and Jericho fell. This time however the trumpets were in the will
and the minds of the Israelis. We have our Jerichos ahead of us – walls of
bigotry, ignorance, hate and political schemes rise before us. The
trumpets which will tumble these walls must be carried by us in our will
and our determination.7
Here again we have Israel as family, Israel as a source of pride, Israel as
role model for the Diaspora. But there still were hesitancies: participants
were at pains to emphasize that the ADL's activity on Israel's behalf was the
legitimate right of its constituents, and not a matter of following Israel's
position blindly, as one speaker feared.
The internal discussion at the American Jewish Committee's (AJC) Board
of Governors meeting in June after the war included what might be termed
a ‘last gasp’ of those elements which had not identified with Israel before
1967. One participant in the meeting, Alan Stroock, voicing the stance of
such people,
urged that AJC proceed with extreme caution … [He] expressed concern
about the extent to which AJC has committed itself, its constituents and
the American Jewish community to a position which identifies us,
perhaps too strongly, with Israel. The world is calling Israel a
‘conqueror’ … and the fate of five million Jews in the United States is
being related to the fate of two million Jews in Israel.8
Several others who defended the Committee's activity on Israel's behalf
challenged this speaker. Dr John Slawson reminded the gathering that ‘we
have a great stake in Israel; we were very important in its creation and
recognition and we must now be concerned about its preservation’.9 The
viewpoint of the ‘quaking Jews’ was clearly in the minority, as became
evident in the report of Philip Hoffman, chairman of the Board of
Governors, to the Executive Board at its 2 December 1967 meeting. He
stated, ‘The Arab-Israeli war has altered our program emphasis. For our
own sake as well as for the sake of Israel … we must counteract Arab
propaganda, help build a favorable image of Israel and increase
understanding between the United States and Israel’.10
 At that same December meeting, Philip Bernstein, executive director of
the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds, characterized the
response of American Jews to the crisis as:
By far the most spectacular in the history of American Jewry …
Thousands of Jews volunteered to go to Israel to help in any way
possible; many more private individuals and organizations volunteered
their services to help with the solicitation and collection of funds; and
thousands of pro-Israel telegrams poured into the White House. In sum,
American Jews showed themselves more united in support of Israel than
ever before. Whatever the personal individual motivations, almost to a
man there was evidence of a depth of identification and commitment
never known before.11

BALM TO THE DIASPORA PSYCHE

Thus the immense relief in the Diaspora at the outcome of the fighting.
Great as the euphoria in Israel was, it apparently was equally great in the
Diaspora. All the world loves a winner: non-Jews telling their Jewish
neighbours ‘Your boys did it!’ brought many closet Jews into the open. It
was gentile praise that caused a sea change in the self-image of many
conflicted individuals, who until then had viewed their Jewishness
negatively through the eyes of non-Jews. Now, sharing vicariously in the
success of Israel enabled them to identify publicly as Jews for the first time
in their lives.
One telling piece of evidence of this effect appeared in a column by
Robert Spero, a syndicated freelance writer, published in the Jewish
Advocate on 6 July. Entitled ‘Will Moshe Dayan Make Me a Better Jew?’,
Spero relates how he was glued to the radio during the war, despite the fact
that he had left his family home in the Mid West in order to escape his
Jewishness. In a confessional mode reflecting childhood traumas, he wrote:
The Jews don't knuckle under any more … After all these years we held
our ground, we will not be pushed any further … (when six million died)
nobody stood up. Now we're standing. Who's calling me a kike? I like
being a Jew. It suddenly makes me proud … Every Israeli shot seems to
be a shot in the arm for me. My self-consciousness is draining away. I am
 absolutely glad to be a Jew. I have eyes, hands, organs, I am like
everybody else at the very least. Who calls me a kike?12
The image of the fighting Jew had great resonance for the Diaspora,
constituting as it did compensation for psychological, if not physical,
vulnerability. Professor Arthur Hertzberg noted in an article in the August
1967 issue of Commentary that what underlay the response of Jewry
everywhere was a revulsion against the passivity of the Jewish victims of
the Nazis, as well as against the failure of the Jews in the United States and
England during World War II to ‘engage in a vehement confrontation (with
Roosevelt and Churchill) over the parochial destiny of the Jewish people’.
As such, ‘now, confronted by a threat to Israel's existence, Jews almost
universally felt that precisely because of the horrifying prospect that Israel
might go down, let it go down fighting … The response to the Middle East
crisis was a way of saying that, come what might, Jews would not repeat
such conduct’.13
Even the Jewish community of France was emboldened to remonstrate
with its government concerning de Gaulle's overnight abandonment of
support for Israel in a demarche that would have been most unlikely before
the victory. (In response, de Gaulle raised the spectre of dual loyalty in
accusing Jews of being ‘un peuple d'elite, sur de lui-meme et dominateur’.)
Somewhat more muted was the response in South America, according to
the director of the foreign affairs department of the American Jewish
Committee, who reported on 9 October 1967 that the ‘Jews of Brazil
reacted to the conflict in a manner which paralleled that of most Jews
throughout the free world. In Argentina there was less of an apparent ability
to identify openly with Israel's struggle’.14
The Jews in the Soviet Union could not express their support for Israel,
but their government could not shield them from the news of the war's
outcome, which gave many renewed hope of redemption.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE ‘SUPERJEW’

Every community on every continent demanded to see the heroes who had
brought about the ‘greatest Jewish victory since the time of the Maccabees’.
When Israel responded by sending IDF officers to appear at UJA (United
Jewish Appeal) and Israel Bonds fund-raisers, their reception was ecstatic.
In short order they were being hailed as supermen, representatives of a new
breed of Jew, stalwart, fearless, invincible. This was what the Zionist
enterprise had set out to create. This switch from the old victim-in-history
self image to that of powerful victor was so ego-inflating for Israelis that,
when IDF speakers told of their reception abroad, Israelis as well as
Diaspora Jews were beguiled into believing in the image of a ‘SuperJew’.
There was a kind of mutual admiration society between the Diaspora and
Israel, a joyful release from feelings of insecurity and impotence. The
symbiosis was immediate and total. As Howard Squadron, former head of
the American Jewish Congress and a past president of the Presidents’
Conference, explained it, ‘after 1967 for a while there was the general view
that Israel was this enormously successful David who had licked Goliath
and it was all sweetness and light’.15
The afterglow was so strong that, according to Professor Hertzberg, ‘In
1969–70, as America was bogged down in Viet Nam, [there were]
American Jews walking around popping their buttons and saying, our army
is not like yours. What America needs is a one-eyed general who will get
you out of this mess’.16
What could have been more convincing than such adulation? It would
have been asking too much of the Israelis, who had felt so close to
annihilation not to have been affected by the contagion of invincibility. But
while psychologists tell us of the importance of a positive self-image for the
functioning of the individual, in this case it also had other effects for the
group – not always beneficial.

DANGERS OF THE ‘SUPERJEW’ IMAGE

For many Israelis, the role of occupying power in regard to the Palestinian
population was a source of ego-gratification. Some religious Israelis
interpreted rule over the Arabs as a divinely sanctioned triumph over
Amalek, the traditional Biblical enemy; other Israelis, particularly those of
low socio-economic status, enjoyed lording it over Palestinians. The self-
image switch from victim to conqueror was inebriating, if not corrupting, in
such cases. As Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz predicted, the occupation
was to become a cancer in the Israeli body politic.
 Enjoying the ‘fruits of victory’ went hand in hand with a denigration of
the enemy, to the point where it may have been at the root of the fatal
conceptzia (as Israelis termed their mind-set at the time) that brought on the
Yom Kippur War. Even the war of attrition along the Suez Canal (1969–70)
did not shake the public's complacency. The notion of Israeli invincibility
had its share in blinding the IDF to the significance of what was going on
under its nose: the training of Egypt's army to cross the Canal, thus
contributing to the ‘surprise’ of the 6 October 1973 attack by Egypt and
Syria.
Yet however striking the eclipse of the victim self-image appeared to be
on the surface before 1973, one could question how deep it went, at least
among the older generation. Even after the Six Day War, Israeli leaders held
on to the victim image at the same time as they rejoiced in the revelation of
Israel's strength. When Foreign Minister Abba Eban was asked at a press
conference in Jerusalem at the end of the war what it felt like to be no
longer the underdog, he replied, ‘Underdog, overdog, it's still a dog's life’.
Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, wary of the dissonance that the ‘SuperJew’
image might arouse among non-Jews, suggested that Israel present itself in
its public relations as Shimshon der nebbachdikker – a powerless Samson.
In 1972, Prime Minister Golda Meir went even further, in arguing with
Richard Crossman over what he saw as Israel's refusal to respond to Anwar
Sadat's peace overtures. Invoking the victim self-image, she explained, ‘But
we are a traumatized people’. Crossman's response reputedly was, ‘You
certainly are … but you are a traumatized people with an atom bomb’.17
Nor should we overlook one of the most moving documents to come out
of the Six Day War, which attests to less than total euphoria, at least in part
of the younger generation as well. In Siah Lohamim, a recording of a
discussion that took place shortly after the war among young Israelis –
mostly kibbutzniks – who had been involved in the fighting, it is clear that
the horrors of war had had their impact. The terrible price of victory gave
rise to many questions concerning the justification for war and the necessity
for moral conduct in the midst of battle.

THE TRAUMA OF THE YOM KIPPUR WAR

The euphoria-inflated self-image of ‘SuperJew’ could not be sustained in
Israel after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, even though in military terms the
war was a tremendous victory, especially in view of its devastating opening.
The terrible despair at the setbacks of the first week, until the IDF went on
the offensive, coupled with the dreadful loss of life to send shock waves
through both Israel and the Diaspora. From the depths of the Jewish self-
conscious, to which it had been relegated in 1967, the victim self-image re-
emerged as pervasive as ever.
In Israel the protest movement after the war – the demand to know who
was responsible for the catastrophe of its surprise opening – shook the
political and military establishment to its foundations. The illusion of
invincibility had been shattered; the feeling of vulnerability resurfaced with
a vengeance. After all, Israel was still surrounded by enemies, a fact which
had been overlooked in the delirium of the 1967 victory. Now Israel
decided to rearm to the teeth, as its vastly increased arms budget
demonstrated. But the reaction to the 1973 war went far beyond the
decision to bolster Israel's defences: in 1977 it finally brought down the
government that had been in power since the establishment of the state.

DIASPORA REACTiON TO THE YOM KIPPUR

WAR
The initial surprise attack not only re-traumatized the Diaspora; the war
disillusioned it as well. The acrimonious debate in Israel over responsibility
for the outbreak and course of the conflict made it obvious that its society
was rent by serious internal problems, such as corruption in the ruling party,
conflict between Sephardim and Ashkenazim, and growing disagreement
between religious and secular Jews. Along with the demise of the
‘SuperJew’, the rosy picture propagated for decades by Zionist institutions
vanished.
The cracks in the happy picture had already begun to show shortly after
the Six Day War. As Professor Robert Alter reported at the AJC's Executive
Board meeting in December 1967, most Jewish intellectuals ‘sympathized
and agreed with the Israeli actions’, but there was a sharp cleavage
developing between them and the ‘small but vocal minority’ who disagreed.
Among the latter, he listed Soviet sympathizers and left-wing radicals; more
significantly, he noted that a substantial number of intellectuals had moved
away from full sympathy with the Israeli cause because of ignorance,
because of what he termed ‘blackmail’ perpetrated on liberals by the
‘radical Negro movement’ and most of all, because of the ‘pervasive anti-
war feeling among intellectuals engendered by Viet Nam, which has spilled
over into the Arab-Israeli conflict’.18
After 1973 there no longer existed the same desire in many circles to
identify with Israel. The emergence of the Breira group indicated that those
who disagreed with Israeli government policy would advocate a turning
inward to give priority to the American Jewish community's concerns. In a
paradoxical sense, Breira's adherents can be viewed as the last true
believers in the image of the ‘SuperJew’, for only if Israel were still seen as
so strong could there be justification for putting Diaspora needs first.
However, this approach was interpreted by the organized community as a
recommendation to abandon Israel, and as such was generally rejected.
Perhaps this reaction indicates that, attractive as was the notion of a
powerful, victorious Israel, the Diaspora felt in its heart of hearts that the
‘SuperJew’ self-image could not be anything more than a blip in Jewish
history.
Bereft of its ego-bolstering Maccabee/Ari Ben-Canaan twice-as-big-as-
life image of the fighting Israeli, the Diaspora self-image deflated to its
former proportions. For example, in Europe, Jewish students at a 1974
World Union of Jewish Students seminar in Semmering, Austria,
complained to the Israeli guest speakers that Israel had raised expectations
in 1967, only to let them down in 1973. Old feelings of vulnerability now
resurfaced for many Jews in Europe. The virulence of Palestinian terrorist
attacks in the 1970s caused the Jews to revert to their traditional self-image
of victimhood.
In the United States, what had been termed the ‘Israelolatry’ of the pre-
and post-1967 years gradually diminished. While Israel still remained the
focus of community life, little by little it began to share the spotlight with
another theme, the institutionalized remembrance of the Holocaust.
Ironically, it was the Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin, who
played a significant role in reviving the victim self-image for Jews
everywhere.
ISRAEL: A RETURN TO THE VICTIM SELF-
IMAGE
The electoral victories of the Likud Party from 1977 onward were always
characterized by a strong paranoid tone in its campaigning. Not only did the
‘Polish-gentleman’ Begin play on Sephardi resentment of Ashkenazim, but
on Israel's fears for its survival as well. All the world is against us’ was a
recurrent theme. Begin's constant invocation of the Holocaust was meant to
justify his policies: the effect at home and abroad was to revive and
reinforce old fears of victimization. Regrettably, the Holocaust has since
become material for manipulation by politicians and even educators:
chauvinistic narrow-mindedness is justified by its evocation.
Yet at the same time, there were elements in the Likud government
whose outlook represented what may be termed a ‘last hurrah’ of the
‘SuperJew’ self-image. Ariel Sharon's desire to remake the political map of
the Middle East in 1982 could only have arisen out of an exaggerated
feeling of power. In making his alliance with Bashir Gumayel – with the
backing of Mossad, it must be added – he differed from Begin, who agreed
to make limited war only to show that Israel was no longer willing to be a
victim.
Likud persisted in seeing Israel as the eternally threatened party, even
after the Lebanon War, holding on to the victim image as a kind of Jewish
monopoly. Its leaders failed to see that the Palestinians had had great
success in ‘stealing’ the victim image from Israel and selling it to the
international media, especially after the Sabra and Shatilla massacre. The
Israeli self-image was distorted thereby, because Likud always put the stress
on insecurity rather than on confidence in Israel's status as a regional
military power (somehow Begin did not see the contradiction between this
pose and the vaunted ‘strategic asset’ role that he claimed to fill in the
Reagan Cold War years).
Psychologically speaking, Begin never got out of the World War II
bunker. Despite their aggressive posturing to the outside world, he and his
successor, Yitzhak Shamir, always spoke to their domestic audience in
terms of Holocausts past and potential. Thus, ironically, the very ‘Galut
mentality’ that Zionism excoriated, that 1967 should have put an end to at
least in Israel, was revived. The intifada and subsequent terrorist attacks,
especially those of March 1996, only strengthened this tendency. Binyamin
Netanyahu's election slogan, ‘Peace with security’ (in contrast to what was
alleged to be the Labour Party's ignoring of security needs), only re-
emphasized Likud's tactic of appealing to the fears of the Israeli public,
indeed to its victim self-image.

THE FRACTURED NATURE OF

CONTEMPORARY DIASPORA SELF-IMAGE
In order to discern the long-term effect of 1967 on Diaspora self-image, one
must differentiate among the various Jewish communities. In Europe, the
revival of anti-Semitism and radical right parties in countries of the
European Community, especially Germany and France, but also Belgium
and Italy; the persistence of anti-Semitism in Austria and former communist
eastern Europe; and the emergence of Vladimir Zhirinovsky, Pamyat and
other anti-Semites as a political force in Russia have obliterated most of the
positive effect of 1967 on self-image. Events return Jews to the role of
victim fraught with apprehension and paranoia. Terrorist bombing outrages
in Argentina (the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and a Jewish community centre
in July 1994) keep that community in a state of insecurity; terrorist
bombings in London (the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community
building, July 1994) keep the victim self-image alive for that Jewry as well.
Israel is relevant in this context, constituting for Jewish communities under
threat the ultimate insurance policy, the refuge for all persecuted in time of
need. (And this despite the preference of many Jewish migrants for English-
speaking countries rather than Israel, as in the case of Russian and South
African Jewry.)
Concerning the self-image of American Jews, the picture is more
complex. There are fracture lines both horizontal and vertical. The
horizontal line is biological, with a great difference existing between the
self-image of the pre- and post-war generations. The older one, which was
‘present at the creation’, remembers the indifference of the world to the fate
of Europe's Jews and its own inability to do anything about it. Having
grown up in an America that was far more anti-Semitic than it is today, they
cannot free themselves completely of the insecurities that are part of the
victim self-image, no matter how successful they have been in recent
decades.
Howard Squadron expressed the still extant feeling of insecurity
characteristic of the older generation of American Jewish leaders in 1989:
What I regard as the single underlying most important motivating factor
of all Jews everywhere … is personal insecurity. I don't care how well we
are integrated into the American community, I don't care what kind of
college presidencies we have, industrial giants, millionaires, educators
and scientists, all the rest… There is no way a Jew is brought up without
getting from his parents, even if he is feeling pretty comfortable in the
United States, the sense that he is vulnerable to some extent.19
However, the generation born after the creation of the state cannot imagine
a world in which Jews would be so helpless to rescue their brethren, or
indeed one in which Israel does not exist. One who commands his own fate
does not accept or develop the victim self-image. Therefore it may well be
that the self-image of young American Jews differs fundamentally from that
of their parents. Especially for those born after 1967, that war could neither
erase any victim image nor instil in them the notion of ‘SuperJew’. Insofar
as anti-Semitism in the United States is today a marginal phenomenon,
these young Jews believe that in a pluralistic democratic society, their status
is the same as that of any other ethnic minority. Their feeling of security, of
being ‘at home’ in America, does not depend on events concerning Israel.
This ‘normalization’ of status therefore reduces any tendency towards
paranoia, and at the same time makes integration into broader society easier.
The vertical fracture lines reveal differing self-images for the American-
born, for the children of Holocaust survivors (who certainly grow up
against a background of victim image), for the Orthodox and for the
assimilating and assimilated. The 50 per cent of Jews unaffiliated with the
community – as revealed in recent surveys – have ever-diminishing Jewish
content to their self-image in any case. In regard to Israel, it is largely
irrelevant to the daily lives of most American Jews. The close family
feeling that characterized the relationship in the past exists – if at all – in
much weakened form in the younger generation.
As Robert Spero, who responded so ecstatically to the fighting Jew
image in 1967, asked himself, ‘Perhaps this is a temporary mirage …
perhaps I've been estranged too long … And if I have found part of my
heritage, what if it is not enough to pass on to my sons? Will “next year in
Jerusalem” still make sense next year in New York?’.20
Nevertheless, many American Jews, although ostensibly free of
traditional fears arising out of their minority status, have reverted to old
sensitivities, as illustrated by their reaction to Holocaust deniers. The
construction of Holocaust museums and memorials in so many
communities is further evidence of this feeling. For a while in the 1970s,
there was increasing emphasis on the Holocaust as the educational core for
preserving Jewish identity, but it was soon realized that this is a backward-
rather than forward-looking approach to ensuring Jewish continuity. The
last few years have seen a return to the emphasis on Israel in its positive
aspects as a dominant motif in Jewish education. Whether or not this can
stem the tide of assimilation is an open question; what is clear is that Israel
can provide more positive content for the Jewish self-image than does
constant evocation of the Holocaust.

CONCLUSION
The Six Day War caused an upheaval in the self-image of world Jewry,
which until that time was that of the victim in history. Was the 1967
‘SuperJew’ image merely an evanescent, fleeting self-delusion, comforting,
ego-flattering, reflecting nothing more than transient euphoria? Or did not
the ‘fighting Jew’ image, which evoked such a tremendous response at the
time, leave traces of greater self-respect in the Jewish self-image of today?
What was a novelty then is now taken for granted – that is, that Jews
(Israelis) will fight when attacked. This, perhaps, is the only permanent
legacy of the ‘SuperJew’.
However, the basic Jewish self-image worldwide is still conditioned by
minority status in the Diaspora and minority status in the Middle East. We
have seen a sequence develop from victim image to ‘SuperJew’ and back
again in Israel and in Europe – to the extent that Jewish communities
succeeded at all in freeing themselves from the victim image. Hence the
insecurity and paranoia in both Israel and the Diaspora, one reinforcing the
other, which explains the adherence to and persistence of the Jewish self-
image as noble victim in history.
 In Israel, the inability to trust one's own strength, or even to acknowledge
its existence, was summarized by Professor Yehuda Elkana:
The deepest political and social factor that motivates much of Israeli
society in its relation with the Palestinians is a profound existential
‘angst’ fed by a particular interpretation of the lessons of the Holocaust
and the readiness to believe that the whole world is against us, that we
are the eternal victim.21
This feeling of insecurity has only been intensified by subsequent events:
the breakdown of the Oslo peace process and the violence of the second
intifada have all but destroyed any diminution in age-old fears of a hostile
enviroment.
Perhaps an Israel freed of its neighbours’ enmity would not feel the same
existential threat that has dogged it until now, and hence be able to dispense
with the demeaning victim role. Then the element of power, which is at the
core of other national self-images – after all, it is the legitimate expression
of sovereignty in a normal nation-state – would have its proper weight in
the Israeli self-image. Only then will the Zionist dream have triumphed. But
this hope today seems farther from realization than ever.
In the United States, the picture is different. Here generational
differences are marked. Although the intifada has rekindled concern for
Israel's existence, most young American Jews see themselves neither as
victim nor as ‘SuperJew’. They may stand straighter than their fathers, but
more because of changes in the American environment than because of any
influence of Israel on their lives. In consequence their self-image becomes
more and more devoid of specifically Jewish content. As the playwright
David Mamet once put it, using a metaphor from Nature, ‘there was a
raccoon sitting on top of the apple tree, glaring at us. And his glare said as
certain as anything: What are you looking at? You can't see me. That to an
extent is us American Jews’.22 As Thomas Friedman wrote, ‘the next
generation of American Jews will not share an intimate connection with the
Jewish state’.23
If the Jewish self-image today is fractured into many pieces, the first
crack paradoxically enough came with the 1967 war. The ‘SuperJew’ image
should have united Jews once and for all on a positive basis, but it proved to
have been only a blip in history. Instead it presaged a break-up, an end to
unity whose consequences are yet to be fully understood.

NOTES
1. Alfred Moses, then head of the American Jewish Committee (AJC), in an interview with the
author, Jerusalem, March 1990.
2. Arnold Forster, general counsel emeritus of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in an interview
with the author, New York, September 1989.
3. Bernice Tannenbaum, former president of Hadassah, in an interview with the author, New York,
September 1989. It is indicative of the temporary effect of the Six Day War on Jewish self-
image that minimal reference was made to the events of 1967 in these interviews, which focused
on the growing distance between American Jewry and Israel at the beginning of the 1990s. In
addition to the interviewees quoted in this paper, interviews were also conducted with Al
Chernin (National Community Relations Advisory Council), Abe Foxman (ADL), Bert Gold
(AJC), Ralph Goldman (Joint Distribution Committee), Charlotte Jacobson (Hadassah),
Professor Natan Rotenstreich (Hebrew University) and Dr Daniel Thursz (B'nai Brith), over a
period from September 1989 to October 1990. The co-operation of all of them is greatly
appreciated.
4. Jewish weeklies cited here include the Boston Jewish Advocate, Detroit Jewish News and
Philadelphia Jewish Exponent for the months of June and July 1967. Also consulted were the
Buffalo Jewish Review, Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, Cincinnati American Israelite,
Indianapolis Jewish Post and Los Angeles Jewish Community Bulletin for the same period.
5. Minutes of ADL National Executive Committee meeting, Houston, October 1967. Additional
documents were also consulted, including the ADL Bulletin for September 1967.
6. Benjamin Epstein, national director of the ADL, from verbatim record of ADL National
Commission meeting, May 1968.
7. Dore Schary, lay chairman of the ADL National Commission, at the same meeting.
8. Minutes of AJC Board of Governors meeting, 20 June 1967. Also consulted were minutes of
AJC Executive Board meeting, 19 May 1967 (where there was no mention of the looming
crisis), minutes of AJC Board of Governors meeting, 3 October 1967 and minutes of AJC
Foreign Affairs Committee meeting, 9 October 1967.
9. Dr John Slawson, AJC Board of Governors meeting, 20 June 1967.
10. Report of Philip Hoffman, chairman of the AJC Board of Governors, Executive Board meeting,
2 December 1967.
11. Philip Bernstein, executive director of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds,
AJC Executive Board meeting, 2 December 1967.
12. Robert Spero, ‘Will Moshe Dayan Make Me a Better Jew?’, Boston Jewish Advocate, 6 July
1967.
13. Arthur Hertzberg, ‘Israel and American Jewry’, in Commentary, August 1967.
14. Report of the director of the Foreign Affairs Department, at AJC Foreign Affairs Committee
meeting, 9 October 1967.
15. Howard Squadron, former head of the American Jewish Congress, in an interview with the
author, New York, September 1989.
16. Professor Arthur Hertzberg in an interview with the author, New York, September 1989.
17. Richard Crossman, as cited in Amos Elon, ‘The Politics of Memory’, New York Review of
Books, 7 October 1993, p.3.
18. Professor Robert Alter, AJC Executive Board meeting, 2 December 1967.
19. Interview with Howard Squadron, September 1989.
20. Spero, ‘Will Moshe Dayan Make Me a Better Jew?’.
21. Yehuda Elkana as cited in Elon, ‘The Politics of Memory’, p.5.
22. David Mamet, in an interview with Bruce Weber, ‘Thoughts from a Man's Man’, New York
Times, 17 November 1994.
23. Thomas Friedman, A Million Little Personal Partitions’, International Herald Tribune, 12
August 2001, p.10.

_______________
Judith Elizur holds a joint appointment in International Relations and Communication Studies at the
Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
 Shifting the Centre from Nation to
Individual and Universe: The New
‘Democratic Faith’ of Israel
OZ ALMOG

During the last two decades, Israeli society has undergone a series of
upheavals which have served to undermine the foundations of its dominant
culture and to create a new social reality. The Lebanon War, the
privatization of the old centralist economy, the Palestinian uprising of
1987–93 (intifada), the Iraqi missile attacks on Israeli cities during the 1991
Gulf War, the massive wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union,
the 1993 Oslo Accords with the PLO, the 1994 peace treaty with Jordan, the
mass-communication revolution, and the assassination of Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin and the political turnaround the following year – all this has
had far-reaching repercussions on Israeli society. It has already become a
cliché within the Israeli elite to define their era as the ‘post-Zionist era’.
According to Max Weber's classic model, every revolutionary curve
eventually bottoms out, thus providing a take-off point for its ideological
successor. The flickering torch of the old ideology usually sparks a new
ideological flame that will rekindle a sense of meaning and purpose in life.
The ‘national religion’ of Zionism seems to have already reached this
bottom threshold or is approaching it rapidly. What then, it may be asked,
will be the leitmotif to usher in a new Israeli ideology? In today's
antiideological world, can one expect a contemporary social beacon to light
the way for the masses? To answer these questions, it is necessary to
consider a socio-economic model that has recently begun to show a marked
effect on Israeli society.
 This model, based on industry, settlement and education, was developed
by industrialist Stef Wertheimer and has already been implemented in two
locations in the Galilee, Tefen and Kfar Ha-vradim (Rose Garden Village).
The fundamental principles of this model of ‘idealistic industry’ include:
competing on the basis of a free economy, particularly in the hi-tech field;
work motivated by individual initiative without the intervention of workers'
committees; integrating man with nature and fostering indigenous beauty
(for example, the Open Museum at Tefen); aspiring to a high standard of
living within a small, congenial community (Kfar Ha-vradim); and teaching
the value of hard work and free enterprise (the Zur Institute for Industrial
Education). The values inherent in Wertheimer's model are also apparent
from its emphasis on excellence and its ambition to be seen as a ‘light unto
the nations’. For example, the Wertheimer plant successfully marketed hi-
tech products to Japan, a world hi-tech leader. These new values have
effectively inaugurated a new secular religion, which is being adopted by
growing segments of the Israeli population: the ‘democratic faith’. Let us
now examine the attributes of this new secular religion.
Democracy as a way of life and a system of government is not new.
While democratic regimes have existed side by side with nationalist
ideologies since the nineteenth century, democracy did not begin to develop
as a national cause until after World War II, when the democratic nations
crushed the fascist states. And it was not until the 1960s, when the ‘flower
children’, student rebellions and anti-war protests made their appearance,
and television became a household item, that people in the West began
seriously to worship democracy. Since then, the Western world has been
inundated by permissiveness and scepticism, antipathy to the establishment
and legalism, and ‘media-centrism’. All of this has created a new social
reality.
According to the code of values fostered by ‘nation-worship’, people
believed in their country and obeyed its leaders. They demonstrated a sense
of patriotism and historical romanticism. They showed emotional restraint,
volunteered for national service, and were content with what little they had.
At the centre of the ‘national religion’ stood the collective, exerting a
centripetal force on the individual and impelling him to relinquish his
independence and personal resources in favour of perfecting the national
Utopia. The cultural climate nurtured by ‘democracyworship’, in contrast,
is rooted in equal rights, individual competition and private enterprise. This
climate nurtures feminism and sensitivity, scepticism and criticism, social
and self awareness, romantic love and interpersonal relations; it advocates
the individual's right to privacy and longing for sophistication, his attention
to outer appearance and his quest for diversity and style; it encourages
people to learn as much as possible, seek the best in entertainment, preserve
the environment and its resources, and constantly strive to improve their
economic status.
Two complementary entities stand at the centre of the ‘democratic faith’:
the individual (though not necessarily in the negative, egocentric sense of
the word) who is subordinate to the nation, and the universe that dominates
the nation and cancels out its significance. Consider, for example, the
triumphant ascent of global ecology and the trend towards unification seen
in Europe and America. The ‘democratic religion’ motivates people to
demand their rights as citizens, express their freedom and independence,
develop and realize their unique individual talents through competition with
their fellow man, and become familiar with both their inner selves and their
natural surroundings.
The democratic religion in Israel is being guided and refined by the upper
middle class, composed primarily of secular, educated, broadminded people
between the ages of 20 and 50 who have adopted a Western, bourgeois style
of life. They are the modern Israeli version of the yuppies or, to coin a new
term, ‘chippies’.1 One indication that democracy has become a
metaphysical concept among the ‘chippies’ is the frequent, indeed
axiomatic use of the word ‘democratic’ in the public discourse that they
tend to dominate. Another is the campaign launched by the media, another
‘chippie’ stronghold, to censure and oust those ‘heretics’ who dare violate
democratic taboos. This campaign, booked under the awe-inspiring
appellation of ‘citizens' rights’, bears witness to the holy outlook of the
democratic moral climate.
A well-oiled missionary mechanism already exists for conveying the
tidings of democracy: computer and communications networks, satellites,
cable television, fast-food chains. Moreover, the new faith is already
developing its own traditions and holidays: concerts that attract masses of
people; the Olympic games and other sports tournaments and
championships; scientific conferences and international exhibitions; and
award ceremonies for excellence in the arts (such as the Booker Prize and
the Oscar and Emmy Awards). These and other international events, most
of which are broadcast live to hundreds of millions of viewers, are creating
new universal holidays and legends that are gradually replacing the old,
nationally-oriented ones.
Election days represent the most important ceremonial holidays of the
‘democratic religion’, arousing a great deal more enthusiasm among the
citizens than national independence day celebrations. Indeed, the media
usually symbolically designate election day as the ‘Holiday of Democracy’.
The period immediately preceding elections is pervaded by a sense of
impending redemption, comparable to the messianic hope offered by
traditional religions. The ecstasy of election victory celebrations is
reminiscent of the jubilation of triumphant war commanders, even down to
the traditional ‘division of the spoils’ among the allies.
‘Democracy-worship’ in Israel developed somewhat later than in other
Western societies. Israelis were busy setting up their new state and
defending it in a seemingly endless series of wars. Moreover, the focus of
democracy was located far away, in Europe and America. Nevertheless,
democracy has had no less of an impact on Israel than it did on the West; in
fact, in some areas its effect has even been greater. More specifically, one
can consider eight focal points of democratic ritual through which Israelis
have begun to develop and perform the rites of ‘worship of the individual’
and ‘worship of the universe’:

Legal Justice and Citizens' Rights

More and more frequently, starring roles in television series and movies are
being filled by detectives, prosecuting and defending attorneys, and judges.
An ever increasing number of young people are pursuing legal careers.
These are only a few of the indications that the status of the legal
establishment in Western countries and in Israel is on the way up. Many
newspaper columns and television and radio shows are now specifically
devoted to analysing new laws and legal rulings, thus creating and fanning a
vigilant and reinvigorating public debate regarding matters of legislation
and citizens' rights. The rigid and zealous nature of this debate is
reminiscent of the ancient debate in the holy books surrounding religious
laws and commandments. Legalistic language has become an important part
of the public discourse and is making its way into everyday speech. The
political sphere is also affected by this move towards jurisprudence, and
most public figures today are equipping themselves with legal training.
Even the indisputable tendency to allow television cameras in court, as seen
in the O.J. Simpson trial in the United States or the Demanjuk case in Israel,
is part of a global cultural trend in which justice must not only be done, but
must also be seen by everyone.
An indication of the change in secular beliefs is the diminution of the
status and authority of the old elite – dominated by the military-political
establishment – and the corresponding rise in the prestige and influence of a
new power elite, dominated by economics and the law. In Israel, this change
is marked by increased legal activism. Under the leadership of Chief Justice
Aharon Barak, the judiciary is expanding its authority to enact laws at the
expense of the legislative branch. Moreover, the new system of political
primaries is forcing candidates to ingratiate themselves to the voting public,
and frequently publicized opinion polls are putting politicians under
constant public pressure, thus undermining and ultimately limiting the
powers of party leadership.
The Israeli press, once the right-hand man of the military-political
establishment and an integral part of the national socialization apparatus,
has changed its allegiance as well. Today it is playing a central role in
breaking down the old Zionist faith and building up the alternative secular
religion. Zionist values are being toppled primarily by public dialogue on
military and political issues, among intellectuals and artists, most of which
is carried out in the press. Since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the Israeli
media began to shift away from a national-militaristic dialogue towards a
more universal, anti-militaristic one. This shift in outlook is not exclusively
the pragmatic result of geopolitical developments in Israel and in the world,
but rather a part of a profound ideological revolution originating in the
American values that have pervaded the Israeli intelligentsia. The media
also plays an essential role in modifying secular values. It is constantly
expanding, as witnessed by more and more newspapers and television and
radio stations, and is graced by a hypnotic, seductive power. Moreover, it
transcends national borders and encourages international identification, one
of the basic tenets of the ‘democratic religion’.
 Whatever its cause, the war experience dominated ‘nation-worship’.
‘Democracy-worship’, in contrast, emphasizes peace and fellowship among
nations. Even more, it stresses the overriding value of anti-war and
antiestablishment activities in imbuing the life of the ‘chippie’ with ethical
meaning and righteous zeal. As a result of the Vietnam War, Americans,
particularly the liberal elite, became anti-militaristic, anti-macho and anti-
nationalistic. This change has had a profound effect on instilling a new
system of values in the United States. The Lebanon War was Israel's
Vietnam. This war introduced the educated, mainly left-wing, liberal Israeli
elite to a new set of values, primarily anti-militaristic, anti-macho and anti-
nationalistic in nature, and thus facilitated the spread of the ‘democratic
faith’. Like the Vietnam War, the Lebanon War stirred up righteous
indignation and inspired playwrights, novelists, poets, film writers and
other creative artists to express their personal pain through the medium of
anti-national anger and protest.
One of the rituals used by the media to diminish the sanctity of the
military-political establishment while glorifying the new economic-legal
establishment has been the intensive and sensationalist coverage of political
scandals. The Watergate scandal, a landmark case, paved the way for a
surge of journalistic disclosures in the Western press, including the Israeli.
These scandals are big headline-makers, and their scoundrels have begun to
enrich a new mythology of iniquity (as, for example, in the Asher Yadlin
affair and the Aryeh Deri case).
Another symptom of the changing secular faith is the growing tendency
to confront the more disturbing aspects of military service, to take issue
with the grotesque features of military culture and question the past and
present failures of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), formerly one of the
holiest bastions of the ‘national religion’. Society's high priests are being
replaced as well, as indicated by the media's critical and sometimes even
deadly treatment of senior military officers, who only a few years ago were
thought of as brave heroes and defenders, in contrast to its favourable,
sometimes even fawning, attitude towards Supreme Court Justices and the
State Controller. Chief Justice Aharon Barak has a liberal worldview. For
several years, he has been featured by the media as the prodigy and the new
Hassidic rabbi of secular society, not only because of his proven intellectual
abilities but also owing to the changing ethical priorities of the Israeli elite.
The magnificent architecture of the new Supreme Court building in
Jerusalem, aptly located next to the Knesset, provides an appropriate
metaphor for the cultural changing of the guard in Israel.
The recent proliferation of state commissions of inquiry headed by
investigating judges has also impressed upon the public, at least
subconsciously, that judges rank higher than politicians and military
officers. The spectacle of important politicians or military commanders
humbling themselves before the judiciary began to take on symbolic
proportion in the wake of the Agranat Commission and the subsequent
Cahan and Shamgar Commissions, with the Supreme Court filling the role
of a new national tribunal.

Love and Conjugal Relationships

For the past 50 years, the most talked-about topic in Western culture has
been the way members of a couple relate to each other, in particular the
emotional (love and romance) and physiological (sex) aspects of the
relationship. This preoccupation has been exacerbated by the rapid
proliferation of motion pictures, television, and pop and rock culture. The
word ‘1-o-v-e’, repeated countless times over the radio, has become a new
secular mantra. Most television and film dramas focus on relations between
men and women, as do the lyrics of popular songs, so that citizens of the
Western world are conditioned to think in terms of couples and made to
believe that they must buy the products of romance. This is not, however,
the chivalrous romance associated with national religious heroes, among
whom are the cowboy, the officer and gentleman, the charming lover, and
the secret agent. Today's romanticism is based on what psychologists call
‘bonding’. Machismo, the national religion's prototype for masculinity, is
gradually relinquishing its role to a new masculine exemplar, one that
accentuates more feminine and domestic traits. Today's new male is being
educated by public opinion to pay attention to his partner's needs, regard her
as his friend, and support and encourage her career aspirations. Hence, in
the ‘chippie’ community, the Hebrew word ba'al, with the double meaning
of husband and master, is no longer politically correct.
Prompted by the influence of American culture, there has been a
remarkable increase in both the number of sex and family counsellors and
the number of talk shows dealing with marital relationships. These
professionals relate to the holy concept of the ‘relationship’ as learned
behaviour and to lovemaking as a spiritual catharsis and bodily ritual that
must be constantly perfected. The modern artist is fascinated with ‘he and
she’ (and today with ‘she and she’ and ‘he and he’ as well). By expressing
his own existential anguish and suffering, the artist feeds the emotions of
his audience, most of whom are ‘chippies’ with their own intense emotional
baggage. Devotion to the concept of the relationship blends with the
feminist worldview, leading not only to a new archetype for gender but also
a new ideal for parenting, family and friendship. Moreover, modern forms
of chastisement and new-fashioned feelings of guilt and regret, the by-
products of these new ideals, are providing a nice living for the
psychologists, society's current father confessors.

Pop and Rock Music

Researchers have already noted the ritualistic and obsessive dimension of
listening to pop and rock music and watching video clips. They have been
quick to point out that the ecstasy, adulation and addiction displayed by fans
of rock and film stars bear a striking resemblance to the psychological traits
distinguishing the disciples of more traditional religions. Starting in the
1960s, the cultural importance of popular music creators and performers has
been constantly rising in the West, with Israel lagging behind only slightly.
Crowds of young people jam the parks, stadiums and concert halls, cheering
and screaming, sometimes to the point of losing control of their senses, and
sales of discs and audio cassettes continue to mount. MTV attracts intense
interest; radio and television allocate an inordinate amount of air time to
music; numerous columns and special interest sections in the newspapers
review and criticize modern songs and their performers, using serious and
profound language. These are only some of the symptoms indicating that
the popular music industry is no longer purely an entertainment business
but rather a new channel for cultural discourse, through which the modern
system of values, that is, the ‘democratic faith’, can be declared and
conveyed.
The masses of young Israelis thronging to the Arad Song Festival each
year attest to the pivotal role of popular music in the lives of the nation's
youth. These seasonal music festivals held at the Red Sea, Arad, Tzemach,
Caesaria and elsewhere give the nation's youth a momentary opportunity to
let off steam in a joyful milieu of youthful camaraderie. More importantly,
they serve as a forum for today's heroes – troubadours such as Shlomo
Artzi, Gidi Gov, Aviv Gefen, Riqi Gal, David Broza, Yehudit Ravitz and
Mashina – whose ‘song of the individual’ differs markedly from
nationalism's ‘song of the masses’. The values of the new secular faith –
romantic love, peace and protest – are conveyed by means of these
performers, just as Zionist nationalism was conveyed through the Israeli
songs of their predecessors – Yaffa Yarkoni, Shoshana Damari and the
Nahal Performing Troupes.
The ambitions of upper middle class youth provide further evidence of
rock music's prominent cultural standing. Recent studies as well as
newspaper articles indicate that the ancient dream of the educated young
Israeli to become a fighter in the army is losing its lustre, eclipsed by a new
youthful aspiration: to form a rock band that will win over countless fans.
Alternatively, today's young people dream of careers as sexy fashion
models, television announcers or radio broadcasters (preferably on Galei
Zahal, the army radio station). They aspire to thrill their listeners with the
electrified beat of the music they plays and titillate them with their clever
and pointed commentary.

Careerism
The term ‘workaholic’ aptly describes many of the white collar workers in
Western culture today. In Israel as well, the ‘chippie’ is addicted to and
even enslaved by his work. He is under constant pressure to maintain his
expensive habits of conspicuous consumption. In fact, he perceives his
profession, to which he has devoted long years of training, as a form of
spiritual fulfilment. Under the influence of an all-consuming work ethic,
Western culture has pushed future-oriented achievement to its furthermost
limits, with many a ‘chippie’ devotee falling victim to heart attacks, anxiety
attacks, high blood pressure, insomnia and other such ills. This obsession
with work resembles nationalism's obsession with serving the nation; in this
case, however, the devotee is totally committed to a private organization
rather than a state institution. The values inherent in the classic Zionist
phrase, ‘mission transcends career’ have recently been transposed, and
careerism, once a source of social ostracism, has been rehabilitated and
moved to the fore of society's hopes and dreams. Israel has also begun to
import standard American capitalistic myths, such as ‘rags to riches’ and
‘let's cut the red tape’, and American-style scoundrels and heroes are
enriching the ethical inventory of Israel's new ‘democratic faith’.

Psychology and Emotional Candour

Many researchers have noted the functional similarity between the role of
the priest in traditional religious societies and that of the professional
psychologist or the television or radio talk show host/confessor today. Soul-
searching sessions with a psychologist or emotional disclosures on public
media supply a form of moral purification analogous to that once provided
by a trip to the confessional. Even the interchange between psychologist
and patient is essentially the same as that between priest and congregation.
The priest absolves his congregation of all sin in exchange for heartfelt
confession along with a generous contribution to the church (note the
institution of Indulgence), while the psychologist cures his patients of
depressions, syndromes and guilt feelings, either real or imagined, at the
price of emotional unburdening greased by an ample helping of dollars or
shekels.
Psychology has also infiltrated the Western system of values through
language. For some time now, we have been using terms like ‘ego’,
‘empathy’, ‘assertiveness’, ‘complex’, ‘sublimation’, ‘depression’ and
‘inhibition’ to assess ourselves and those around us. Moreover, the
politically correct language that has become standard for formal usage is
premised on psychological grounds; the efforts devoted to being politically
correct have contributed to the evolution of linguistic purity similar to that
of other holy languages and of a broad lexicon of judgemental concepts.
Psychology is also fostering changes in the image of the venerable
popular hero of the Zionist era by promoting the prototype of the antihero,
new hero of the ‘chippie’ community. Consider, for instance, the most
talked-about Hollywood heroes, particularly Academy Award nominees and
winners, as well as the new Israeli film heroes. In most cases, these heroes
differ significantly from their predecessors: the men are more delicate, often
even tormented, more sensitive, more intellectual and more family-oriented
than in the past, while the women are stronger, more assertive, and more
career-oriented.
Democratic Parenthood
In preaching sensitivity and tolerance, the ‘democratic faith’ has given rise
to an additional psychological focal point of devotion: children. The
‘chippie’ household revolves around the child, sometimes to the point of
turning him into a little despot. Parents allocate enormous sums of money to
placating their children and satisfying their every wish, among other
reasons to alleviate their guilt feeling for the long hours they spend at work.
They confer incessantly with their peers regarding the best educational
methods and the inherent psychological makeup of their offspring. Here,
too, feelings of guilt and regret fed by the new keepers of the gate –
primarily the media and academia – play a major role. Self-incrimination,
particularly from mothers, has fostered new institutions aimed at alleviating
the pain and agony of the sufferers, such as special schools for parenting or
psychologically based television shows like the popular Family Relations.
Treating the problem consists mainly of heightening the psychological
awareness of the tortured parent, thus granting them a form of absolution
and an opportunity to return to the fold.
The secular educational system in Israel is currently undergoing a
cultural revolution, reflecting the transformation of the ‘chippie’ child from
an obedient pupil to a spoiled little dictator. The teacher in the Israeli
schools, once the authoritative melamed of the national religion whose holy
mission was to teach Zionist values, has been steered by academia and the
press to see himself or herself as a ‘mentor’ and a ‘friend’. Education, one
of the focal points of ‘nation-worship’, has relinquished its position to the
child, who stands at the hub of ‘democracy-worship’.

Art and Aesthetics

In modern society, art that deigns to criticize and point out society's ills is
perceived of as the pinnacle of spirituality and the means to ecstatic
enlightenment. The intensive debates among artists, professors and critics
regarding film, literature, poetry, sculpture and other art forms provide the
‘chippies’ with an instrument for attributing meaning to their lives and
defining their common set of values. Modern novels and films focus on the
suffering of the ‘other’. Identifying with this distress grants readers or
movie audiences an emotional penance leading to spiritual catharsis. For the
‘chippies’, today's outstanding writers and film directors have attained the
status of spiritual guides whose every word is eagerly consumed and whose
creative works are painstakingly studied. Like the prophets of old, today's
authors, poets, sculptors, artists and actors are thought to be divinely
inspired and capable of leading their believing public to the absolute truth –
one that is primarily a psychological truth.
Modern architecture, also controlled by the ‘chippie’ community, has
vested today's museums, movie theatres, and concert and theatre halls with
ecstatic qualities based on their size, shape, complexity and location, thus
conferring them with the aura of sanctity seen in Christian cathedrals at the
end of the nineteenth century or government buildings at the beginning of
the twentieth. Even the names of these buildings reflect their holy nature:
The Temple of the Arts, The Palace of Culture, among others. The
postmodern style of public buildings in the West today, characterized
mainly by an eclectic, sometimes whimsical variety, plays an important
symbolic role in the ‘democratic faith’. This style carries modern styles and
practices to a provocative extreme where the unexpected holds sway; it
favours chaos and humour and relies on purposeful exaggeration. Leaning
walls, slanting pillars, concrete walls suspended in mid-air, external
plumbing pipes, buildings based on pyramids, balls, and other crazy,
unconventional shapes, use of pinks and greens and other colours never
before used in construction, visual tools from fields other than architecture:
all of these stand in mute defiance to the reserved, symmetrical and angular
buildings representative of the national religion. The surprising,
unconventional shapes and the variety of styles indicate the lack of a
binding stylistic norm and attest to intellectual candour, scientific diversity
and sophistication, independence, freedom to create, think, and express
oneself, and dynamism defining modern man, the devotee of the
‘democratic faith’.
Art and artists are respected and esteemed in democratic society not only
for their intelligence and independence – artistic rebellion is one of the
legends of the ‘democratic faith’ – but also because it is now acceptable and
even desirable in the ‘chippie’ community to be elegant, sophisticated and
conscious of style. Zionism's cavalier attitude towards how people and
things looked from the outside, as indicated by the dishevelled hairstyles,
the faded khaki clothing and the dismal housing built by the Jewish Agency,
is no longer in vogue. Instead, people are now placing a great deal of
emphasis on beauty. They haunt the boutiques for the latest in fashion,
groom their hair with mousse and gel and adopt the most recent hairstyles,
and adorn themselves with earrings, nose rings and tattoos. Perhaps the
most significant evidence that modern Israeli society is concerned with
beauty and outward appearance is found in the building style of new
housing for the ‘chippie’ community. The prestigious highrises and the new
housing developments marked by stark white porcelain, ceramic tile, and
marble inside and out intimate that the population is longing for polish,
lustre, and even eccentricity.

Education and Science

Modern science grew out of the church and thus preserved some of the
cultural attributes of religion. For years, academia has been conducting its
affairs as if it were a secret society of clerics and priests, known for its rigid
codes passed along primarily by word of mouth and its conservative
traditions designed mainly to preserve the status and distinction surrounding
members of the academy. Indeed, the general public tends to view doctors
and professors as superior beings who are entitled to generous portions of
prestige, not to mention financial resources. The mounting importance of
economic development in Western society has also helped to enhance the
status of scientists and scholars. According to recent statistics in Israel,
professors are being chosen more and more frequently to serve in
government positions, on boards of directors of private and public
companies, and on state commissions of inquiry. The academic community,
thus, is a central mechanism of a democratic ritual. Not only does it serve as
a school for capitalism, but it also represents long-standing traditions of
competition, veracity, knowledge, freedom of thought and expression –
traditions that are the pillars of the democratic belief. Colleges and
universities have also become ethical landmarks of sorts, taking over the
role of the church in the Middle Ages. The academic community has stood
at the vanguard of concern for equality, feminism, citizens' rights and
ecology and has spread these causes to the millions of young ‘chippies’
who pass through the ivied halls.
Both the stiff competition for acceptance to the most prestigious
university departments and the growing desire among the children of
Israel's elite to excel demonstrate that education is becoming more and
more important to the ‘chippies’. For middle class parents today, educating
their offspring is the top priority, the focus of all their attention and
resources. For them, education is not only the indispensable key to material
and social success but also an invaluable tool for forging the child's
personality. Even as a foetus in its mother's womb, the heir apparent
‘listens’ to classical music played by his parents, and upon leaving the
delivery room the young scion is presented with an ‘activity centre’ so as
not to lose any precious time in providing the requisite amount of
stimulation for budding intellectual abilities. No more than a year or two
will go by, and the toddler will already find himself or herself enrolled in
assorted educational camps and enrichment activities, yet another
characteristic practice.
Over the past few years, institutions of higher learning in Israel have
burgeoned, with new colleges, open universities, popular universities and a
variety of private institutes cropping up everywhere. Moreover, the demand
for knowledge and academic degrees is growing, as witnessed by the
popularity of enrichment and continuing education courses as well as
educational television and the Discovery Channel. Clearly, then, education
is a central value both within the ‘chippie’ community and for any potential
‘chippie’ who can afford to finance academic studies.
Finally, it must be stressed that the ‘democratic faith’ is currently the new
secular faith of only a small portion of Israeli society – the ‘chippies’. Many
Israelis – mainly the older generations – who grew up within the ideological
incubator of Zionism have psychological difficulties adjusting to the new
system of values. They accept the decline of the old national ideology, but
at the same time still yearn for the old days. Some Israelis – mainly the
conservative and the religious – have developed a hostile attitude towards
the ‘New Israel’, and only their descendants will be able to ‘convert’.
Nevertheless, the ‘democratic faith’ is gradually developing from ‘sect’ to
‘church’ and deepening its hold on Israeli society. This process is likely to
come to fruition if and when an Arab-Israeli peace becomes a reality.

NOTE
1. Capitalistic, Hooked on work, Intellectual, Progressive thinkers.
_______________
Oz Almog is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the Jezreel Valley Academic College.
 Zionism in the Israeli Theatre
DAN URIAN

The New Ghetto (1894–98) by Theodor Herzl was one of the first plays to
raise the issue of Zionism on stage. A melodrama, it was written when
Herzl was in Paris in 1894, following the first Dreyfus trial and while he
was heavily under its influence. The New Ghetto refers to the political and
spiritual location of European Jewry, which had exchanged ghetto for
ghetto following the emancipation. An argument between the characters
Rabbi Friedheimer and Yaacov reveals the distress that Zionism had
engendered in Herzl:
Friedheimer: When the real ghetto existed, we were forbidden to leave
it without a special permit. There was mortal danger in the act. Now
the walls and fences have become invisible, as you said, but we are
commanded to live within this moral ghetto. Woe to the man who
breaks out!
Yaacov: Doctor, we have to break through those fences in another way,
not like the old walls. The external fences needed to be dismantled
from outside – the internal ones we have to tear down ourselves. We
ourselves. From within ourselves!1
The New Ghetto was not performed in Hebrew,2 but the subject matter
raised by Herzl, with its message of Zionist redemption, became a central
theme in Eretz Israel drama and theatre. In this article we shall follow the
role played by Zionist ideology in the Hebrew theatre in the last hundred
years, beginning with a few methodological comments related to the social
aspects of theatre, particularly Hebrew theatre. We shall then examine how
the Zionist concept was given expression on stage from the Settlement
period to the end of the twentieth century.
 Zionism's expression in Israeli theatre reflects the world view of theatre
practitioners and their audiences. However, the theatre not only reflects the
various conceptions of Zionism and the changes that they have undergone
among playwrights, directors and audiences, but it also helps to disseminate
these conceptions. The Israeli playwright, according to Lucien Goldmann's
concept, is a transindividual representing the beliefs and opinions of a
particular Israeli social group. His (and his group's) world view are the
‘prism’ that mediates between social reality and its theatrical text.3
Moreover, the playwright is not only a ‘public emissary’, but also an
intellectual who evaluates and criticizes his own group and is able to reveal,
by theatrical means, the motives and interests behind its collective norms
and its attitude to the group of ‘Others’.
The ideological component plays a central role in the repertoire of the
Hebrew theatre. It influences the majority of the plays written, as well as
those translated from other languages and adapted to fit the goals that
advance the needs of an embryonic society. This is an ideology that ‘writes’
itself by means of playwrights who are frequently unaware of the fact that
they are activated by the Zionist discourse. Nonetheless, in the last decade
the Israeli playwright has introduced onto stage the difficulties of a divided
society and the need for critical examination of the ideology that created the
Hebrew State.

BEGINNINGS
Hebrew culture (including both written and performed drama) that was
staged during the Settlement period served the purposes of secular Zionism.
As such, Israeli theatre has its roots in the end of the nineteenth century. It
was found in schools and later in amateur theatre and in semi-professional
troupes. There were also the Ohel workers' theatre and Ha-bima.
Throughout this period the Hebrew stage, and a great portion of its
repertoire, was committed to adapting Hebrew as an ideological artistic
language and element in the process of creating the new Hebrew settlement.
Many of these plays were responsive to the nationalist sentiments of their
creators and audiences. At their centre lay the exemplary character of the
pioneer and his mission of reclaiming the land.
 During the period prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, the
professional theatre lacked original texts and was forced to fulfil its
ideological purpose with a repertoire mainly comprising adaptations and
translations. Almost eighty plays about ‘life in the Land of Israel’ were
published before 1948,4 and an even greater number were staged although
never published.5
‘The Eretz Israel genre and its props’, as Y. Ch. Brenner ironically called
it, was already thriving in the land before World War I, for ‘everyone is
enthusiastic about fine works imbued with the spirit of Eretz Israel’.6
Playwrights and directors used a variety of dramatic-theatrical semiotic
systems – set, costume, props, songs and music – to illustrate their love for
the people and homeland. Chaim (1942)7 by Menachem Bader is an
exemplary play in that it incorporates many elements characteristic of other
plays of the period. Gidon Efrat assigns Chaim to the group of plays that he
terms ‘Naturalistic-Romantic’.8 Indeed, the play both depicts reality and
exalts it. The playwright was a founding member of Kibbutz Mizra, as well
as a member of the Knesset and director of the Ministry of Development.
Bader gained a wide dramatic-theatrical education from reading plays and
attending the theatre.
His own plays are stories of the aliya and the flight from Europe from the
late 1930s to early 1940s, and they examine the difficulties of integration in
Eretz Israel as well as the Arab-Israeli conflict. His work was influenced by
the German Expressionist theatre tradition and the documentary theatre of
Erwin Piscator.
Chaim comprises a series of scenes running through the mind of its dying
hero, who has been shot by an Arab. It begins by focusing on assimilated
Viennese Jewry, and from there it depicts the aliya and establishment of the
kibbutz. Zionism, according to Bader, is a combination of ‘there’ and
‘here’: European in its sophisticated theatrical means; local in its content
and language, though one could still distinguish the remnants of European
syntax (for example, ‘And why should one insist on speaking only Hebrew,
when one doesn't even know how to speak it properly?’9). The fancy
European clothing of ‘there’, and the outdoor Viennese decor (borrowed
from productions by Piscator, who made much use of slides and lighting
effects) are used to depict an urban jungle in which the growing Nazi
movement rampaged. In contrast with this, the kibbutz decor of ‘here’
revealed an open vista of Eretz Israel and the internal decor too of the
‘kibbutz hut’, whose doors contrast with the bourgeois interior of the
Vienna scenes.
The play also uses dance, song and music. The main tool is that of the
declaration of the ‘Zionist narrative’ on the foundation day of a new
kibbutz. Reference is also made to those ‘Others’ whose plotting is
thwarting Hebrew patriotism: the European enemy and in particular the
Arab, who objects to ploughing the land at Tel-Shuk. Facing the European
enemy and against the aggressive Arab stands the figure of Zionism:
On this day in which the foundations are laid for a co-operative
Hebrew village in the homeland. On this day in which we realize the
dream of free men, labour beside the sources of Genesis, the dream of
the ploughed field, the dream of fields of grain, the burning sun, the
sweat gathering on the brow of the labourer, the dream of the proud
young Hebrew, tall and straight, standing firm, for he stands on the soil
of the homeland as an emissary paving his way. On this day an
additional covenant will be made between the Hebrew man and his
land. This covenant of renewal between the Hebrew man and his land
will be encircled by the light of unending heroism. [author's italics]
Similar to other national movements, Zionism was created in a process of
adoption and invention of symbols, narrative and exemplary characters. Its
subjects and objects formed an ‘inspiring (and rhetorical) myth’ among the
founding fathers. While for their sons, the next generation, ‘the Land of
Israel was very real, identified with the scenery, with the experiences of
youth … it was their land [and they] related to the land as their due
estate’10.

‘ZIONISM’ IN PARENTHESIS11
Plays by writers who were already ‘one generation on the land’ (particularly
those by Moshe Shamir, Natan Shacham, Aharon Megged and Yigal
Mossinsohn) show a strong link between the young tzabars to the group
and to the land - as a characteristic of the native culture. The letters written
by this generation are of note for the frequency of expressions of love for
the homeland – they connect the individual and the nation with love for the
land and the willingness to volunteer and sacrifice their lives for it.12
These writers peceived the pathos presented by Menachem Bader and his
generation as laughable; instead they presented a Zionism of deeds and self-
sacrifice. This was a generation that expressed criticism and mockery
towards the Zionist rhetoric of the previous generation, but the collective-
Zionist ideal remained common to both.
The theatrical stages now began to feature Israeli born members of the
second generation. In Yigal Mossinsohn's In the Plains of the Negev (1949),
the two generations meet in their love for the land. Abraham, who objects to
evacuating the kibbutz which has been cut off during the War of
Independence, declares: ‘I want to look my Danny in the eyes as a man who
fought and not as a miserable refugee who fled from his own land … This is
the only land that does not turn us into refugees and beggars’.13 The kibbutz
is saved, but Danny, the tzabar son, is killed in battle.
This was theatre with a new language. The Zionist rhetoric of Chaim,
whose European remnants could still be recognized, was exchanged for a
new language – a developing slang mixed with broken syntax and words in
Arabic; the language of the local inhabitants, for whom the homeland was
taken for granted. The audiences who attended the play at Ha-bima shared
with the actors the spirit of patriotic sacrifice. Israel Gur attests to this:
I remember well the great emotion that gripped the audience; many
wept and cried noisily; for a long while after the play had ended many
of the spectators still remained crowded in the theatre's corridors
praising the actors to the skies. Indeed, a sense of sanctity and great
tragedy followed you that evening.14

DANNY PLANK
From the mid-1950s, a ‘silent’ change began to take place in the theatre's
attitude to Zionism. Hebrew theatre moderated its dealings with the subject
and also altered its taste in regard to the pioneering ethic. Several of the
plays of the period were nostalgic attempts to return to a time of imaginary
innocence. The original plays staged during these years dealt with the
family, community problems, the Holocaust and the changes taking place in
the kibbutzim. They also reflected the poetic experimental repertoire of the
Theatre of the Absurd.15 Yoram Matmor's An Ordinary Play (1956)
introduced several of the changes that had awoken in Israeli society after
the war – as materialism began to replace the ideals of self-realization. An
Ordinary Play is the story of a play that was never completed and whose
protagonist, Danny, is presented by means of a wooden plank. The fighters
in the plays by Mossinsohn, Shamir and Shacham are presented as alienated
from normal life after the war: ‘They were removed from their army posts
… Most of them went back and quickly descended into an alien world’.16
An entire generation found itself having to confront a new and confusing
reality. Matmor complicates the theatrical reality in a Pirandello manner by
introducing a play-within-a-play, thereby questioning (more in form than
content) the realism of a first generation tzabar playwright as well as the
validity of the Zionist narrative.

THANKS TO ‘NORMALCY’
From the beginning of the 1960s, Israel began to witness economic changes
that led to an improvement in the economy as well as a rise in the Jewish
population to two million. Pioneering ideals still remained the basis of the
national ethos, but society became increasingly consumer-oriented,
effectively negating the declared notions of equality. These were years that
saw the growing influence of American culture. This was reflected in the
public theatres but even more so in the commercial theatres and in the
introduction of musicals.
In one of the celebrated novels of the period, Living on the Dead (1965)
by Aharon Megged, Nakdimon, a bohemian Tel Aviv poet, claims that
‘normalcy’ is devoid of heroes, ‘sacred’ narratives and nationalist songs:
Why does this country need heroes? They create romance out of every
dull deed that people perform out of necessity, like working the land,
guarding, protecting lives. Eternal Israel! A virtuous Nation! They
want to convince you that fate is a matter of choice. So that you'll have
the feeling that there is a choice – stuffing you with the Bible, national
songs, and raising people from the grave to make them national heroes.
Who needs it, all this? I live in this hot, sweltering, bloody land –
because I was born here, that's all!17
While in The American Princess (1963), Nissim Aloni describes ‘A small
country in newly liberated Africa. Very fanatical. Much folklore’.18 The
exemplary figure is no longer the pioneer or tzabar, but the actor, and love
of Zion finds itself competing with the American dream of wealth.
Freddy: So you're from Bogomania too, eh …
The Actor: From the Puk province.
Freddy: Royalist?
The Actor: Ex.
Freddy: I understand, avant-garde. I'm not. I'm a patriot. Loyal son of
the homeland. Throughout my wanderings dreaming of beautiful
Bogomania, with her mountains and hills, cradle of my love … make a
note: the flag makes me shiver, I admit it. And the marching songs of
the homeland – ah, the marching songs! … She too marched away one
day, my love … to New York.
With a renewed interest in Judaism developing, one sees by the end of the
1960s a slow challenge to Zionism within Israeli culture. Gershon Shaked,
describing the revolutionary changes made by Zionism to everyday
language and culture, refers to the negative side activated by this ideology:
The new Israeli culture also arose from rejection and repulsion. Its
choice was not only positive. Zionism rejected the ghetto culture and
was repelled by Western culture. It sought new sources within the
revolutionary experience: an old world pared to the essentials, and
from the ruins of which would be built a new world.19
Even before the Six Day War, educational policy of Jewish studies in
secular schools had reinforced the change in approach to Judaism among
various sectors of Israeli society, as described by Amnon Rubinstein:
The gradual change in attitude to religion is not expressed in a rebirth
of faith, but in a more sceptical examination of secular Zionist
coercion, particularly its socialistic implications, in regard to the
traditional-religious establishment… Instead of denying the Diaspora,
came longings for a world that had fallen in ruins … the Jewish shtetl
[Jewish township] – the address to which all the anger and despair of
nationalist Judaism in eastern Europe had been directed in the past –
 received a new and positive significance in Israeli awareness. Books,
paintings and exhibitions immortalize its cultural uniqueness.20
A generation's doubts regarding its identity, especially over the relationship
of Judaism and Zionism, helps to explain the peculiar success of the play
Ish Hassid Haya, written by Dan Almagor and directed by Yossi Yzraely.
Seen by over a quarter of a million people in Israel, Ish Hassid Haya is
more than just an expression of rebirth of faith; it is a text that casts doubt
on Zionist-socialist Judaism's denial of religion. It contains a different
approach to the Diaspora, replacing rejection with yearning. Such success
can be comprehended only against the background of change in the Israeli
attitude to Jewish identity that had begun to take place after the Six Day
War. Among those born in the 1930s in particular, these changes found
expression in plays that tend structurally towards innovative experimental
theatre and whose content draws upon a past Jewish world.

DECONSTRUCTION
In the 1970s, the War of Attrition (hatasha), and particularly the Yom
Kippur War, reinforced tendentious criticism of Zionism (including plays
by Yehoshua Sobol, Amos Kenan, Yossef Mundi, Abraham Raz, Yaacov
Shabtai, Matti Regev and Yossef Bar-Yossef). Satire was employed by the
theatre to raise questions regarding conventions rooted in Israeli culture.
The satiric stage, which by its very nature is small and aimed at a restricted
audience tolerant of clownish caprices, attempted to circumvent both the
official censor and that of ‘good taste’.
One extreme example of this was Rami Rosen's satire Faschkolnik
(1975), which contends that the Israeli Zionist discourse reveals clear signs
of fascism:
Well, what is Fascism anyway? … Fascism, ladies and gentlemen, is
merely an emotion … it's a thoroughly good sentiment. Of course there
are paradoxes. If I love my fellow men, am I a fascist? I doubt it …
But if I love my country, my heritage, my language, my State, then you
must agree with me that that is a little more noble than just loving
other people on the bus … What have we got other than our country?
Who and what are we without this miserable country at which
everyone slings mud and dirt? … When I think about the young men
 who are lying in the ground so that we can sit here and laugh at the
country … at the only thing we still have … when I see the flames
surrounding the town, the Jew standing stunned before the furnaces …
it's little wonder that one day that same Jew has had enough … and he
demands something concrete! Like a symbol, like a flag! Like an
estate! … The Jewish State is a sentimental country. Anyone who says
otherwise, who offers you a lawful country with no discrimination
between religion or race, intends to deny you your Jewish State. Don't
allow it!!!21
The theatrically influential play Cherli Katcherli (1978), by Danny
Horowitz, dealt with the Israeli social crisis ‘as reflected in the Israeli
collective conscious at the end of the 1970s’.22 The play took the Zionist
ethos and presented its various components in a theatrical pageant. Nor was
the choice of the pageant genre accidental. From the beginning of the
twentieth century, pageants have served as a Zionist educational tool in
schools, youth movements and various communities. Already in the 1950s,
the smaller stages had begun to mount parodies mocking the pathos,
rhetoric and the gap between the pageants and social reality. In his anti-
pageants, Horowitz the tzabar examines his world as one who lives ‘in a
borrowed experience. The things that move you emotionally as well as
ideologically are borrowed’.23
In Cherli Katcherli, Zionism is a collection of objects and actions. These
include that symbol of Zionist masculinity, ‘the controller’ (‘I am the
controller, from the belt below the hips to the crease above the pocket’24),
and those of his nation: songs, dances, blue shirt, green salad, the game of
hide and seek along with, on the stage, scarecrows of an Arab wearing a
keffiyeh, a Nazi stormtrooper, the striped pyjamas and hat of a Jewish
prisoner in a concentration camp – images of ‘Others’ and of the fears that
feed the negative side of love for the Hebrew land.

ZIONISM AND PALESTINIANISM

In the 1980s, three waves of protest provided material for many works by
Israeli artists: protest against the War in Lebanon; protest against racism
among Jewish citizens of Israel, particularly against Kach, the right-wing
extremist party of Rabbi Meir Kahane; and protest against continuation of a
policy of occupation, which increased in strength during the intifada. The
War in Lebanon provided subject matter for many artistic works, all of
which voiced objection and demands for its end.
The Palestinians themselves became part of the daily reality of violent
conflicts and of peace talks, which brought them closer to the world of the
Israelis. During these years the theatre staged about 70 plays with a central
Arab figure, some of them on the main stages. The ‘Arab question’, which
had become the ‘Palestinian question’, raised among Jewish Israelis
feelings that had existed for a long-time – of enmity, hatred and fear toward
the Palestinians. There was also anxiety regarding the Arabs' ‘deep-rooted’
love of the land, against which the theatre staged a repertoire of the Jewish
Israeli, new immigrant or second generation, whose Zionist leanings are
doubtful and who is ready to wander the world and find a new homeland in
America.
In his research on Jewish emigration from Israel, Zvi Sobel notes that the
‘thing that causes anxiety in many people’, in the Jewish Israeli immigrant
society, is the ‘fear that the Jews will remain as they have always been –
rootless wanderers who in fact have chosen this path and this identity no
less, and possibly even more, than it was forced upon them’.25
This fear has found its expression in many plays and texts that reveal
doubts regarding the power of the Zionist enterprise and questions
regarding its future. In The Spring (1932), Yaacov Yaffe was already
presenting the Jews as ‘stepchildren of this land’ and the Arabs as the ‘real
descendants of the land’.26 In many plays, including recent ones, the Arab
appears, in contrast to the Jew, as the more truly linked to the land itself. In
Mussa and the Female Pharaoh (1978), Matti Regev warns against the
changes that are taking place among the Jews in Israel; that ‘a man can live
his entire life without touching the land’, while the Arab who works the
land, in his opinion, raises the question of the right of the Jews to the land:
‘You think that it's yours. The land belongs to those who come to it’.
Yossef Mundi's plays also examine the nature of the Jewish presence on
the land, with his own self-portrait as a Jew being one of separation from
land and country, in contrast to the Arab whose links with the land are deep
and true. In Mundi's play The Return to Nowhere (1981), an Israeli who had
lived in Paris and is now returning to Israel sits on the plane next to an Arab
inhabitant of Ramallah and finds himself enviously thinking ‘about his link
with the land … how inferior I am to him. I, who don't know to where I am
returning and have already forgotten from where I came’.27
In Closing the Night (1989), also by Mundi, a group of characters sit in a
Tel Aviv café. The Jews in the group would all like to be somewhere else.
Only the Arab does not want to go on a trip: ‘why go away? This is my
country’.28 In Vardaleh Goes to the People (1990), Ruth Hazan confronts
Vardaleh, a young kibbutznik whose dream is to travel to the United States,
with Nimer the Arab labourer, sixth generation on the land: ‘I won't leave
our holy land’. Nimer does not object to the Jews emigrating from the land:
‘The more the better. We shall stay. We shan't move from here’. And he
sings Hebrew songs about his fatherland, and even the anthem of Betar [the
right-wing Zionist youth movement], with its promise of ‘both sides of the
Jordan. This is ours and that too’.

‘OTHER’ VOICES
Towards the end of the 1980s, at the height of the Palestinian intifada, and
into the 1990s, Israeli theatre began to hold a lively and acrid public
discussion of Zionism in which new voices were heard, particularly those of
women, the religious, the secular and the anti-religious. Pioneering Women
Settle on Gravel by Esther Izbitsky (only performed five times, on Stage 2
of the Haifa Municipal Theatre), examines the Zionist revolution from the
viewpoint of its female participants: women who do not appear in the
stories of the Zionist aliya rishona other than in passive or silent roles. One
such figure is ‘a sort of quiet, diligent nun, free of anger, a figure lacking in
any antagonism towards male society’.29
As an antithesis to this image, the playwright-director instructed her
actresses to display ceaseless activity: from raking gravel to kneading
dough – hard, demanding physical tasks that reflect the hard, thankless
labour of these anonymous women who live in the shadow of their men.
The men are represented in the play by metal poles featuring plywood
heads displaying the countenances of central figures of the time, such as
Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism and visionary of a Jewish State, or
Chaim Brenner, an important writer from the period of the Settlement. This
kind of caricature expresses the women's anger towards the male-oriented
history of the early settlement period. The play is a collage from the period,
and incorporates such famous phrases as that by Herzl:
Do not turn our darling girls into warriors demanding to fight. Let
them wander in the vineyards, pick lilies and carnations and braid
them in their hair. Let the young girls continue to blossom hidden from
the eyes of men, like paintings veiled by a scarf.
Several of the plays from the 1980s and 1990s pointedly raise the question
of the relationship between Zionism and Judaism. Yehoshua Sobol, in
particular, dealt with this issue for the first time on stage in Soul of a Jew at
the Haifa Municipal Theatre (1982). The play's central theme is that of the
suicide of Otto Weininger (1880–1903), a Viennese Jewish philosopher who
converted in the wake of his hatred of his own Jewishness. Weininger
himself related to Zionism in his book Geschlecht und Charakter (1903),
perceiving it as anti-Jewish or as negating Judaism. Sobol chose Weininger
partially for the tense Judaism-Zionism connection, but even more so, he
says, because of the War in Lebanon, which formed the background to the
play: ‘What is powerful, military and “masculine” in the Israeli mentality in
fact comprises an expression of the negative aspect of Jewish existence in
the Diaspora according to Weininger's own negation of it’.30

NOSTALGIC ZIONISM
The 1990s have witnessed a progressive weakening of fundamental Zionist
culture. This is a process that finds many expressions in literary, theatrical
and cinematic texts. The weakening of the secular mainstream has been
contributed to by the concomitant strengthening of several secondary
cultures, prominent among which are the various religious subcultures. That
of the religious-Zionist group, whose nucleus forms an important
component of the West Bank settlements, has a large and sympathetic
audience among the religious and traditional middle class Ashkenazi [of
European origin] population. Side by side with this culture goes that of the
ultra-Orthodox sector, which for many years was alienated from the Zionist
state. In the last decade, however, this has undergone great changes, and the
negative attitude has turned to one of lively political activity and a
nationalist approach in matters concerning the Jewish–Arab dispute. To
these one can add the organization of traditional and religious Mizrachi
Jews into movements and political parties that are rebelling against the
Ashkenazi religious establishment and offering a Mizrachi alternative.
By the 1990s, all that was left of the secular-Zionist centre was, in the
main, nostalgia for the past. ‘The Israeli is once again no longer the master
of his own home’, writes Gershon Shaked, ‘his language of symbols and his
values have lost their meaning because they have lost their validity and
internal power. Another language is taking the place of that which supplied
life to all living things’.31
In my final example, the play Village (1996) by Yehoshua Sobol, one
finds an interesting contrast to his dystopian vision in The Jerusalem
Syndrome (1987). Sobol's nostalgic patriotism in Village does not seek a
solution to the polarity and ideological crisis that Israeli society is
undergoing, but retreats to the paradise of a political end-of-childhood, in
which the secular-Zionist dream has begun to be realized. Village, like
Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, is about painful change. Both works
show their audience that a real return to the past is not possible; only,
perhaps, to return and dream about it. After watching the play, Michael
Ohad wrote, ‘I regretted that the dream was over, and I decided to go back
and dream it at the first opportunity’.32
Through the eyes of a child experiencing love and death for the first time
in his life, the play presents a small village at the end of World War II,
before the establishment of the State of Israel. According to Sobol, this is
‘almost an autobiographical play’.33 It offers slightly nostalgic memories of
the ‘beautiful’ and tragic Land of Israel, which must pay the price of her
fallen sons in order to create the new Hebrew State.

CONCLUSION
Hebrew theatre and drama have served as a socializing agent for Zionism.
Initially, this was a naive ideology free of doubts and primarily ceremonial.
Declamatory drama glorified the pioneer and confronted him with the
obstacles of nature, greed, possessiveness and, on rare occasions, with the
Arab as enemy. From 1910 onwards, a disturbing background murmur
began to accompany the repertoire that Gidon Efrat collectively terms
‘plays of doubt’.34 The presence of this critical murmur increased until it
started to occupy a central place, to the extent (in the 1970s) of mocking
Zionism. These changes that had begun to take place in the dramatic and
theatrical repertoire were an expression of the ideological changes taking
place among the hegemonic group in Israeli society. More than anything,
from the 1960s, in offering the possibility of an American alternative, the
Israeli playwright revealed the fears of the Israeli immigrant society
regarding the decline in Zionist belief.
The organizational means of the plays also contributed to the process we
have just examined. During the period of Settlement, the majority of
performed plays were still in a process of creation and not consolidated into
one particular narrative, but made up of scenes and sketches, almost-
pageants and real pageants. In the 1940s and early 1950s, during the period
in which the ‘native Zionist’ ethos was coalescing and contained a
considerable degree of self-confident expression, plays tended to be
realistic and conformed to the pattern of a story with beginning, middle and
end.
However, by the middle of the 1950s, a process of deconstructivism had
begun, accompanied by structural changes of ‘disintegration’ of the
narrative, reaching its peak at the end of the 1980s with plays like Sobol's
The Jerusalem Syndrome. The process of the deconstruction of Zionism in
the theatre revealed the secular-Zionist centre's fear of the ‘Other(s)’, of
negative stereotypes as perceived by the ideological ‘Us’. Parallel with this
process, new voices began to be heard on the stage – those of ‘Other’
images, who defined their own approach to Zionism: the Palestinian, the
Mizrachi Jew (in the plays by Gabriel Ben-Simchon, Rafi Aharon and Yossi
Alfi), the religious Zionist woman35 and secular women critical of the male
role in Zionism. In the 1990s and at the beginning of the new century,
secular Zionism appears to have been permanently lost, at least in the
theatre, although there are those who still nostalgically embrace its remains.

NOTES
1. Theodor Herzl, ‘The New Ghetto’, in M.Z Valpolski, Heichal Burbon (The Palace of Burbon),
Tel Aviv, 1957, p. 177 (in Hebrew). Also see letter from Herzl to Dr Adolf Agai, 6 May 1898, in
T. Herzl, Herzl's Legends, Vol.3, Tel Aviv, 1957, p.43 (in Hebrew).
2. Staged by the Karltheatre, Vienna, 1898.
3. Lucien Goldmann, La creation culturelle dans la society moderne, Paris, 1971.
4. Avraham Yaari, The Hebrew Play: Original and Translated from Inception to Present-day,
Bibliography, Jerusalem, 1956, pp. 182–5 (in Hebrew).
5. Avraham Levinsohn, Book of Plays, Tel Aviv, 1948, pp.57–80 (in Hebrew).
6. Y.Ch. Brenner, ‘The Eretz-Israeli genre and its props’, Collated Work, Vol.2, Tel Aviv, 1960, pp.
143–89 (in Hebrew).
7. Menachem Bader, Plays from the Thirties, Tel Aviv, 1978 (in Hebrew). Written for Kibbutz Tel
Amal (now Nir David), circa 1938, published in 1942.
8. Gidon Efrat, Land, Man, Blood: the Myth of the Pioneer and the Ritual of Land in the
Settlement Plays, Tel Aviv, 1980, p.16 (in Hebrew).
9. Bazar, in Bader, Plays from the Thirties.
10. Anita Shapira, Sword of the Dove, Tel Aviv, 1992, p.486 (in Hebrew).
11. Oz Almog, The Tsabar – a Portrait, Tel Aviv, 1997, pp.237–41 (in Hebrew).
12. Ibid., pp.123–93.
13. Yigal Mossinsohn, In the Plains of the Negev, Tel Aviv, 1989, p.42 (in Hebrew).
14. Israel Gur, ‘A Declamatory Play that made History’, Bamah, 91–92 (1982), p.21 (in Hebrew).
15. Michael Wilf, Original Israeli Playwrighting, Haifa, 1968, pp.21–68 (in Hebrew).
16. Yoram Matmor ‘An Ordinary Play’, Prosa, Vol. 19–20 (1978), p.44 (in Hebrew).
17. Aharon Megged, Living on the Dead, Tel Aviv, 1965, p.63 (in Hebrew).
18. Nissim Aloni, The American Princess, Tel Aviv, 1963, p. 12 (in Hebrew).
19. Gershon Shaked, ‘Shall we find sufficient new strength. On behalf of Israeli secularism’, in G.
Shaked, No Other Place: On Literature and Society, Tel Aviv, 1988, p.25 (in Hebrew).
20. Amnon Rubinstein, ‘The period after the Six Day War’, in A. Rubenstein, From Herzl to Gush
Emunim and Back, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1980, pp.106–8 (in Hebrew).
21. Rami Rosen, Faschkolnik, Haifa, 1978, pp.34–6 (in Hebrew).
22. Ziva Ben-Porat, ‘A tsabar called Charlie … on the myth as a language, mythic reality and
mythological play’, in Reuven Zur, Uzi Shavit and Ruth Lavie (eds.), Research in Hebrew
Literature, 5: in memory of Uri Shoham, Tel Aviv, 1986, p.297 (in Hebrew).
23. Danny Horowitz, ‘Monologue: with Danny Horowitz’, Ha-Olam Ha-Zeh, 4 January 1978 (in
Hebrew).
24. Danny Horowitz, Cherli Katcherli, Tel Aviv, 1992, p.46 (in Hebrew).
25. Zvi Sobel, Migrants from the Promised Land, Tel Aviv, 1990, p.57 (in Hebrew).
26. Yaacov A. Yaffe, The Spring, Tel Aviv, 1932, p.22 (in Hebrew).
27. Yossef Mundi, The Return to Nowhere, Tel Aviv, 1981, pp.61–2 (in Hebrew).
28. Yossef Mundi, Closing the Night, Tel Aviv, 1990, p.65 (in Hebrew).
29. Nurit Kahane, ‘Pioneers sitting on gravel’, Nogah, Vol.3 (1981), p.34 (in Hebrew).
30. Shira Stav, ‘An Israeli playwright and the “Jewish Soul”: an interview with Yehoshua Sobol’,
Bamah, Vol.134 (1993), p.42 (in Hebrew).
31. Gershon Shaked, ‘Light and shade and plurality (Hebrew literature in dialectical confrontation
with a changing reality)’, Alpayim, Vol.4 (1991), pp.113–39 (in Hebrew).
32. Michael Ohad, ‘A magical dram that end in the graveyard’, Shishi, Globes supplement, 9
February 1996 (in Hebrew).
33. Yoav Ginai, ‘What will be’, Kol Israel Radio 2, 2 February 1996.
34. Efrat, Land, Man, Blood, pp.32–66.
35. Dan Urian, The Judaic Nature of Israeli Theatre, Amsterdam, 2000, pp.81–103.

______________
Dan Urian is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies at Tel Aviv University
POLITICS
 To Fantasy and Back: David Ben-
Gurion's First Resignation, 1953
YECHIAM WEITZ

INTRODUCTION
In December 1953, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's Prime Minister and Minister
of Defence, resigned his posts and moved south to Sde-Boker, a small
kibbutz in the Negev. His official letter of resignation was handed in to
President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi on 7 December 1953. One week later, on 14
December, accompanied by his wife Paula, a number of secretaries,
policemen and security guards, he set out for Sde-Boker. On the day he
tendered his letter of resignation, Ben-Gurion broadcast a ‘Farewell
Address to the Nation’ on Israeli radio, and published a special farewell
letter to the soldiers of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).1 Neither in his
farewell address nor in his farewell letter did Ben-Gurion mention directly
the reasons that had led him to take this step. The closing section of the
farewell address, however, contains a hint that might shed some light on the
affair. There, he stated that the pioneering ethos could be summed up in the
words of the prophet Habakok: ‘The righteous shall live according to his
faith’. He was not preaching to others, he went on to say, nor did he make
self-righteous and harsh demands on others; he did not seek out the sins of
strangers, but rather fulfilled his beliefs in his daily life – he lived his faith.
Ben-Gurion's process of parting from government took a number of
weeks. The first public statement regarding his intention to resign in the
very near future was made in late October 1953.2 A few days later, he
began the ritual of tendering official notices of resignation to the various
party institutions: on 2 November, he informed the Mapai Political
Committee of his decision, and the committee members decided to raise the
question for discussion in the party's Central Committee.3
The meeting of the Central Committee took place on 4 November, and
was opened with a letter sent by Ben-Gurion to Party Secretary and
Member of the Knesset Meir Argov. In the letter, Ben-Gurion spelled out
the reason for his decision to resign, namely his increasing exhaustion
stemming from many years of heavy responsibility and incessant tension.4
‘For about a year now’, he wrote, ‘I felt that I can no longer contend with
the emotional tension with which my government work is filled …
Apparently, there are limits – at least for me – with regard to the mental
effort one can make’. This brought him to the ‘unfortunate recognition that
I have no choice but to desist from this work for a year or two, or more,
since I am unable, in spite of all my good will … to withstand the tension
that is required for government work’. Later, he stressed yet again that
notwithstanding ‘all sorts of strange and unfounded speculations [that have
been made], some by error and some by malice’, this was the one and only
reason behind his decision.
The members of the Central Committee attempted to dissuade Ben-
Gurion from his decision. Shmuel Yavne'eli, a fellow leader of the Second
Aliya and a veteran member of Mapai ‘spoke … admiringly, praising Ben-
Gurion as the leader of the generation, but ruled sternly that he must not
retire’. During the session's summation, the Central Committee called on
Ben-Gurion once again to reconsider his decision. Party gatherings in the
following days urged the Mapai Central Committee ‘to appeal yet again to
Mr David Ben-Gurion and ask him to retract his decision to leave his
position in the government’.5 However, a new tone could also be heard
from speakers at these conferences, who seemed to indicate that ‘Ben-
Gurion's wishes should be honoured’. Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, for
example, argued during a lecture in Haifa that ‘something may come of the
Prime Minister's resignation. The path to public activity is not a one-way
road leading from the plough to the public. There is also the possibility of
the opposite direction’.6
Two central, largely complementary themes were expressed at party
gatherings, by party members and in the party press. On the one hand, there
was a powerful sensation of becoming orphaned, of parting from someone
who had long been seen as a father figure. On the other, there were
expressions of admiration, which at times bordered on sycophancy. A lone,
unique voice in this regard was the voice of Natan Rotenstreich. He argued
that ‘we must make the very best of a bad thing’ and that the state must take
advantage of the change in leadership in order to liberate itself from the ‘era
of charismatic leadership’. By so doing, a new and different relationship –
more balanced and less charged – could be developed between the public
and its elected leaders. As he put it:
We must cultivate the awareness that government is a vocation, and that
it takes place within a relationship with society and with the public that is
subject to its rule. We must cultivate an awareness of the fact that
government is a prosaic matter, and it is necessary that we make the
supreme effort that we in any case not add to the aura of glory given the
objective position given it in our society.7
Rotenstreich's was very much a lonely voice. An example of a more
characteristic tone can be found in an editorial published in the Histadrut's
daily Davar one day after the paper had published Ben-Gurion's letter to the
Party Secretary. ‘After the Party Central Committee had appealed to him to
reverse his decision’, the editorial read,
this call was joined by the majority of the people of Israel as well as the
Jewish People in the Diaspora, for whom the Prime Minister has been for
years a dear and admired model. The masses of the people – all of its
streams and schools of thought know that we face difficult political and
economic trials and that we cannot in the present or in the foreseeable
future forego the immense motivational, inspirational, initiating and
unifying strength that is Ben-Gurion.8
The anxiety raised by the announcement of Ben-Gurion's planned
resignation was given expression in the many letters sent to him by ordinary
citizens and even by children. ‘Are we strong enough to be able to remain
without a devoted and loyal leader such as yourself?’ asked Yemima
Wolonitz, from Kibbutz Giv'at Ha-shlosha. Victor David Hazan wrote to tell
him that ‘there is nobody who can take his place at the head of the
government, for who can take the place of the Moses of our generation?’9
Further reference to Ben-Gurion's step can be found in two ‘Seventh
Columns’ devoted by the poet Natan Altermann to the matter. The first,
‘Ben-Gurion Before His Step’, was published on 16 October, after the first
rumours had spread of his intentions to resign from the government and
move to the Negev. The second, and the more familiar, ‘David Ben-Gurion
– Citizen of the State of Israel’, appeared on 11 December, at the end of the
week in which Ben-Gurion officially tendered his letter of resignation to the
President.10 The second column, which, according to Dan Miron, is a clear
indication of the ‘clumsy, pointless, long-winded and dull poetry that
Altermann had begun to write in the 1950s, as part of his role as the voice
of the nation’,11 ended in the words:
Israel spoke: for you know – your reward is very great
Ask any thanks and I shall give it. Speak, do not remain silent
And he said: my wish is but one – that you should know great joy and
deeds in the future
Until a time when you see my face in the distance you should say: who is
that man?

THE BACKGROUND OF BEN-GURION'S RESIGNATION

The Mapai Central Committee convened on 11 November for another
meeting. This time, a new awareness was expressed: once it had become
clear that Ben-Gurion was unmoved, the Central Committee had no choice
but to come to terms with his decision. A unanimous decision reached at the
meeting read:
With deep sorrow, the Central Committee heard the decision reached by
Ben-Gurion – the nation's leader and one of the founders of the nation
and of the state – that he is determined to resign from the government
and from the premiership … The Party's Central Committee considers
this but a temporary resignation; a respite for rest which follows a period
of immense tension.12
The formal act of resignation – the letter to the President – took place a
month later, on 7 December 1953. A week later Ben-Gurion moved to Sde-
Boker, having addressed the public by radio and sent a farewell letter to the
IDF soldiers.13 Both were filled with words of adulation for the Zionist
enterprise in general and for the IDF in particular, from which, he
confessed, he had the greatest difficulty in parting.
During the month between Ben-Gurion's announcement of his intention
to resign and the actual implementation of the decision, a number of
important decisions were reached in the matter of government personnel.
Just prior to his resignation, Ben-Gurion appointed Moshe Dayan as the
IDF's fourth Chief of Staff, and the 30-year-old Shimon Peres as the
provisional Director-General of the Ministry of Defence (his appointment
as permanent Director-General, ironically, was completed during Pinhas
Lavon's tenure as Minister of Defence).
Ben-Gurion's own replacements were determined during that month as
well. After his preferred candidate, Finance Minister Levi Eshkol, firmly
refused the position of Prime Minister, the natural candidate was chosen –
Moshe Sharett, the ‘forced heir’. For over twenty years, Sharett had been
Ben-Gurion's second in command and his loyal aid, first as head of the
Jewish Agency's Political Department, and later, after the establishment of
the state in 1948, as Foreign Minister. The candidate for the Ministry of
Defence was Lavon – a brilliant intellectual and one of the party's senior
leaders. Lavon had served for a number of months as surrogate Defence
Minister, but his candidacy nevertheless seemed surprising, and indeed
almost incomprehensible. What connection was there between this leader of
the youth movement, a man known for his almost pacifist tendencies,
whose mental stability was doubted by many, and the leadership of the
Ministry of Defence? Some, such as Labour Minister Golda Meyerson
(Meir), even took the trouble to caution Ben-Gurion with regard to Lavon.
But Ben-Gurion insisted that Lavon be the one placed in charge of his ‘pet’
ministry. There were two reasons for this insistence. The first was that at
that point in time, Lavon, a veteran of Hapoel Ha-tza'ir14 and an outstanding
speaker for the moderate camp within Mapai, had begun increasingly to
accept Ben-Gurion's views in matters of defence and policy. The second
reason had to do with Ben-Gurion's recognition of Lavon's intellectual
abilities. Yitzhak Ben-Aharon would later write that:
a significant change began to be noticed during that period in Lavon's
attitude towards Ben-Gurion. He joined his circle of admirers and
accepted his authority. At the same time, Ben-Gurion had begun to see
Lavon as a leading mind, second only to himself. Thus, a bond was
 suddenly forged between the two: Lavon recognized Ben-Gurion's
genius, and Ben-Gurion, for his part, admitted that Lavon was the leading
intellectual. A star had suddenly been born within the spiritual wilderness
that surrounded Ben-Gurion, and Ben-Gurion wanted matters of defence
to be co-ordinated by the individual who at that time appeared to him to
be the most talented man in the party.15
Was it indeed the fatigue and tension of his long years at the helm that
served as the sole reason for Ben-Gurion's decision? There is no doubt that
the Prime Minister was exhausted, that he had perhaps even reached the end
of his strength. His diaries for the years 1952 and 1953 contain many
indications that this was indeed the case. In late 1952, at the height of one
more in a series of endless government crises, and shortly before the
establishment of a new government, he wrote, ‘I am working with no
strength left, and I do not know how much longer I will be able to continue
this way’.16 In early January 1953, following the formation of the
government, he took a two-month vacation at his favourite hotel, the Galei
Kinneret Hotel in Tiberias. A month later, when he returned to Tel Aviv, he
noted in his diary that, ‘I left Tiberias and came to Ramat-Aviv. I was able
to bathe in the sea, but not so much to have a vacation’.17 On 19 July, he
left once again for an extended vacation, this time appointing temporary
replacements (Sharett as Prime Minister and Lavon as Minister of Defence).
This time too, despite his efforts, he was unable to detach himself from the
unbearable burden of government. On 9 August, he wrote in his diary that,
‘I returned to Haifa today, to rest a little’. Two days later he wrote, ‘Worked
like a dog again for two days’. His vacation officially ended on 18
October.18 A few days later he announced his decision to retire.
It seems that it was during this period that Ben-Gurion reached his
decision to retire and to move to Sde-Boker. On 22 September, he spoke to
Zalman Aran and told him of his plans to ‘go work for two years in Sde-
Boker’. Aran reacted harshly, but with reserve: ‘Such a move will cause
harm to the Movement and to the state, and might God forbid, cause
disaster’. That same day, Aran sent him a note which he signed with the
words ‘with loyalty and love’. The note indicated the emotional storm he
had experienced when informed of Ben-Gurion's decision. ‘I beg you, do
not do this’, he wrote.
 This poor nation and this tragic state cannot bear it. During the 27 years
you have known me, you saw me break down but once. There was one
reason only for that, and you know what it was. But there is a difference
between the breakdown of an individual and the breakdown of a nation.
And if there is a God of Israel, I pray that you heed my prayer.19
Two weeks later, Ben-Gurion noted in his diary that ‘on Friday, 25
September 1953, I left for Sde-Boker. I looked into work possibilities. They
have already heard a rumour that I wish to come there’.20
There was an additional reason for Ben-Gurion's decision, which he
stressed repeatedly: he was motivated by a strong desire to prove that the
existence of the state was not conditional on a single person, whoever that
individual might be. In a letter to Interior Minister Israel Rokah, he wrote,
‘No state depends on a single individual, certainly not on me … Israel is not
alone and the fate of the state is not conditional upon who serves as prime
minister … Prime Ministers come and go, and the government itself
stands’.21
And yet, were these the sole motives – or indeed, the primary motives for
Ben-Gurion's decision? This question was raised time and again by the
contemporary press, which tended to treat these factors with a degree of
scepticism. There were even those who claimed that the real reason for
Ben-Gurion's resignation had nothing to do with incessant tension, but
rather with the lack of such tension. According to these suppositions, it was
precisely the fact that the country was moving increasingly in the direction
of the mundane, and that the Prime Minister's daily agenda was filled with
Sisyphean attempts to solve coalitional crises that was chasing Ben-Gurion
away from the premiership. Ha-aretz wondered whether the ‘mental tension
of which he complains … is not more in his own soul rather than in his
official duties?’. The newspaper's reply was that there had indeed been
times when ‘Ben-Gurion actually sought to raise the level of tension due to
an internal personal need much more than as a response to objective
circumstances’.22 This view was shared by Rotenstreich, who wrote that
‘heroism is, in the eyes of a military leader, the standard. It is much more
difficult to discover heroism in simple prose; it is certainly more difficult to
identify with it’.23 A similar view was also expressed by Maariv's editor
Azriel Karlibach.24
 Some made an even more far-reaching claim: that there was no
connection between Ben-Gurion's decision to retire and his state of fatigue,
and that the entire affair was a typical Ben-Gurion ‘trick’ aimed at elevating
his name and increasing his power. His sole purpose, according to this
theory, was to use his announced retirement to prove that the country could
not cope without him and to then return as the redeeming Messiah who
could dictate the terms of his return:
[Many] fear that the situation in the country will deteriorate … and that
when things reach a crisis point, [Ben-Gurion] will turn up from Sde-
Boker and appear as a saviour and redeemer. This might happen during a
deep fissure within the government or within the people itself, or during
elections whenever he may choose. And then he will return on his own
terms.25
The Mapai-affiliated newspapers did not accept these complex and
conspiratorial explanations, but rather claimed that Ben-Gurion's
explanation should be taken at face value. What, after all, was more natural
than the desire of a man of over 65 years of age to leave the exhausting race
in which he had been involved for so many years? Davar presented such
assertions as ‘rumours, fabrications, and purposeful defamation’, and
reasserted the claim that the ‘tremendous tension under which this man has
lived for the past six years, and indeed for the past 16–17 years’ was the
sole reason for his decision to resign. The editors of Davar concluded that
Ben-Gurion's resignation stemmed ‘solely from one's inability to
continuously deal with such tension in the future without a hiatus which
seems to him an insurmountable need’.26

THE CONFLICT BETWEEN BEN-GURION AND SHARETT

Exhaustion was joined by an additional factor: the tension Ben-Gurion
experienced in his government work was exacerbated by the escalating
conflict between him and Foreign Minister Sharett. The first signs of this
conflict began to show as early as 1949–50, when Sharett began to place
greater emphasis on the West and on public opinion in the Western
democracies as a central factor in shaping his foreign and defence policy. In
1953, as Israel's retaliatory raids became increasingly frequent, the debate
surrounding the manner in which foreign policy was to be shaped
intensified.27
In October 1953, towards the end of Ben-Gurion's tenure as Prime
Minister, the two came into open conflict around Ben-Gurion's reaction to
the military action in Qibya. The government meeting that took place
following the action authorized Ben-Gurion to issue a statement stating that
‘angry farmers’ had been responsible for the action, and in so doing
absolving the State of Israel and the IDF from responsibility. Sharett's
request that the statement include an apology was rejected. On 18 October
1953, Sharett noted in his diary that ‘I said that no one in the world would
believe us and that we are going to appear as liars’.28
Over a month later, after the UN Security Council had sternly condemned
Israel for the action, the matter was once again raised in the government.
Sharett claimed that the action had caused Israel severe damage, had put
friendly circles to a difficult test, and had led to Israel's complete isolation
at the Security Council. His words provoked the anger of most ministers, as
Sharett himself noted in his diary on 29 November:
[Labour Minister] Golda [Meyerson] was furious – after such a decision
[by the Security Council] don't we have anything better to do than to
blame ourselves? Was their condemnation motivated by moral
indignation? Or was it out of political considerations, etc. etc. Even
[Interior Minister Israel] Rokah spoke against this ‘self-flagellation’. The
same was true of [Minister of Health Joseph] Serlin and Barney [Minister
of Development Dov Joseph].29
It seems likely that this conflict, whose escalation and intensification was
given expression at the cabinet meeting, also served as one of the factors
motivating Ben-Gurion's decision to resign.

THE MAIN REASONS FOR BEN-GURION'S RESIGNATION

From a 50-year perspective, two conclusions appear feasible. First, that
Ben-Gurion was indeed exhausted and felt a profound need for a break in
his daily burdens. And second, that this cannot be accepted as the sole
explanation for his decision to resign. The continuation of the story must be
sought in the manner in which Ben-Gurion perceived himself and the state
whose government he headed. Here, it seems, one can find an explanation
both for the decision to resign and for the decision to relocate to Sde-Boker
– a small remote kibbutz in the middle of the desert, composed of members
whose age was close to that of Ben-Gurion's grandchildren.
In 1953, David Ben-Gurion was not only Prime Minister and Minister of
Defence. He was perceived by many as the founding father of the State of
Israel, and was often identified with it. The profound sense of loss, indeed
of having been orphaned, that characterized many sectors of Israeli society
stemmed from a deep feeling that Ben-Gurion and the State of Israel were
one and the same. During these very years, however, Ben-Gurion had
grown increasingly lonely – a loneliness rooted in the feeling that he stood
alone at the tip of the pyramid. During the first years of statehood – or even
since the early 1940s – Ben-Gurion had had to part from many of those
contemporaries who had accompanied him over so many years, and who
could converse with him as equals: those who, in the words of the author
Amos Oz, ‘had known him in his underwear’.30
This process began, as mentioned, prior to the establishment of the state,
and was true first and foremost of Ben-Gurion's two partners in the
establishment and leadership of the labour movement and the Mapai party:
Yitzhak Tabenkin and Berl Katznelson. The former had begun to seclude
himself in Kibbutz Ein-Harod and within Ha-kibbutz Ha-meuhad (The
United Kibbutz Movement)31 as early as the 1930s, and by 1953 had
become completely removed from the young state's policy-making circles.
The latter died in 1944, at the premature age of 57. According to Ben-
Aharon, ‘that was the greatest shock of [Ben-Gurion's] life; the real shock,
from which he had never recovered … Even after many years, the pain did
not ease up’.32
This process continued after the establishment of the state. The only
member of Ben-Gurion's generation who found a place in the first
governments was David Remez, who passed away in 1951. The remaining
members of his generation had been marginalized, and in any case were not
part of the ‘old man's’ close circle. His relationship with Yosef Sprinzak, for
example, the Speaker of the Knesset from its foundation to the day he died,
was riddled with suspicion. In 1952, following the death of Chaim
Weizmann (first President of the State of Israel), Ben-Gurion blocked
Sprinzak's candidacy for the presidency. According to Yohanan Bader,
Sprinzak told him that Ben-Gurion ‘is actually a Revisionist who is afraid
of crossing the Jordan’. Sprinzak went on to describe Ben-Gurion,
according to Bader, as having ‘personality – yes! But humanity – no!’33
Others were marginalized as well. Thus, Ben-Gurion found himself
surrounded by people such as Sharett, Eshkol, Meyerson, Joseph, Aran,
Mordechai Namir34 and Lavon. They were all at least a decade younger,
had not witnessed all of the stages of his gradual climb to leadership, and
accepted his position as leader as self-evident. ‘They revered him as
underlings relate to their superior’, according to Ben-Gurion's biographer,
Michael Bar-Zohar. ‘Even when they disagreed with him, they did not dare
come into conflict with him’.35
In such a situation, when all awaited his words, one can point to an
additional motif in Ben-Gurion's personality and behaviour: his admiration
of the pioneer, one who fulfils his ideas in his own life and who alters
reality by personal deed rather than by sitting at the head of a pyramid and
activating others. Examples of various kinds of this admiration can be
found throughout his diary. One such example is the manner in which he
parted from the Second Aliya pioneers who passed away. In his diary and in
his public addresses, one can find expressions of sorrow and pain over
friends and colleagues who had passed away. This was the case, for
instance, when he was informed of the death of Finance Minister Eliezer
Kaplan.36 These reactions, however, lack the element of reverence and even
self-abnegation that can be found in his response to the death of pioneers.
The most emotional words in this context were written following the
funeral of Shlomo Lavi (Levkowitz), a former resident of Ben-Gurion's
home-town of Plonsk, a founder of Kibbutz Ein-Harod, and father of the
kibbutz idea, who had lost his two sons in Israel's War of Independence:
At 13.00 I left with Paula [Ben-Gurion's wife] for the funeral at Ein-
Harod … He was buried by his wife. I parted from a childhood friend, an
example to us all, a man who was loyal to the vision and to its fulfilment,
a pioneer of labour and defence throughout his entire life in the Land of
Israel, a bold and just fighter, who spoke and acted, one of the first to
unify the labour movement… the father of Jerubaal and Hillel, who gave
their lives for the revival of their nation. The man whose entire life was
 devoted to the project of national revival, the founder of the Kibbutz. To
all members of the Second Aliya, he was a singular and unique man …37
Another kind of admiration was that which he felt for the younger
generation, the country's builders and defenders. In the summer of 1953,
shortly before he reached his decision to resign, he travelled in the Hula
Valley in the Upper Galilee, and made notes of his impressions. ‘I took a
trip today to the Hula’, he wrote. ‘The country is being built – that is the
feeling that accompanied me the entire time … People are constantly busy
…A true pioneer spirit issues forth from these people, although many of
them do not even know it’.38
This admiration for the pioneer spirit and its importance in the life of the
developing young state was also expressed in all of the speeches and letters
Ben-Gurion wrote upon his retirement – both in the closing section of his
farewell address and in his farewell letter to the IDF soldiers, where he
wrote:
The IDF has been given the responsibility not only for the defence of the
country, as is the case with every other army … The IDF is also destined
to act as a nursery which will raise builders of the homeland and
cultivators of the desert. Our security cannot exist without a blending of
the dispersions, without the elevation of the human being in Israel, and
without the settlement of the desert.39
To this view must be added an additional factor. Ben-Gurion saw any form
of activist pioneering positively, even where it was opposed to his own
consciousness or political rationale. A well-known example of this was a
meeting in his Tel Aviv home on 15 November 1937, with the participation
of a number of the central figures in the fields of defence and aliya. The
main item on the agenda pertained to the renewal of illegal immigration
into Palestine. Ben-Gurion's position was clear. He was opposed to any
form of partisan activity that had not been authorized by the Jewish Agency.
He went so far as to say that those who violated movement discipline had
no place in the movement and ought to be brought up on charges before the
movement's judicial forum. Nevertheless, in spite of these harsh words, as
the meeting's participants descended the stairs of Ben-Gurion's home, he
ran after them and asked them to wake him as soon as the first ship bearing
illegal immigrants arrived. He wished to be the first person to reach the
beach and to assist in bringing the immigrants to shore.40

BEN-GURION'S ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PIONEERING

Another aspect of Ben-Gurion's dual attitude to the pioneering spirit is
connected with his personal biography. Although he considered pioneering
and agricultural labour to be lofty ideals, he himself was anything but an
outstanding labourer. Shabtai Teveth, Ben-Gurion's foremost biographer,
wrote of the brief period in 1908 when he worked as a labourer on the
experimental farm in Sejera (in Lower Galilee) that ‘David was not among
the outstanding workers’. He had deep feelings for Jewish agriculture in
Palestine, but his thinking led him in other directions. Thinking and writing
about the Jewish-Zionist renaissance appealed to him far more than
fertilizers and seeds. Teveth quotes Ben-Gurion's employer in Sejera, who
used to say, with more than a hint of irony, that ‘David'le was an
individualist. He loved himself and his book’.41 In spite of this, Ben-Gurion
would often ponder nostalgically over the ‘golden age’ during which he had
worked in agriculture. In 1957, for example, during the celebration of
Rishon Le-zion's seventy-fifth anniversary, he recalled that ‘fifty years ago I
was a worker in the Rishon Le-zion's winery. I worked in my bare feet,
dressed in a sack, and stomped on grapes’.42
A no less problematic point in Ben-Gurion's biography was his place in
the mythological defence organizations – Bar-Giora and Ha-shomer –
founded during the Second Aliya period. He had not been among the
founders of Bar-Giora nor had he been a member of Ha-shomer – two facts
that, in Teveth's opinion, hurt Ben-Gurion and made him feel unwanted:
‘He wanted to be a member of Ha-shomer, and felt hurt by the fact that he
was not accepted into its ranks’.43 Teveth stresses the extent to which Ben-
Gurion was troubled by this matter in spite of the fact that his life was filled
with achievements and recognition:
A sentence which he hid in his heart for years, and published only
towards his final days indicates the degree to which he wished to be a
Shomer in 1908, to be like the first members of Bar-Giora and to share in
their glory: ‘For a brief period of time, I was the first guard (shomer) in
the settlement’. This was actually inaccurate, since it was a year later,
 when the members of Ha-shomer were no longer in Sejera, that Ben-
Gurion acted as guard for a short time during the summer. But at that
point he was not the first, and his inclusion in guard duties was due
primarily to the death of the guard during the Passover events of that
year. This desire of his, which he had been unable to fulfil in reality, was
fulfilled in his imagination.44
Ben-Gurion's frustration in this regard led him to occasional displays of a
hero-worship of sorts – at times even towards people whose ideological and
political worldview was in stark opposition to his own. This can be seen in
his attitude towards Ariel Sharon, which far exceeded an ‘ordinary’ attitude
towards a serving officer,45 or towards Avraham Stern (Yair), founder and
commander of the Lehi underground group, whom he admired despite his
rejection of his political views. In a conversation with Yair Stern, Avraham's
son, Ben-Gurion said: ‘I was then opposed and still am opposed to your
father's actions and deeds, but I admire him personally and am sorry that to
this day I have not read a book about his [personal] history’.46 Perhaps this
is one partial explanation for the strange and intense relationship which
Ben-Gurion developed in his final years with Yehoshua Cohen, a former
member of Lehi and a founder of Sde-Boker.
This may also provide further explanation for Ben-Gurion's decision to
move to Sde-Boker. In the twilight of his life, at the height of his power and
prestige as the State of Israel's definitive leader, Ben-Gurion saw this move
as a last chance to fulfil what he considered to be his personal salvation.
Two answers can be given as to his particular choice of Sde-Boker. The first
and simplest explanation is that it was a young kibbutz, located in the heart
of the desert – far away from the centres of civilization; without a doubt an
ideal place to carry out his dream of personal fulfilment.
The second answer is the one given by the historian Zeev Tzahor. During
the early statehood years, a bitter conflict erupted between the kibbutz
movement and Ben-Gurion, who felt that the movement had not played a
satisfactory role in the absorption of the waves of mass immigration.47 One
particular crisis point in the conflict was a speech which Ben-Gurion
delivered in the Knesset in which he said that he was ‘deeply ashamed’ of
the kibbutz movement. Why, then, did he choose Kibbutz Sde-Boker?
Precisely because Sde-Boker was an atypical kibbutz, whose entire
character was based on a defiant stance towards the kibbutz movement
establishment, with which Ben-Gurion had come into such sharp conflict.
In this sense, this choice by Ben-Gurion – a man who had spent his entire
lifetime at the head of the establishment, and who firmly believed in the
power of institutions – was a clear indication of his somewhat eccentric
search for the exceptional and the non-conformist. In Tzahor's words:
It was no coincidence that Ben-Gurion specifically chose this site. Sde-
Boker, the kibbutz Ben-Gurion chose to join, was not a typical kibbutz.
In 1953 it was an independent, exceptional settlement whose founders
were searchers, who emphasized their openness to new experiments.
They did not speak of socialism, they included a number of former Lehi
members, anarchists, communists and plain adventurers. They firmly
refused to join one of the kibbutz movements.
Thus, Ben-Gurion's decision to join Kibbutz Sde-Boker was not an
expression of remorse over his extended battle with the kibbutz
movement. Indeed, joining this particular kibbutz was an additional link
in the stance he took in opposition to the kibbutz movement. By joining
Sde-Boker he wished to prove that one could be a pioneer outside of the
kibbutz movement.48

BEN-GURION'S ATTITUDE TOWARD ISRAELI SOCIETY

In moving to the Negev, however, Ben-Gurion was not only seeking his
own personal redemption but also a form of collective salvation. As he saw
it, the establishment of the State of Israel did not constitute the complete
fulfilment of the Zionist revolution, but was rather a step in the process of
Zionist-pioneering fulfilment. The struggle over the character of Israeli
society was no less important or meaningful than that for the establishment
of the state. This was a matter that filled Ben-Gurion's heart with profound
anxiety: tens of thousands of immigrants arrived in the new state during its
early years, and were rapidly changing the nature of Israeli society. These
immigrants, who came primarily from ‘materially and spiritually poor
Jewish centres that for centuries had been detached from other Jewish
centres, as well as from the centres of world culture’, were bringing about
rapid, often unchecked, social change. This change planted the fear in Ben-
Gurion's heart that ‘the Yishuv's character would be damaged and its
pioneering spirit might fade’.49
During the state's early years, a number of ideas were raised for the
establishment of organizations whose purpose would be to ensure that the
‘spark of pioneering should not be extinguished’. These bodies were
established within state frameworks, as part of the principle which the
sociologist Moshe Lissak has termed ‘established voluntarism’.50 One such
idea was for the establishment of ‘labour battalions’. The focus of this idea,
which had apparently been raised during the final stages of the War of
Independence, was to assure that workers who had not been recruited to the
IDF for economic or other reasons be assigned to military-labour
frameworks which would be characterized by a paramilitary discipline.
Ben-Gurion enthusiastically accepted this proposal and attempted to
implement it. For a variety of reasons, such as opposition by the military
leadership, Ben-Gurion changed the plan, but not the principle. He sought
to man the work battalions with 18–45-year-old new immigrants.
In January 1951, a committee was formed to propose specific ways in
which the labour battalions might be established. The committee operated
for several months, but, for a variety of reasons, the idea did not come to
fruition, notably for the fear of both opposition and coalition parties that the
new framework would be politicized.51
The establishment of Shahal – an acronym for Pioneering Service for
Israel – was another attempt to implement the idea. Created by the Mapai
party in the spring of 1950 at Ben-Gurion's enthusiastic initiative, this
service was to last for at least two years. Its purpose was to mobilize a
pioneering vanguard to change the atmosphere in the party, to influence the
absorption of immigrants and the blending of diasporas, and to lead the
entire society toward a new pioneering way.52
The launching of Shahal was accompanied by a great deal of ceremony.
The founding conference was held in Haifa on 20 May 1950. Ben-Gurion,
who was present at the ceremony, proposed that Mapai recruit battalions of
volunteer pioneers who would stand ready to fulfil any task assigned to
them by the ‘Supreme Pioneering Command’. These battalions, he stated,
would serve as the engine for the entire Zionist revolution. However, the
new body continued in a direction very different from the high tones that
accompanied its foundation. It gradually declined, and dissolved silently
and completely in January 1954. According to the historian Zvi Zameret,
this pretentious enterprise was ‘one of Ben-Gurion's final attempts to
organize volunteers by founding frameworks that were directed “from
above”’.53 In his view,
it is possible that the failure of Shahal led Ben-Gurion to the conclusion
that there was no other way but to make himself a personal model of the
pioneering spirit for the nation and the party. It is possible that this was
one of the reasons motivating him, as he said, ‘to ascend to Sde-Boker’.
From there, he could call out to the public, and to the youth in particular,
not only to ‘go ahead’, but also to ‘follow me’.54
It is important to note that this reasoning stood in stark opposition to the
views adopted by Ben-Gurion during the early statehood period, which
were rooted in the 1920s, when he served as Secretary-General of the
Histadrut. Ben-Gurion had seen organizations and mechanisms – not the
will of the individual – as the main vehicles for the achievement of the
Zionist revolution. He tended to focus on statutory organizations which had
the power of coercion. According to the historian Anita Shapira, ‘Ben-
Gurion always shied away from organizations based on spontaneity, on
direct action. He preferred institutionalized, hierarchical frameworks,
whose responses could be predicted’.55 This was also one of the principles
of Ben-Gurion's ‘statist’ outlook: he viewed the state's mechanisms and its
possibilities for coercion as the ‘tools of the kingdom’, to use Altermann's
words – the principal instruments for the fulfilment of pioneering goals.
Ben-Gurion's move to Sde-Boker can thus be seen as motivated by a
mixture of despair and caprice; a radical step that might shake the young
state's foundations and bring about the reinvigoration of the pioneering
spirit, something that had not been achieved through conventional means.
Beyond this, however, Ben-Gurion was keenly aware of the fact that Israeli
society was becoming increasingly bourgeois. Following the November
1950 municipal elections in which the General Zionists56 won astonishing
victories, he wrote: ‘The General Zionists increased their power
everywhere. Clearly, this is not only a circumstantial increase, but a
reflection of the crystallizing middle class’.57
 From this perspective, Ben-Gurion's move can be seen as reflecting his
hope, albeit a delusional and perhaps even childish one, that he might be
able dramatically and radically to transform the fundamental trends that had
begun to characterize Israeli society. Perhaps it might be seen as a final,
desperate move in his struggle against a society whose character he had
done more than anyone else to shape, and with which he was identified
more than anybody else. His move to Sde-Boker, then, might be described
as a case of ‘Ben-Gurion vs. Ben-Gurion’; a battle which was aimed first
and foremost against his own creation. Yitzhak Ben-Aharon explained it in
the following manner:
[His] motivation was revolt and protest against the society that had been
established under his leadership and under his rule. I do not know if he
saw everything that was being created in that society. It seems to me that
he saw one piece of it only – the monstrous face of the mechanism he had
built. He had been the sole ruler over the construction of that mechanism
and of its party conception. He was the tip of the pyramid, and when he
saw the faces of the mechanisms that gradually became independent even
of him, he wanted to conduct a cultural revolution along the lines of the
Chinese model … but one cannot carry out a revolution in the name of
the state. They are mutually exclusive. The cultural revolution was
necessary in order to destroy his statist conceptions … [but] he himself
was already the victim of the mechanisms he had built, and they slipped
out from his grip.58

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIS RESIGNATION IN 1953

AND HIS FINAL RESIGNATION IN 1963
A further question that begs itself at this juncture relates to the differences
between Ben-Gurion's first resignation in 1953 and his second one, ten
years later, on 16 June 1963. One obvious difference is that in 1963 Ben-
Gurion was ten years older, and was already approaching his eightieth
birthday. But beyond his biological age, in 1963 Ben-Gurion was exhausted
after so many years of heading the government. This exhaustion led to a
significant decrease in the interest he took in government work. In practice,
management of the country was in the hands of Finance Minister Eshkol.
 But there was another manifestation of this fatigue and exhaustion: Ben-
Gurion's reactions became increasingly extreme. This could be seen in the
many scandals in which he became embroiled and in the disproportional
things he wrote at the time. One expression of this extremism could be seen
in Ben-Gurion's behaviour in the Knesset on 13 May 1963, when, during a
discussion related to the matter of the German scientists working in
Egypt,59 he fiercely attacked the late Revisionist politician Abba Ahimeir.60
Another manifestation was his famous letter to the poet Haim Guri, written
following Guri's column in the La-merhav newspaper in reaction to the
Knesset episode. In his letter, Ben-Gurion claimed that should Menachem
Begin reach power, he would ‘replace the military command and the police
with his thugs and will rule the way Hitler ruled Germany’.61
But aside from these factors, in 1963 the fifteen-year-old Jewish state
was not only ripe to bid farewell to its founding father, but to a large extent
it longed for such a parting. Amos Elon wrote in this context that Ben-
Gurion's resignation in 1963 represented the transition ‘from the heroic
phase … to a more normal period; from the perpetual revolution to
maturity’.62
Beyond this, in 1963, this was a post-‘Lavon Affair’ Ben-Gurion.
Although he had succeeded in having Lavon removed from his office as
General-Secretary of the Histadrut, it was to a large extent a pyrrhic victory
that generated an unprecedented criticism of Ben-Gurion and weakened his
public standing. An even more serious development was the damage
inflicted by the affair on his standing within the party. In 1963, Ben-Gurion
was no longer Mapai's sole ruler, whose mere word could determine the
course of events. In the wake of the Lavon affair, the entire party leadership
was poised against him. They feared that his alliance with the young
generation63 posed the threat that the leadership would pass directly to
them, skipping over the veteran party leaders who had been waiting for
years for their turn.
In 1962, when the matter of German scientists in Egypt arose, the
weakening in Ben-Gurion's position became evident. During the ensuing
debates, he was faced with a much broader opposition than had traditionally
been arrayed against him in matters related to Germany, and which had
consisted primarily of members of Ahdut Ha-avoda and Herut.64 This time,
he was also opposed by two of his closest associates, who questioned his
conclusion that the incident did not pose an existential threat to Israel and
that it should not be allowed to harm Israel's relations with Germany. The
two were Foreign Minister Golda Meir and Isser Harel, Chief of
Intelligence Services, who in March 1963 resigned his post owing to his
disagreement with Ben-Gurion on this matter. One cannot exclude the
possibility that the extent of the opposition with which he met at this point
was one of the central factors leading to Ben-Gurion's decision to resign,
less than three months after Harel's resignation. The week Ben-Gurion
resigned, an article in Ha-aretz claimed that he was not unaware of the
harsh criticism aimed at him on this matter, and that he considered it an
expression of lack of confidence in him.65
It is true that even after his second resignation, Ben-Gurion received a
number of letters describing this move as the ‘destruction of the Temple’.66
However, they were more a conditioned reflex rather than an expression of
real fear for the country's fate. Thus, in contrast with the 1953 decision on a
temporary respite from his position at the head of the pyramid, in 1963
Ben-Gurion had little choice but to opt for a final resignation. And in
contrast with the situation in the 1950s, when, following his resignation he
was called once again to the flag, his attempts to return to power in the
1960s left him a bitter old man who destroyed his image with his own
hands.

CONCLUSION
Two things characterized Ben-Gurion's first days in the young kibbutz in
the middle of wilderness. One was the sense of ‘renew our days as of old’,
something that he had experienced during his first days in Palestine, some
50 years earlier. This was a motif that appeared repeatedly, in nearly
identical words, in dozens of letters that he wrote during his early period on
the kibbutz. In a letter to Moshe Sharett, he wrote that ‘I feel much the same
way I felt on my first day in the country’.67 Two additional motifs were
added. The first was the declaration that he was a ‘private citizen’. In a
letter to one Meir Taplicki, he wrote that ‘I am now working at Sde-Boker,
and am no longer involved in public affairs’.68 Another motif was Ben-
Gurion's claim that his public activity had been forced upon him, and that
all his life he had wished nothing more than to be an agricultural labourer.
In a letter to his childhood friend Rachel Beit-Ha-lahmi, he wrote that ‘my
goal has not changed since then, and I have been unable to do what I
wanted. I did instead what the public demanded of me. Now, I am doing
what I wish to do, and that is that’.69
Another characteristic was the interest Ben-Gurion found in physical
labour. Beginning on 17 December 1953, his diary is laced with the fine
details of his work in the kibbutz. That day he wrote that ‘I began working
today. Along with Zeev, the yard worker, we took manure from the stables
and fertilized the garden behind the buildings. The work was not easy for
me, but after work – four hours – I felt wonderful’.70
Within a short time, however, by mid-January 1954, Ben-Gurion's diary
is almost entirely devoid of any mention of work on the kibbutz. Rather, it
begins to be filled with details of his conversations with politicians and
leaders who made pilgrimages to visit him at Sde-Boker. In fact, less than a
month after arriving at the kibbutz, Ben-Gurion began to change yet again
from a ‘simple worker’, as he had defined himself, to a central political
figure, who ran a significant portion of the state's affairs from his distant
home in the Negev desert. This was true in spite of the fact that he held no
official position. Thus, within a very short time, Sde-Boker ceased to be a
grey, tangible reality, and became a symbol and an allegory. The journey
back had begun. The ‘simple worker’ from Sde-Boker had begun a journey
– which would last a year – back towards what had been the ‘highway’ of
his life – leadership of the Jewish state.

NOTES
1. The contents of Ben-Gurion's farewell address and letter can be found in Ben-Gurion, Vision
and Path, Vol.5, Tel Aviv, 1957, pp.13–22 (in Hebrew).
2. ‘Ben-Gurion Announces His Retirement’, Maariv, 28 October 1953.
3. ‘The Only Reason for Resignation: 17 Years of Tremendous Tension’, Ha-dor, 3 November
1953. Mapai was the main Israeli labour party, headed by Ben-Gurion.
4. For the text of the letter, see ‘D. Ben-Gurion Explains the Reasons for his Resignation in a
Letter to the Mapai Central Committee’, Davar, 5 November 1953. A similarly worded letter
was sent on 2 November to President Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, see ‘Letter to the President’, Ben-
Gurion, Vision and Path, pp.9–13.
5. On this, see Moshe Sharett, Personal Diary, Vol.1, Tel Aviv, 1978, pp.116–17 (4 November
1953); ‘D. Ben-Gurion Explains’, Davar.
6. ‘Mapai Gatherings Come to Terms With Ben-Gurion's Resignation’, Ha-aretz, 8 November
1953.
7. Natan Rotenstreich, ‘The Changing of the Guards and the Changing of the Times’, Molad,
No.65–66 (November–December 1953), p. 216. Rotenstreich was a professor of philosophy at
the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. During the years 1965–69, he held the position of Rector
of the University.
8. Editorial in Davar, 5 November 1953.
9. The letters are from Correspondence, Ben-Gurion Archives [hereinafter BGA], Sde-Boker, 16
October 1953.
10. The first poem was published in Natan Altermann, The Seventh Column, Vol.3, Tel Aviv, 1973,
pp.313–16; the second appeared in ibid., Vol.1, pp.450–1. Natan Altermann (1910–70) was one
of the leading poets during the state's first years. His Ha-tur Ha-shvi'i (‘The Seventh Column’)
was published continuously for 20 years, beginning in 1943. It dealt with current events and was
enormously influential.
11. Dan Miron, ‘From Creators and Builders to Homeless Children’, Igra, No.2 (1986), p.117.
12. Meeting of the Central Committee, 11 November 1953, Labour Party Archives [hereinafter
LPA] 23/53.
13. Ben-Gurion, Vision and Path, Vol.5, pp.13–22.
14. A moderate labour party, established in 1905 in Palestine. In 1930, it united with Ahdut Ha-
avoda (a Zionist-socialist party) and together formed a new labour party (Mapai).
15. Yitzhak Ben-Aharon, In the Eye of the Storm, Tel Aviv, 1978, p.236. Ben-Aharon, one of the
senior leaders of the labour movement, served as a member of the Knesset, as Transportation
Minister (1959–62) and as the General-Secretary of the Histadrut, the Israeli Trade Union
(1969–73).
16. David Ben-Gurion's Diary, IDF Archives, 17 December 1952.
17. Ibid., 3 February 1953.
18. Ibid., 22 October 1953.
19. Ibid., 23 September 1953. See also Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, Tel Aviv, 1987, Vol.2,
p.972 (there is an abridged English edition of the book: Ben-Gurion, New York, 1978); Aran's
letter, Correspondence, BGA. Zalman Aran (1898–1970) was one of the senior leaders of
Mapai, and served for many years as Minister of Education and Culture.
20. BGA, 4 October 1953.
21. Letter to Israel Rokah, Correspondence, BGA, 8 November 1953.
22. ‘The Explanation Letter’, editorial in Ha-aretz, 6 November 1953.
23. Rotenstreich, ‘The Changing of the Guards’, p.216.
24. ‘We Are All Running to Sde-Boker …’, Maariv, 30 October 1953.
25. ‘Retirement and Inheritance’, editorial in Maariv, 28 October 1953.
26. Editorial in Davar, 5 November 1953.
27. Benny Morris, Israel's Border Wars, 1949–1956, Oxford 1993, p.231–2.
28. Sharett, Personal Diary, Vol.1, p.51.
29. Ibid., pp.201–2; Morris, Israel's Border Wars, pp.257–9.
30. Quoted in Nurit Graetz, Amos Oz – A Monograph, Tel Aviv, 1980, p.30.
31. Ha-kibbutz Ha-meuhad was the biggest and most influential Kibbutz movement. Tabenkin was
its founder and leader.
32. Ben-Aharon, In the Eye of the Storm, p.235.
33. Yohanan Bader, The Knesset and I, Jerusalem, 1979, p.118. Bader (1901–94) was a senior leader
of the Herut Movement and served for many years as a member of the Knesset.
34. Mordechai Namir (1897–1975) was General-Secretary of the Histadrut (1950–56), Minister of
Labour (1956–59) and the Mayor of Tel Aviv (1959–69).
35. Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, p.941.
36. After Kaplan's death, Ben-Gurion wrote that the ‘morning began with the shocking news that
Kaplan died during the night in a villa in Monte-Allegro in Genoa … The man has been cut
down, and he had yet been preparing for activity while he was abroad and especially after his
return’. Ben-Gurion's Diary, 13 July 1952.
37. Ibid., 25 July 1953.
38. Ben-Gurion's Diary, 16 August 1953.
39. Ben-Gurion, Vision and Path, Vol.5, pp.13–22.
40. Idit Zertal, ‘Between Morality and Politics – the Attitudes of the Yishuv's Leadership
Concerning the Illegal Immigration, 1937–1939’, in Anita Shapira (ed.), Ha-apala – Studies in
the History of Illegal Immigration into Palestine, 1934–1948, Tel Aviv, 1990, p.101.
41. Shabtai Teveth, The Zeal of David, Tel Aviv, 1976, Vol.1, pp.144–5 (there is an abridged English
edition of the biography: Ben-Gurion – The Burning Ground 1886–1948, Boston, 1987).
42. See Altermann, The Seventh Column, Vol.2, p.261.
43. Teveth, The Zeal of David, p.133. Teveth also writes that ‘he was unwanted in Bar-Giora … and
David could not stand feeling that he had been hurt’ (p.134).
44. Ibid., p.142.
45. On his special attitude to Sharon, see Ben-Gurion's Diary, 7 June 1959.
46. Ibid., 20 October 1962.
47. For further discussion of the immigration waves of the period, see essays by Ben-Artzi,
Hacohen, and Gat in this volume.
48. Zeev Tzahor, Vision and Reckoning – Ben-Gurion: Ideology and Politics, Tel Aviv, 1994,
pp.195–210.
49. Taken from Ben-Gurion's words during a meeting with writers and intellectuals on 27 March
1949, Proza, No.51–53 (February 1982), p.6.
50. Moshe Lissak, ‘Institute Building in Ben-Gurion's Ideology’, in Shlomo Avineri (ed.), David
Ben-Gurion as a Labour Leader, Tel Aviv, 1988, p.114.
51. Ibid., pp.111–12.
52. Zvi Zameret, ‘The Rise and Fall of “Mobilized Zionism”’, Cathedra, No.67 (March 1993),
pp.137–8.
53. Ibid., p.164.
54. Ibid.
55. Anita Shapira, ‘Ben-Gurion and Berl Katznelson – Two Leadership Types’, in Avineri (ed.),
David Ben-Gurion, pp.70–1.
56. A moderate right-wing party representing the middle class. In the elections to the first Knesset it
got 5.2 per cent, and in the municipal elections 25 per cent.
57. Ben-Gurion's Diary, 25 November 1950.
58. Ben-Aharon, In the Eye of the Storm, p.213.
59. In 1962, after Israeli intelligence discovered that chemical weapons were being developed in
Egypt by German scientists, a bitter debate on the issue arose in Israel.
60. Bader, The Knesset, p.158. Abba Ahimeir (1896–1962) was an intellectual and a leader of the
radical wing in the Revisionist Movement.
61. Correspondence, BGA, 15 May 1963.
62. Amos Elon, A Certain Panic, Tel Aviv, 1988, p.335. Elon is a distinguished Israeli journalist and
author.
63. The prominent representatives of this generation were Abba Eban (Minister of Education and
Culture), Moshe Dayan (Minister of Agriculture) and Shimon Peres (Deputy Minister of
Defence).
64. On this issue, see Yechiam Weitz, ‘The Path to the Other Germany – the Attitude of David Ben-
Gurion towards Germany, 1952–60’, in Anita Shapira (ed.), Independence – the First Fifty
Years, Jerusalem, 1998, pp.245–66.
65. Naftali Lavi, Ha-aretz, 21 June 1963.
66. See, for example, the letter from the poet and writer Anda Amir, Nairobi, Correspondence,
BGA, 16 June 1963.
67. Correspondence, BGA, 16 December 1953.
68. Ibid., 24 December 1953.
69. Ibid., 26 December 1953.
70. Ben-Gurion's Diary, 17 December 1953.

_______________
Yechiam Weitz is Senior Lecturer in Eretz Israel Studies at Haifa University.
 Labour and Likud: Roots of their
Ideological-Political Struggle for
Hegemony over Zionism, 1925–35
YAACOV N. GOLDSTEIN

In May 1977, a political earthquake shook the State of Israel. The Labour
Party, heir to the Workers' Party of Palestine (or Mapai), fell from power.
For the past fifty years, it had controlled almost every aspect of the political
system of the Jewish settlement of Palestine, the world Zionist movement
prior to the establishment of the state, and the political systems of all Israeli
governments. In 1977, the reins of government passed to the Likud bloc.
The central party of this bloc was Herut, heir to the Revisionist Party and to
the underground organization Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military
Organization). A new chapter thus opened in the political life of the state.
The right ascended to power, while the centre-left and the left went down to
opposition until 1992, when Labour returned to power.
Yet the political-ideological struggle between these two camps dates back
well before the 1977 drama. Both Herut and Labour are heirs to historical
movements that have been vying for the hearts and souls of the Jewish
community in Palestine (or the Yishuv) since the early twentieth century. In
the 1920s and 1930s, Zeev Jabotinsky, the charismatic leader of the
Revisionists, vied with David Ben-Gurion, Berl Katznelson, Yitzhak
Tabenkin, Levi Eshkol and Golda Meir, the leaders of Mapai. Half a century
later, Menachem Begin, Jabotinsky's protégé and heir, former commander
of the Irgun and leader of the Israeli right, became Prime Minister.
This essay deals with the turbulent formative years between 1925 and
1935, in which this political and ideological struggle reached its peak,
culminating in Labour's rise to hegemony and the withdrawal of the
Revisionists (in 1935) from the Zionist movement and their establishment
of the rival New Zionist Organization.
The implications of this development cannot be overstated. Not only did
it set the general thrust of Zionist and Israeli politics for decades to come,
but it also sowed the seeds of the deep political and ideological cleavages
besetting Israeli society to this very day.

JABOTINSKY, REVISIONISM AND THE

ZIONIST MOVEMENT
The Revisionist Party, set up by Zeev Jabotinsky in 1925, was rightly
identified with its leader. Jabotinsky belonged to the young generation of
Zionist leaders who arose after the death of Theodor Herzl. He was a
contemporary and main rival of Chaim Weizmann. Jabotinsky was a refined
man blessed with natural aptitudes; he was a linguist and a brilliant orator
imbued with European culture.
After World War I, Weizmann co-opted Jabotinsky into the Zionist
Board, on which he served until 1923, when he resigned due to differences
with Weizmann over the policy of the Zionist movement. For two years,
Jabotinsky wandered the political wilderness until he founded the
Revisionist Party. Its ideology was expressed in its name: a demand to
revise Weizmann's pragmatist policy and the desire to return to Herzl's
political Zionism. Jabotinsky's party staked out a position for itself as the
central party of the Zionist right, and from that vantage point threatened
Weizmann's leadership. It is almost certain that Jabotinsky would have
overtaken Weizmann were it not for the Eretz Israel labour movement
coming to the latter's aid.
In 1930, the two main parties that had comprised this labour movement,
Ha-poel Ha-tzair and Ahdut Ha-avoda, established the Mapai Party, which
became the principal rival of the Revisionists. Being unable to gain control
over the Zionist organization from within, Jabotinsky and his followers
withdrew from the movement in 1935. Two years later, the Irgun came into
being, accepted Jabotinsky's authority, and became a rival of the Hagana,
the underground defence force of the Yishuv. Since neither Jabotinsky and
his movement nor the Irgun accepted the authority of either the Zionist
movement or the Yishuv's leadership, they were termed ‘dissidents’.
Jabotinsky died in 1940, and the Revisionist Movement, whose
strongholds had been in the Jewish communities of eastern Europe, was
effectively wiped out by the Holocaust.
Upon its establishment, Mapai encompassed 80 per cent of all (Jewish)
workers and their supporters in Palestine. In the political arena, its focus
was centre-left, meaning a moderate socialist party. By 1931, through
cooperation with its allies throughout the Jewish world, Mapai had attained
hegemony both in the Yishuv and in the Zionist movement. Its ideology and
policies earned the broad support of both labourers and the middle classes,
and it was led by a group of talented leaders headed by David Ben-Gurion.

POLITICAL AND IDEOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES

On the face of it, Ha-poel Ha-tzair and Ahdut Ha-avoda seemed to have
many areas of similarity with the Revisionist Party. Nevertheless, the
ideological, social and political differences were far more significant and
fundamental. These differences, among other things, shaped the
circumstances of the Yishuv and the Zionist movement during the second
half of the 1920s and the first half of the 1930s.
Established in 1905, Ha-poel Ha-tzair drew on various influences, which
created within its ranks a wide range of opinions. Predicating its entire
weight on the theme of realization (hagshama), it struggled for many years
to achieve such ideals as the ‘conquest of labour’ and the revival of Hebrew
language and culture in Palestine.1 In its national coloration, on the one
hand, and its rejection of the idealist-Marxist world outlook, on the other, it
was, on the face of it, similar to the Revisionist Party. And yet, Ha-poel Ha-
tzair became an uncompromising opponent of Revisionism from the
moment of its inception. The rejection of the new party took place against
the backdrop of sharp and deep divergences on socio-economic and
political issues.
Ha-poel Ha-tzair was riven by substantive disputes over the ways and
means of building the land, and, in consequence, over the respective
preference of social elements. It viewed the national revival as the return of
the Jewish people to their soil, toiling the land and engaging in social
experiments that emphasized the value of physical labour — primarily
agriculture — and, therefore, the role of the Jewish worker as a national
normative concept. Revisionism, by contrast, stressed the city and the
middle class. In the political arena, Ha-poel Ha-tzair stood for Weizmann
and opposed Jabotinsky from the moment the latter left the Zionist
leadership in January 1923. At the beginning of 1925, the labour activist
Yitzhak Lufban attacked Jabotinsky, in terms that expressed the general
view of his party at the time. ‘The politics of Jabotinsky and a third or half
of his followers’, he wrote, ‘are nothing but a political parody devoid of any
real and rational grasp, which has no roots in the conditions in Eretz Israel
or in the National Zionism of the Jewish people’.2 After its establishment,
the Revisionist Party was criticized by several other leading party
personalities, such as Shlomo Shiller3 and Yitzhak Wilkansky (El'ezri-
Vulcani), both of whom spurned Jabotinsky as a statesman and charged him
of anti-democratic tendencies. Wilkansky saw Jabotinsky as a nineteenth
century romantic, possessed by the ghost of Garibaldi.4 They were joined
by Eliezer Kaplan and Yosef Sprinzak.5 For Ha-poel Ha-tzair, Revisionism
was almost entirely negative, and hence it was attacked from its first
appearance at the Fourteenth Zionist Congress in 1925. In a letter to his
wife written at that congress, Sprinzak commented on Jabotinsky's speech
that ‘from the point of view of rhetoric, [it] was technically perfect, but
from the substantive point of view it was a political and moral scandal, and
its premises indicate the poverty of Zionist thought’.6 It should be noted,
however, that the enmity was not one-sided but rather mutual.7
Relations with Ahdut Ha-avoda were far more complicated. Most
surprisingly, despite the latter's Marxist-socialist worldview, there were
numerous points of commonality between the two parties during the 1920s8
concerning certain issues of great importance:

Both parties advocated a greater and more central role for the Yishuv
in the deliberations of the Zionist movement. For them, the Yishuv,
those pioneers who emigrated to Eretz Israel and were realizing the
Zionist ideology, deserved a greater political clout than its numerical
and economic strength might merit. The two parties resented the
custom that had become rooted in the Zionist leadership of usually
 ignoring the views of the Yishuv as expressed through its elected
institutions.
The two parties were deeply preoccupied with the safety of the
Yishuv and the creation of a Jewish security force to defend the
Zionist enterprise. This preoccupation with defence issues, or defence
activism as it came to be known, characterized the two parties and
their successors throughout the Mandatory period.
Also common to Ahdut Ha-avoda and Revisionism was the concept
of Zionist activism, that is, the constant striving for large aliya
(Jewish immigration to Palestine) and the rapid building of the
country.
The two parties were united in censuring the Mandatory
administration, including that of the first High Commissioner Herbert
Samuel (1920–25), and the effective severance of Transjordan from
the territory of the Jewish National Home (1921–22) to satisfy the
political ambitions of the Emir Abdallah Ibn Hussein of the Hijaz.
Both organizations argued against the policy of the Zionist leadership
under Weizmann and were opposed both to Weizmann the man and
his policies.
Until 1927, the two parties were unified in their opposition to the
‘expanded’ Jewish Agency — Weizmann's great ambition in the
1920s.

In short, in most matters on which Ahdut Ha-avoda differed from

Weizmann, it was close to Jabotinsky and Revisionism.9
Notwithstanding all these similarities, the areas of dispute were more
numerous and substantial, giving rise to the rift between the two parties that
steadily widened in the second half of the 1920s prior to the 1929
disturbances:

Precisely in the field of defence, a serious conflict between Ahdut

Ha-avoda and Jabotinsky arose in 1921–23. The latter was a great
proponent of an overt army and negated the underground, while
Ahdut Ha-avoda, despite sharing Jabotinsky's goals, believed in the
necessity of a clandestine Jewish security organization.
Regarding the best way to build Eretz Israel, Jabotinsky developed
his concepts under the title the ‘settlement regime’ — a central tier in
 Revisionist ideology. For Jabotinsky, the entire Jewish enterprise in
Palestine before the Mandatory era was merely experimental, while
mass Jewish settlement would have to be implemented as a
governmental project based on the resources of the Mandatory
authorities. The Jews were incapable of realizing the aims of Zionism
on their own. Moreover, it would only be possible to absorb mass
immigration principally in the towns. Therefore, urbanization, in all
its respects, including the social, should receive the absolute priority
in Zionist policy. Contrary to these views, Ahdut Ha-avoda identified
with Ha-poel Ha-tzair's ideas regarding the ways and means of
building the land, namely the important role of agriculture, the
idealization of labour, and the status merited by the toiler of the land
and the urban worker.
While Jabotinsky rejected national capital as the central lever in
building the country and relied on the middle classes and private
enterprise, Ahdut Ha-avoda, like the other workers' parties, believed
in national capital as the chief means of national development and the
major vehicle of the socio-economic revolution.
Jabotinsky and his party also rejected the Palestinian version of the
Marxist-socialist worldview, stood for the implementation of national
goals only and fought against the theory of the existence of classes in
the nation and the right to class war. Jabotinsky viewed this ideology
as a great danger to national unity, without which the national goals
would not be achieved. As for Ahdut Ha-avoda, only the
simultaneous pursuit of socio-economic and national goals could
ensure the success of Zionism.

In short, the socio-economic views of Jabotinsky and his party contained

all the elements rejected by the workers' parties: the aggrandizement of
individualism and its preferability to the various kinds of co-operative
experiments; the absolute negation of socialism and the affirmation of
capitalism; the perception of the bourgeoisie as the class of the future; and
the denial of the superior status of the farm labourer and city worker. All
this made Jabotinsky and his party undisputed enemies of the workers'
parties.
Ultimately, in choosing between Weizmann and Jabotinsky, Ahdut Ha-
avoda, like the labour movement as a whole, preferred Weizmann's course
to Jabotinsky's. Ahdut Ha-avoda moved into the Weizmann camp at the
Fifteenth Zionist Congress in 1927, joining the supporters of the ‘expanded’
Jewish Agency. Henceforward, the location of this party in the Weizmann
camp turned it into Revisionism's bitter foe, not only in the socio-economic
sphere but also in the political. By the time of the 1929 riots, the hostility
between the two camps had become irreconcilable, and Jabotinsky
concluded that the destruction of the labour movement was necessary in
order to defeat Weizmann and secure his own victory in Zionism.10
In 1926, Jabotinsky could still make a round of visits to the kibbutzim of
the Jezreel Valley and be welcomed there with kindness and even
friendship. In ‘red Haifa’, a bastion of the labour movement, thousands
came to hear him speak, and he was not interrupted. Two years later, on
Jabotinsky's return to Palestine in October 1928, the schism between his
party and the labour movement was total.11

THE STRUGGLE GAINS MOMENTUM

The 1929 riots erupted into this tense state of affairs, triggering a series of
political moves that brought relations between Britain and the Zionist
movement to their lowest ebb ever. This in turn unleashed the outbreak of
harsh conflicts within the Zionist movement, where a struggle over its
policies and leadership ensued. Polarization in inter-party relations grew
steadily, often erupting into violence and leading to the crystallization of
diametrically opposed positions regarding the succession to Weizmann. In
the end, two irreconcilable alternatives took shape in the Yishuv and the
Zionist movement: the Weizmann camp, centred on the Eretz Israel labour
movement, on the one hand, and the Revisionist movement with its allies
on the other. This serious political situation had implications for all walks of
life, bringing the warring camps to the verge of civil war.
The political drama reached its peak at the Seventeenth Zionist Congress
of 1931. After the publication of the Passfied White Paper in October 1930,
Weizmann officially tendered his resignation from the presidency of the
Zionist movement, a step that caused an escalation in the struggle within
Zionism.
Having sensed the gathering storm against him throughout the Zionist
world since the 1929 riots, Weizmann announced on various occasions that
he had no intention of continuing as president of the Zionist movement after
the Seventeenth Congress.12 But this announcement was not taken at face
value by his followers, who believed that Weizmann did not actually mean
what he was saying. This assessment was not wholly ungrounded. It seems
highly unlikely that Weizmann would truly have wished to resign, since
such a move, in these particular circumstances, would almost certainly be
interpreted, as indeed it was, as a personal and political defeat that left the
presidency open to Jabotinsky, his chief rival for many years.13 Had
Weizmann been serious about his decision to quit the presidency, he would
have convinced his supporters of the finality of this move, and the conflict
around his personality at the Seventeenth Congress would have been
averted altogether.
At the end of 1930 and in the first half of 1931, the Central Committee of
Mapai (the largest labour party in Palestine, created in 1930 through the
merger of Ha-poel Ha-tzair and Ahdut Ha-avoda) formulated the party
position on the subject of Weizmann's presidency. While opinions on this
were divided, there was complete unanimity in rejecting the possibility of
allowing a coalition with the Revisionist party to be created, or of joining
such a coalition.14
In anticipation of the Seventeenth Congress, a meeting of the Mapai
Centre on 1 June 1931 decided on its maximum and minimum objectives at
the congress. The maximum plan strove to establish a leadership without
the Revisionists, with the ‘workers' faction’ at its core, while keeping
Weizmann in office. The minimum plan envisaged the withholding of
support from Weizmann, should the need arise, in order to achieve the
fundamental goal of a coalition without the Revisionists. Section B in
Mapai's platform for the Seventeenth Congress contained a very significant
undertaking to ‘stay away from any coalition that included circles of a
Hitlerist outlook or that rejected the popular-political programme of
Zionism’.15
In a letter to his wife on 20 July 1931, after the closing of the
Seventeenth congress, David Ben-Gurion defined the three chief objectives
of the ‘worker's faction’ at the congress as ensuring Weizmann's re-election;
convincing the congress to adopt the policy of the ‘workers' faction’ rather
than that of the Revisionists; and securing the election of a Zionist
leadership without the Revisionists and with the workers at its core. As it
unfolded, the workers succeeded in achieving two of these goals but failed
to ensure the continuation of Weizmann's presidency.16
The labour movement viewed Revisionism as its erstwhile enemy, the
embodiment of Jewish fascism. Even though Weizmann had been forced to
resign from the presidency of the Zionist movement, the workers' parties
won a great victory. Not only did they succeed in blocking Jabotinsky and
denying him the coveted presidency, but they also routed the Revisionist
Party, confining it to opposition while they themselves became an important
and central element, as early as 1931, in the new Zionist executive headed
by Nahum Sokolov.17
This crushing defeat of Jabotinsky and Revisionism at the Seventeenth
Congress brought the enmity between the two camps to its peak. For
Jabotinsky and his party this enmity was especially profound, owing to the
enormous frustration they suffered at the close of the congress. The great
prize of controlling the Zionist movement, which had appeared within their
grasp, was snatched from them at the last moment. The abyss yawned even
wider. Offshoots of the hatred, which arose in the political sphere, ramified,
and spread their poison to cause ferment in other spheres of life involving
the two parties, particularly in labour relations.
As stated, Jabotinsky and his party held completely different
socioeconomic views from those of the labour movement.18 These did not
remain abstract ideologies but were converted into real political positions in
the fields of economics and labour relations in Palestine. The social and
political vehicles for the delivery of Revisionism's views were the workers
of Ha-tzohar (Tsiyonim Revizionistim — Revisionist Zionists) and Betar
(the youth movement of the Revisionist Party), which collided head-on with
the Histadrut (General Federation of Labour) in a very sensitive area, that of
labour relations.
From the start, the Revisionist Party in Palestine had included several
groups. Its social and economic policy and its attitude to the Histadrut in the
second half of the 1920s was influenced principally by members of the
former Amlanim group and by the Menora group.19 The former pressed for
a separate organization, while the latter wished to act as a faction within the
framework of the Histadrut. At the end of 1926, Jabotinsky still supported
the Menora position, and on this basis a Revisionist faction appeared at the
third Histadrut conference in July 1927.20
About six months later, this approach changed and a separate
organization was begun. On 10–11 February 1928, a national convention of
Revisionist workers was held at Nahalat Yehuda. Thus arose the Revisionist
Labour Block (Gush Ha-avoda Ha-revisionisti), which still remained in the
framework of the Histadrut. At this convention, three former socialists who
had left the workers' parties to join the Revisionist Party made their
appearance. They were the renowned poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, Dr J. Yeivin
and Abba Ahimeir, all of whom were to exert great influence in shaping the
Revisionist image in Eretz Israel.
Not only was the organization of Revisionist workers formed at the
convention, but its socio-economic outlook took shape, as did its views on
the desired organizational structure of the Histadrut and the ways to settle
labour relations in the country. The ideology formulated was diametrically
opposed to that of the labour movement, in that it required the Histadrut to
consist of trade unions only; insisted on the complete separation of the co-
operative and economic institutions from the Histadrut; and demanded
neutral and not Histadrut labour exchanges, as well as the establishment of
an organ for compulsory national arbitration to settle labour disputes and
prevent strikes and lockouts.21 From then on, the gap between the two
Zionist currents widened still further. Two of the requirements in this
programme caused the subsequent radicalization in relations and a slide into
violence: the demand for a neutral labour exchange and the demand for
compulsory national arbitration.
The first serious labour dispute involving Betar activists erupted in April
1930 at Kfar-Saba. At the beginning of the month, 17 Betarists arrived at
the moshava (now a town) at the invitation of the local agricultural
committee of the Betar command. The invitation had not been made
through the Histadrut's labour exchange, which sought to impose order and
to organize the Jewish workers' labour market. On 9 April, Ben-Gurion
came to the moshava in his capacity as quasi-secretary of the Histadrut and
conversed with the Betarists. He explained that the Histadrut recognized the
equal right to work but that this had to be arranged through the Histadrut's
labour exchange. The Betarists referred Ben-Gurion to the Betar command,
which stated that they were not willing to accept work through the Histadrut
exchange. When the Betarists set out to work in the citrus groves, a serious
and violent fight broke out between them and the workers organized
through the Histadrut. The dispute was settled on 29 April.
The Kfar-Saba dispute was significant in that it was the first such
confrontation to occur in a clearly political setting: the rejection by the
Revisionists of the Histadrut's labour exchange and their demand for a
neutral labour exchange. The Histadrut was willing to compromise over a
‘joint’ exchange, namely, one managed by workers and employers that
would solve labour problems through negotiations. The Histadrut had set up
such exchanges with the Industrialists' Association and with the moshavot
(villages) Magdiel and Raanana. But it dismissed out of hand the
Revisionists' demand for a labour exchange that would be run by neutral
officials, claiming that any labour exchange had to be managed directly by
the workers and the employers.
The fight by Ha-tzohar against the Histadrut's labour exchange stemmed
not only from the ideological angle, but mainly from the political. The aim
was to weaken the Histadrut, the bulwark of the labour movement, by
weakening its control of the labour market. This goal could by achieved, so
Ha-tzohar believed, by means of a neutral labour exchange.
The Kfar-Saba dispute accelerated the deterioration in relations between
the two sides. The conflict served to induce the Revisionist workers to
abandon the Histadrut and continue their separate organization.22
At a convention at the moshava Nahalat Yehuda on 31 May 1930, it was
agreed to establish the organization of Ha-tzohar and Betar workers in
Palestine outside the Histadrut framework. Several years later, this body
served as the basis for the creation of the National Workers' Federation. A
special organizational framework was now added, which together with the
Revisionist Party and Betar stood behind the labour disputes.
The year 1931 passed without major disputes in labour relations, but in
1932 tensions rose again. That year Jabotinsky published his barbed anti-
Histadrut articles ‘Red Swastikas’23 and ‘Yes, Break’.24 A ferocious battle
against the Histadrut was joined by the newspaper Hazit Ha-am, which
from the end of 1932 served as the official journal of Ha-tzohar and Betar
workers in Palestine. The fierce anti-Histadrut line was formulated by the
threesome of Greenberg, Yeivin and Ahimeir.25 Serious labour disputes, in
a political setting, broke out during that year in the construction branch in
Tel Aviv,26 as well as in the Frumin factory in Jerusalem. This latter conflict
which was settled only in February 1933, and apparently gave impetus to
the establishment of the National Workers' Federation later that year.
Another dispute, resulting in bloodshed, occurred in Petah-Tikva on 23
February 1933.
A study of the basic causes of the various labour disputes, from Kfar-
Saba onwards, reveals a clear political pattern as the Revisionist movement
battled the pro-Weizmann camp, which was supported by the labour
movement and its foremost organizational arm — the Histadrut. As such,
these disputes reflected the deeper political and socio-economic divergences
in the Zionist movement in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Since labour
relations in the Yishuv were so sensitive owing to their vital importance, the
clash in this sphere assumed the greatest vehemence and resulted in
violence and bloodshed. The person who led this struggle, and stood at the
front line of the struggle against Revisionism was the leader of the
Histadrut, David Ben-Gurion.

DIVERGENCES OVER THE ARAB-ISRAELI

CONFLICT
In the political sphere, the labour movement and especially Ahdut Ha-
avoda, since its foundation in 1919, insisted on the necessity of creating a
Jewish state in Palestine. At the same time, the labour movement believed
in the supreme importance of reaching an understanding with the
Palestinian Arabs. Hence, from 1930 onwards, Mapai favoured, in principle
and in practice, the idea of territorial compromise (‘land for peace’ in
today's parlance). This was vividly illustrated in 1937, when Mapai
endorsed by and large the recommendation of the Peel Commission for the
partition of Palestine into two states (one Jewish and one Arab), and again
in 1947, when it agreed to accept the UN General Assembly's partition plan.
In contrast, the Revisionists stood (and Likud today continues this
position) for the historic right of the People of Israel to rule over the entire
Land of Israel. This belief was (and is) the most vital part of Revisionism's
political outlook as far as the Arab-Israeli problem is concerned.
 As noted earlier, the labour movement had succeeded already by 1931 in
imposing its hegemony over the Zionist movement. This dominance was
further reinforced after the elections to the Zionist Congress in 1933, and all
the more so by the withdrawal of Revisionism from the Zionist movement
in 1935. Since then, until its loss of power in May 1977, the labour
movement had continued to dominate Zionist and Israeli politics, though
this domination had been steadily declining since the early 1950s, owing to
a string of political and socio-economic developments in the nascent State
of Israel. Yet the substantive ideological and political divergences that had
divided the labour movement and Revisionism as early as the 1920s and
1930s, have outlived the vicissitudes in the political fortunes of these
movements to haunt Israeli politics and society at the dawn of the new
millennium.

NOTE
1. Yehuda Slutzky, Introduction to the History of the Israeli Labour Movement, Tel Aviv, 1973,
especially ch.18 (in Hebrew); Yosef Shapira, Ha-poel Ha-tzair: the Idea and the Deed, Tel Aviv,
1964 (in Hebrew); Israel Kollat, ‘Ha-poel Ha-tzair: from the Conquest of Labour to the
Sanctification of Labour’, Ba-derekh, No.1 (September 1967) (in Hebrew); Yosef Gorny, ‘Ha-
poel Ha-tzair and its Attitude to Socialism’, Ba-derekh, No.6 (December 1970).
2. Yitzhak Lufban, ‘The High Commissioner’, Ha-poel Ha-tzair, No.21, 27 February 1925 (in
Hebrew).
3. Shlomo Shiller, ‘The Jewish State and the Jewish National Home’, Ha-poel Ha-tzair, No.35, 12
June 1925.
4. A. Zioni (i.e., Yitzhak Wilkansky), ‘The Face of the Opposition’, Ha-poel Ha-tzair, Nos.38, 39,
10 July 1925.
5. Yosef Shapira (ed.), Yosef Sprinzak's Letters, Vol.1, Tel Aviv, 1965, Letter 163 (17 July 1921),
p.227. At the Zionist Executive preceding the Twelfth Zionist Congress at Carlsbad, Sprinzak
and Eliezer Kaplan voted against Jabotinsky's proposal, which was accepted by the majority, on
the formation of the Jewish Battalions in Palestine. See also Yitzhak Lufban's article, ‘Our
Stance at the Congress’, Ha-poel Ha-tzair, No.40, 17 July 1925. In this article the author
negated Revisionism completely, which for him was built ‘entirely on deliberate demagogy —
from the Supreme Commander, Jabotinsky, down to the last of the workers in the Revisionist
Fraction in Tel Aviv’.
6. Sprinzak Letters, Vol.1, Letter 26 (23 August 1925), p.294.
7. Joseph B. Schechtmann, Zeev Jabotinsky: the Story of His Life, Vol.2, Tel Aviv, 1956, p.40 (in
Hebrew); Shlomo Avineri, The Zionist Idea in Its Varieties, Tel Aviv, 1980, ch.16 (in Hebrew).
8. Schechtmann, Zeev Jabotinsky, Vol.1, p.317.
9. Moshe Beilinson, ‘The Revisionists' Conference in Paris’, Kuntres, Vol.11, No.220, 12 June
1925; Eliyahu Golomb, ‘The Revisionists’, Kuntres, Vol.11, No.222, 3 July 1925; also Kuntres,
 Vol.17, No.343, 12 July 1928, the Ahdut Ha-avoda council on the conclusions of the Mead
Committee. See Golomb's statements on p.21.
10. Zeev Jabotinsky, ‘We the Bourgeois’, Ha-tzafon, 8 May 1927. See also Beilinson, ‘The
Revisionists' Conference’, and Golomb, ‘The Revisionists’; Zalman Rubashov (Shazar),
‘Lecture at the Seventh Conference of the Poalei-Zion Union in Vienna in August 1925 on the
subject of the 14th Zionist Congress’, Kuntres, Vol.8, No.231, 4 September 1925; David Remez,
‘From his speech at the 14th Zionist Congress in 1925’, Kuntres, Vol.8, No.232, 11 September
1925.
11. Schechtmann, Zeev Jabotinsky, Vol.2, pp.63, 67, 114–55.
12. Weizmann Archives (Rehovot), Letter from Chaim Weizmann to Maurice Ruthenberg, 2
February 1931; and Letter from Weizmann to Dr George Halperin, 2 February 1931; Mapai
Archives (Beit-Berl), file 23/31, copy D, p.5, Meetings of the Mapai Centre and secretariat in
1931; and Meeting of the Centre with the participation of Weizmann on 29 March 1931.
13. Schechtmann, Zeev Jabotinsky, Vol.2, pp.197–8.
14. Mapai Archives, file 23/31, copy D, Meeting of Mapai Centre on 17 March 1931.
15. Ibid., Division 601, No.602/17, Elections to the 17th Zionist 1931 Congress, ‘Platform of the
Mapai Party for the 17th Zionist Congress: Strengthening of the Histadrut’, paragraph B. See
also the speech by Berl Katznelson at Beit Ha-am in Tel Aviv, published as ‘In the Battle’,
Davar, 2 February 1931. Katznelson used the term ‘Zionist Hitlerism’ in reference to
Revisionism.
16. David Ben-Gurion, Letters to Paula and the Children, Tel Aviv, 1968, pp.78–9 (in Hebrew).
17. David Ben Gurion, ‘The 17th Congress and our way in the future’, Ha-poel Ha-tzair, No.40, 21
August 1931. See also Chaim Arlozoroff, Selection of Letters and Life Episodes, Tel Aviv,
Letter from Basel (16 July 1931), pp.317–19 (in Hebrew).
18. Schechtmann, Zeev Jabotinsky, Vol.2, ‘Basta’, p.305; Jabotinsky, ‘We the Bourgeois’; Zeev
Jabotinsky, Speeches 1927–1940, Tel Aviv, 1948, p.152ff (in Hebrew). At the fifth conference of
the Revisionists in Vienna in August 1932, Jabotinsky stated: ‘The class conflict is an
abomination. I am ready to sit down and negotiate with anyone, but to sit together with those
who stand for the class conflict … this is repulsive to me. In my eyes, for better or worse, my
class is no less than any other class …’; Zeev Jabotinsky, ‘Toiling Palestine’, Doar Ha-yom, 5
December 1932; ‘The First of May’ (from a diary), Ha-yarden, 14 May 1934; ‘The Socialist
Redemption’ (conversation), Jabotinsky Institute, Album 2 (25 November 1934) (in Hebrew).
19. These were secessionists from the Ha-poel Ha-tzair Party who organized as a separate body.
Under Jabotinsky's influence they joined the Revisionist Party in January 1927. The Menora
group consisted of Betar people from Latvia, the first group of whom immigrated to Palestine in
November 1925, and the second in the summer of 1926.
20. J.B. Schechtmann and Y. Benary, The History of the Revisionist Movement, Vol.1, 1924–1930,
Tel Aviv, 1970, pp. 192–205. There were 17,183 electors of delegates to the third conference of
the Histadrut. The Revisionists won 205 votes, giving them two out of the 201 delegates. The
two were Dr Y. Weinshall and D.A. Klagswald. See David Ben-Gurion, ‘The Revisionist
Enmity’, Davar, 16 December 1932.
21. Y. Ofir, National Worker Volume, Tel Aviv, 1959, p.52.
22. Ibid., p.75. See also Benyamin Lubovsky (Eliav), Revisionist Zionism and Betar, Jerusalem,
1946, p.23ff (in Hebrew).
23. In the magazine Rasv'et, No.43, 3 October 1932.
24. Zeev Jabotinsky, ‘Yo Brechen’, Haint, No.222, 4 November 1932.
25. Ofir, National Worker Volume, p.88.
26. Ibid., p.94.

_______________
Yaacov N. Goldstein is Professor of Eretz Israel Studies at the University of Haifa.
Likud and the Search for Eretz Israel:
From the Bible to the Twenty-First
Century
COLIN SHINDLER

A MODERNIZING INFLUENCE?
Writing in the Israeli press on the eve of the Wye Plantation talks in
October 1998, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Natan Sharansky,
commented that as a result of the rapprochement with Palestinian
nationalism since 1993 and the trauma of Yitzhak Rabin's murder by an
opponent of the peace process, Israeli society had painfully re-evaluated its
dream of controlling Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. ‘Only a minuscule
percentage of the Israeli public’, Sharansky declared, ‘continues to dream
of the return of the Israel Defence Forces to Gaza or Jenin’.1
Sharansky, of course, was not only talking about Israeli society per se,
but also about the Israeli right in its broadest definition. Even though his
own party, Israel Be-aliya, had been assisted by the Likud during the
previous election and he had served in Binyamin Netanyahu's
administration, he remained sufficiently distant from the governing party to
note that an ideological watershed had been reached. As a refusenik and
human rights activist in the USSR, Sharansky had written from the confines
of a strict Soviet labour camp about his concerns for Israeli-Palestinian
harmony, and had even started to teach himself Arabic.2 As a minister in a
Likud-led government, however, he could not indicate openly that Prime
Minister Netanyahu had seemingly ruptured the ideological connection
between himself and his predecessors in Likud and its primogenitors,
Gahal, Herut, the New Zionist Organization and the Union of Zionist-
Revisionists.
Even so, this disjunction became a central issue – in addition to the
personal animosity which Netanyahu had aroused amongst his erstwhile
colleagues, and which had led to a degree of ideological schism and
fragmentation during the electoral campaign. Within Likud itself, Uzi
Landau initially, then Moshe Arens, more benignly, challenged Netanyahu
for the party leadership. Benny Begin, Netanyahu's opponent in the 1993
primaries for the leadership of Likud, departed from his father's party to
establish a movement which remained true to the political ideology of the
Herut Party. The settlers on the West Bank formed their own party, Tkumah.
Yitzhak Mordechai, on the other hand, had grave doubts about Netanyahu's
intention to implement the Wye Agreement and together with Dan Meridor
and Ronni Milo left Likud to become the leading exponent for the policies
of the new Centre Party. David Levy, a nominal standard bearer for the
Sephardim deserted Netanyahu for the historic enemy, Labour, as part of the
‘One Israel’ alliance. Menachem Begin's painstaking assembling of an array
of differing political tendencies, which emerged as Likud in 1973, appeared
to have speedily unravelled.
The Hebron agreement of early 1997 touched a raw ideological nerve and
the Wye Plantation Accord further antagonized many in Likud. The
protocol concerning the Hebron redeployment, which was signed by Dan
Shomron on behalf of the Government of Israel, referred to the West Bank
rather than to Judea and Samaria. The maximalist hassidic movement,
Lubavitch, which had campaigned for Likud because Netanyahu was ‘good
for the Jews’ in that they were concerned that Shimon Peres would return
parts of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinians, staged angry demonstrations
in Hebron. Netanyahu's own family was reputed to be unhappy at the
Hebron agreement. Moshe Arens significantly refused to take over as a
caretaker Minister of Defence in January 1999 until Netanyahu had given
him a full explanation of the Wye Agreement.
While the Israeli left obviously took great delight in witnessing the
vitriolic attacks on Netanyahu by his allies in Likud itself, on the far right
and in the national religious camp, they were perplexed as to its ideological
meaning. At the root of this conflict on the right, there lay the different
perceptions of Eretz Israel, both between the national and religious camps
and within them.

WHERE IS ERETZ ISRAEL?

Where is Eretz Israel? The answer to this question is different for the
religious and national camps since they draw on different sources to support
their definitions. The former draws solely on Biblical sources while the
nationalists' approach stems primarily from the borders of the British
Mandate, borders which were formulated in the aftermath of the Versailles
Conference in 1919. One was defined in Genesis and in other places in
traditional religious texts, the other was essentially the outcome of political
negotiations between the imperial powers of Britain and France after the
ravages of World War I.
The term Eretz Israel, although carried throughout Diaspora history, only
became more widely popular in the nineteenth century. Moshe Hess wrote
in Rome and Jerusalem (1862) about a childhood connection with ‘Eretz
Israel’: ‘My grandfather once showed me some olives and dates. “These
fruits grow in Eretz Israel”, he informed me with delight. Everything
reminiscent of Palestine is regarded by the pious Jew with love and
adoration as ancient momentos of his ancestral home’.3
In the early nineteenth century, when this encounter took place, there was
still a profoundly religious-cultural association with the term Eretz Israel.
But as the secularization of this term progressed, it assumed profoundly
different meanings for different groups of Zionists. Right-wing nationalism
was particularly complex because of its many different streams of
ideological influence. In addition to a purely political definition by the
founder of the Revisionist movement, Zeev Jabotinsky, there were also
inputs of a messianic and quasi-religious nature from progenitors of the far
right, such as Uri Zvi Greenberg and Avraham Stern. These ideological
components of Likud philosophy became even more intertwined after 1977
by Begin's emotional religiosity – ‘I am a believer, the son of a believer’4 –
and his swinging back and forth during his premiership between a
Jabotinskyian sense of pragmatism and a far right radicalism.
There was, of course, also an element of coalition manoeuvring, in that
Begin attempted to produce a broad alliance of the nationalist camp and this
often meant working in harness with the National Religious Party and Gush
Emunim. This ideological cocktail became even more complex with the
increasing influence of the radical religious right in the 1990s, after the
Oslo Accords, and their influence on other sections of the nationalist camp.

The Inheritance of Abraham

In Genesis, it is stated that ‘To your seed I give this land from the river of
Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates’.5 In present day terms, God's
promise to Abraham would possibly include parts of Egypt, Lebanon,
Jordan and Iraq. According to nineteenth century opponents of the Haskala
and religious pluralism, these borders delineate the limits of eternal
holiness. God's promise to the Patriarchs has become a central benchmark
for Orthodox Jewry.6
Two other areas traditionally mark out the Land in Biblical terms. The
second definition in Numbers7 characterized the borders during the exodus
from Egypt on the verge of entering the Land. This is held generally to be
synonymous with the borders of Canaan – from Mount Hor in the north
‘unto the Brook of Egypt’ in the south. The land east of the River Jordan,
Bashan and Gilead, was excluded. The tribes of Gad, Reuben and the half
tribe of Menasseh preferred to settle there rather than in the Land of
Canaan. Moses agreed to this and ‘gave’ them this land in return for their
armed assistance in conquering Canaan.8
The third definition describes the Land in terms of the return from
Babylon, although it essentially delineates the limits of Hasmonean
conquest during the Second Temple period. This therefore coincides with
the extent of settlement during the Mishnaic period and thereby defines
halakhic jurisdiction in questions of those mitzvoth which are dependent on
the Land. The broadest and perhaps most popular term ‘from Dan to
Beersheba’ refers to a general description of the Land.9 In essence, this
suggests the source of the Jordan in the north to the perimeter of continuous
settlement in the south. The characteristics of the Land can be expressed in
the dialectic between the ideal of God's promise in Genesis and the actual
extent of Israelite settlement – between the promise to the father of the
Jewish people, Abraham, and the degree of success of his descendants in
realizing that promise following the exodus from Egypt.
 Eretz Israel is a term which is first mentioned only during the reign of
King Saul10 when a Jewish kingdom existed. But other labels existed such
as Eretz Ha-ivrim11 – the Land of the Hebrews – and Eretz Bnei Israel12–
the Land of the Children of Israel. In other instances, it is ‘the Land of
Canaan’ or simply ‘the Land’.
The kingdoms of the Jews that existed during both First and Second
Temple periods certainly projected different borders, which reflected
changing political realities. Only during King David's reign did the borders
of the state approach those of the Land which had been promised by God to
Abraham. These borders, which certainly have geopolitical characteristics,
became transmuted, probably in Mishnaic times, into boundaries which
separated the holy from the profane. Eretz Israel became a centre of
adherence to past glories in an epoch of loss of sovereignty and foreign
oppression – an area for ethnic identification and rabbinical disputation, a
spiritual means of separation from assimilationist influences. The
Hasmonean borders therefore became important for the rabbis of later
generations in determining the Hebrew calendar, relations with non-Jews,
and the laws of ritual purity, marriage and divorce. For example, the reading
of the hagadda to commemorate the exodus from Egypt on Passover is
done on two consecutive nights outside the borders and only once within.
In Mishnah Gittin, in connection with the bringing of a get, a bill of
divorce, from a husband in foreign parts, Rabbi Yehuda defines ‘abroad’ as
beyond Rekem in the east, Ashkelon in the south and Acre in the north.13
All three towns were considered to be ‘like’ the areas outside Eretz Israel,
which implies that they were probably outside it. In the same section, Rabbi
Meir rules that in matters of the get, Acre ‘counts’ as part of Eretz Israel.14
A medieval commentator, Rabbeinu Tarn, argued that Acre straddled the
border, and that the discussion in the Mishnah only refers to the half which
is outside Eretz Israel.15 The Ri, a thirteenth century tosafist, however,
suggests that Acre was within Eretz Israel, but far from the centre of the
Land.16 Ashkelon, however, as the Book of Joshua, notes,17 was part of
Eretz Israel. Tosafot explains its exclusion or marginalization by suggesting
that it was not reconquered during the Second Temple period and thereby
outside the area of Jewish settlement.18 Some towns such as Rekem, which
are close to the border of Eretz Israel, were considered by Abaye19 to have
been ‘swallowed’ by the border, that is, within the ambit of the Land if the
unevenness of the eastern border is taken into account. Since Rekem is
quoted in the Book of Joshua20 as being situated within western Eretz
Israel, Tosafot21 concludes that this must be another town which was also
called Rekem outside the eastern border of the Land.
In a further discussion in Gittin on whether a river is an integral part of
Eretz Israel, it is stated:
R. Nachman ben Yitzhak said: ‘In regard to a boat on a river in Eretz
Israel there is no difference of opinion between the authorities. Where the
difference arises is in the case of a boat in the open sea, as may be seen
from the following:
‘What do we reckon as Eretz Israel and what do we reckon as foreign
parts? From the top of the mountains of Ammanon inwards is “Eretz
Israel”; and from the top of the Mountains outwards is “foreign parts”.
For determining the status of the islands in the sea, we imagine a line
drawn from the mountains of Ammanon to the Brook of Egypt. All
within this line belongs to Eretz Israel and all outside it to foreign
parts.’22
Saadia Gaon23 identified nahal mitzrayim, the ‘Brook of Egypt’ of the Book
of Numbers – unlike the nahar mitzrayim of Genesis – as the Wadi El
Arish, south of Gaza. Nahal mitzrayim is, however, also referred to as
Shihor,24 a tributary of the Nile in the first Book of Chronicles. Clearly the
conjunction of spiritual boundaries and physical borders, historical fact and
religious belief, rabbinical interpretation and adjudication is problematic.
As Richard Sarason has indicated, there are two taxonomies in operation,
‘one implicating the People of Israel and the other its Land. When these are
not in harmony with each other, conflicts necessarily develop’.25 The
emergence of a growing Diaspora in the aftermath of the first war against
Rome and the Bar Kochba revolt catalyzed that dysfunction. The spatial
and social categories, which were formally in alignment now had to be
reassessed in terms of the new conditions which prevailed.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

This lack of synchronization between People and Land during nearly two
millennia of dispersion and exile led to religious innovations, new
rabbinical rulings and the addition of a whole corpus of Judaic literature. In
addition, the emphasis on messianism within Judaism in the midst of
suffering and persecution and the appearance of several false messiahs led
many rabbis to be wary of any solution enacted by ordinary human beings.
The subsequent opposition of most leaders of orthodoxy to Zionism, which
they accused of ‘forcing the end’,26 effectively worked against the idea of
restoring the congruence of People and Land. After the elapse of so much
time since the dispersion, the spatial component had become almost illusory
and its spiritual dimension had acquired a considerable dominance and
power in the mindset of orthodoxy over its purely geographical component.
With the prominence of Mishnaic literature in Judaism, spiritual leadership
came to see the Land – and ‘abroad’ – in terms of boundaries of holiness
rather than as delineated geographical areas. At the centre of the ‘world’
was the holy of holies, with decreasing levels of holiness in a journey from
the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, other walled cities in the Land, the Land of
Israel itself and outside the Land.27 Modern political Zionism attempted to
restore that congruence between Holy People and Holy Land. But in doing
so, it attempted to interpret the boundaries in pre-exilic terms when rulings
were made in the context of an existing state. This effectively challenged
the approach of orthodoxy, whose thinking and decision-making had been
conditioned by the post-exilic situation.
The boundaries of the state in modern times were outlined by the Zionist
Organization in November 1918, following the termination of hostilities in
World War I. In a submission destined for the Versailles Conference, the
Zionists proposed that the northern border should run just below Sidon
towards Mount Hermon. It would then continue south of Damascus to
follow the Hijaz railway parallel to the river Jordan, excluding Amman. The
southern border was to be determined by negotiation with the Egyptian
government, but would probably be delineated by a line drawn from El-
Arish to Aqaba. Ultimately the powerlessness of the Zionists to enforce
their claims became only too transparent in that the British and the French
made the final decisions in their own imperial interests.
The modern Zionist definition of Eretz Israel was based on economic
factors such as good agricultural land, access to water such as the Litani and
the upper Jordan, and efficient transportation facilities, rather than on a
Biblical description of the Promised Land. In addition, the borders
attempted to reflect the natural boundaries of the area, with the exception of
the north and north-west. Here, the natural boundary lay beyond Damascus
and once more the political consideration of the imperial powers took
precedent.28 Although the Zionists included Transjordan in their
deliberations, they abandoned settlements on the Golan Heights, and in the
Bashan in 1920, which were now situated within the territory of the French
Mandate. Nor did they argue with the British when Zionist claims to Tyre
were overruled because the British wished to exclude the troublesome
Druze and Shiites from their domain of control.
Even so, when Menachem Ussishkin addressed the delegates of the
Versailles peace conference in Hebrew on 27 February 1919, it made a deep
impression. The People of the Bible had miraculously resurrected the
seemingly dead and buried language of the Bible. Ussishkin majestically
opened his address by stating:
In the name of the largest Jewish community, the Jews of Russia, I stand
here before you, leaders of the world, in order to put forward here the
historic demand of the Jewish people: for our return to our own borders;
for the restoration to the Jews of the land that was promised to them four
thousand years ago by the Power Above; the land in which our
forefathers dwelt and produced a great and everlasting culture from
which all the nations of the earth later took the choicest of their spiritual
possessions. That country was forcibly taken from the Jewish people
1800 years ago by the Romans, the world hammer of those days. The
Jewish people were exiled from their country and scattered throughout
the world. And now I, a son of those exiles, come to you in the name of
my bereft people, to you who serve both politically and culturally as the
heirs to the Romans and make my demand of you. Restore that historic
robbery to us!29
Clearly the borders promised by God in Genesis were not those lost to the
Romans in 70 CE. It did, however, capture the essence of the Judaeo-
Christian tradition and the sense of spiritual belonging, which pervaded
European culture. In England, in particular, that sense of identification
reached back as far as the Reformation and was enhanced by the republican
puritanism of the English Commonwealth. The Dean of Westminster,
Arthur Stanley, a decade before the BILU settlers embarked on their
mission, exclaimed that the Holy Land was a ‘land more dear to us from our
childhood even than England’.30 While ever pragmatic to the realities of
defining Eretz Israel, both Britain and France significantly utilized the
concept of the historic association by deferring to the description that Eretz
Israel was defined as being ‘from Dan to Beersheba’. This was used by both
David Lloyd George and Lord Curzon in their deliberations. It denoted not
only the Victorian passion with the Holy Land, but also referred to the
period when there actually was an Israelite presence in the country, rather
than to a time when the Land was no more than a divine promise. The
delineation of Eretz Israel in the twentieth century was therefore grounded
in an association with ancient history and current political reality, rather
than in faith and God's promise to Abraham.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE RIGHT

The separation of Transjordan, following the Cairo Conference in March
1921, effectively removed eastern Eretz Israel from the British Mandate for
Palestine. The Churchill White Paper of 1922, which established the
Hashemite emirate under Abdallah, interpreted the Balfour Declaration in a
minimalist fashion, in part to appease Arab nationalist opinion. Jabotinsky
viewed the Zionist Executive's easy acceptance of this as another instance
of the dilution of Herzlian Zionism and the effective acquiescence in British
distancing from the Balfour Declaration. This was but another step along
the route to his resignation from the Zionist Executive at the beginning of
1923. First through the Union of Zionist Revisionists, then the New Zionist
Organization (NZO) after 1935, Jabotinsky made it clear that he believed
that Eretz Israel should contain both banks of the Jordan:
The territory of western Palestine alone is not sufficient; but Palestine
including Transjordan is. ‘Palestine on both sides of the Jordan’ is a
country nearly three times larger than Belgium. Settled at the density of,
say, Sicily (which is, by old continent standards, by far not an exceptional
density) it could hold a population of over twelve million. It now holds a
million and a half.31
This became more apparent in his evacuatzia campaign after 1936 to secure
the emigration of tens of thousands of Jews from Poland and other
distressed areas of east and central Europe. In his writings, Jabotinsky wrote
about Medinat Yehudim – the State of the Jews rather than Eretz Israel – the
Land of Israel. Sometimes he spoke about converting the latter into the
former.32 Jabotinsky defined the borders in terms of the boundaries of the
pre-1922 British Mandate – he did not interpret Eretz Israel in the
parameters of the Bible but in terms of the realpolitik of the times. This also
reflected Jabotinsky's own position on Judaism. At the founding conference
of the NZO in 1935, the non-believer, Jabotinsky, commented that he
regarded religion as a private matter.33 Yet he understood the national role
of religion in creating the unity of purpose during the millennia of exile.
Moreover, since many Betaris came from a traditionalist background, he did
not wish to create schisms within his movement through an overt
expounding of his own thinking on religion. Indeed, Jabotinsky encouraged
his young acolytes in Betar to place great emphasis on ritual. In explaining
the nobility of Shlomo ben Yosef, who had ascended the gallows a few
weeks previously, Jabotinsky explained to the Third World Conference of
Betar in September 1938:
Ritual demonstrates man's superiority over beast. What is the difference
between a civilized man and a wild man? Ceremony. Everything in the
world is ritual. A court trial – ceremony. How else is a case conducted in
court? The judge opens the session and gives the floor to the prosecutor;
then to the counsel for defence … It may be that the most important of all
the new ideas which Betar has given to the Jewish ghetto, is the idea of
ceremony. The special uniform seemed strange to the Jewish public
fifteen years ago. And so did all our other habits – standing upright;
walking straight, and so on.34
One aspect of this display of Jewish self-respect and dignity was the use of
Jewish tradition as a value, a means of solidarity and self-discipline. Family
Hebrew quotations and Biblical phraseology was utilized as a means of
communicating a specific point and cementing a sense of purpose. Yet
while he inculcated tradition as an ethnic tool to inspire his disciples,
Jabotinsky himself believed that the inner meaning of Judaism had been lost
over two millennia:
If the people voluntarily encased their religious consciousness within an
iron frame, dried it out to the point of fossilization, and turned a living
 religion into something like a mummified corpse of religion – it is clear
that the holy treasure is not the religion, but something else, something
for which this mummified corpse was supposed to serve as shell and
protection.35
For example, Jabotinsky was willing to utilize tradition to counteract
secular socialism. He suggested the Bible was a superior text to that of Das
Kapital since it was based on entrepreneurial endeavour and private
enterprise. A product of nineteenth century liberalism and the influence of
the Risorgimento, he realized that capitalism created injustices but required
a controlling mechanism.36 The Jubilee year was a traditional example of
such an imposed limitation. It released people from their debts and
permitted a person ‘to start anew his social battle, free again to aspire, to
utilize his energies and talents’.37 Two other ideas embedded in Jewish
tradition were invoked to deal with the intervening fifty years:
The entire present day system of labour protection, the eight-hour day,
the prohibition of child labour etc is derived from the one source – our
Shabbat. The second principle Pe’ah (the obligation to leave part of your
crop in the field or vineyard for the orphan, the widow, the homeless
wanderer) is the source from which spring the taxes for social betterment,
all institutions of insurance and security for the people.38
Jabotinsky utilized Jewish tradition to promote disarmament and the
abolition of poverty as an alternative to following the socialist path:
When armies will be abolished (also a Jewish idea from the Bible), the
world will be in a position to make such manifestations as hunger,
homelessness and nakedness impossible. The term ‘destitution’ will be
no more; every man, whether he earns sufficiently or not, will be certain
to have the minimum requirements for a decent livelihood.39

THE CHALLENGE OF THE FAR RIGHT

Even messianism was invoked when Jabotinsky spoke about the ‘messianic
hopes of the Balfour Declaration’ in an address to the World Conference of
Betar in Danzig in 1931.40 Yet his young followers came to maturity in
different circumstances compared to Rosh Betar. They had grown up under
the shadow of fascism or the unfriendly supervision of étatist governments.
Unlike Jabotinsky who had emerged from a semi-assimilated youth, they
had often come from traditional backgrounds: children of the shtetl rather
than fin de siècle Jewish intellectuals. Moreover, Jabotinsky had not been
their sole source of inspiration. For example, Uri Zvi Greenberg's mystical,
fiery, quasi-messianic poetry was highly pervasive and influenced many of
them. Malchut Israel, the kingdom of Israel, was quoted rather than the
Zionist map of the Versailles Conference. It was no wonder that many
Betaris did not appreciate the subtlety of Jabotinsky's use of Jewish
tradition.
When Avraham Stern broke away from the Irgun to establish the Irgun
Be-Israel – or Lehi – over the question of military Zionism in 1940, he also
infused his organization with a messianic religiosity which had been
dormant under Jabotinsky's leadership. In his ‘Eighteen Principles of
Renaissance’, Stern pointedly referred to the borders of Genesis 15:18,
from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates, rather than those of the British
Mandate. Stern wished to build the Third Temple, and wrote:
The Land of Israel was conquered by the Jews by the sword. It was here
they became a nation and only here can they be reborn. Not only has
Israel the right to ownership of the Land but this ownership can never be
rescinded.41
The theme of self-sacrifice features in much of Stern's writings. One
observer has commented that he believed himself to be the Mashiach ben
Yosef (messiah, son of Joseph) who had to die to give rise to Mashiach ben
David (messiah, son of David).42 Israel Eldad, the intellectual inspiration of
Lehi and a doyen of the far right, adhered to Stern's interpretation of
borders. Even on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, David Ben-Gurion was
taking issue with Eldad on the question of adhering to the definition in
Genesis.43 Ben-Gurion's rejoinder to Eldad comments that the borders of
the Land are not specifically mentioned in Genesis.
Eldad, who personified the ideological approach of Lehi in the early
1940s, did not recognize either the Balfour Declaration or the British
Mandate, ‘since we, the sole rulers of this country, negate the legality of
these documents’.44 Later under the influence of Natan Yellin-Mor, Lehi
began to take a more Jabotinskyian approach to the borders. In a document
presented to the delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations in
1947, Lehi outlined its understanding of ‘Eretz Israel within its historic
borders’:
By this definition we wish to include all the areas bordered by the
Mediterranean Sea on the west, the desert on the east, the Lebanon and
Hermon in the north, and the Sinai desert in the south. These are frontiers
comprehending the concept of Eretz Israel. The river Jordan is the vital
artery and backbone of the country and is as little a frontier of border
demarcation between states as the Thames in England or the Vistula in
Poland. Hebrew tribes in ancient times settled on both banks and
developed their culture there. Any division between the areas, east and
west of the Jordan, is against the nature of the country, against its
economic requirements and against historic rights.45
This definition seems to be based not on the promise given by God to
Abraham in Genesis, but on the basis of historic association as envisaged by
the British delineation of Eretz Israel after 1919. The Bible is utilized as
history rather than as a source of belief. The document further emphasizes
contemporary realpolitik in referring to the restoration of the western
provinces of Poland by Germany after hundreds of years of occupation.
‘Breslau is once again known as Wroclaw and Stettin as Szczecin’.46

THE ODYSSEY OF MENACHEM BEGIN

Menachem Begin, who had taken a position mid-point between the far right
and classical Revisionism, used the now deceased Jabotinsky to rally the
right. While he still adhered to the policy of a state on both sides of the
Jordan, he also blurred the issue by invoking the historic Biblical
dimension. Thus when Begin emerged from the underground and made his
famous broadcast in which he termed the second partition of Mandatory
Palestine in 1947 – western Eretz Israel – ‘a crime, a blasphemy, an
abortion’, he promised that the ‘soldiers of Israel will yet unfurl our flag
over David's tower and our ploughshares will yet cleave the fields of
Gilead’. In implying that the new state would conquer Transjordan and
retrieve these territories, he stated
The foundation has indeed been laid, but only the foundation, for true
independence. One phase of our battle for freedom, for the return of all
the people of Israel to its homeland, for the restoration of the entire Land
 of Israel to a People who have made a covenant with God – has now
come to an end.47
But where was the entire Land of Israel? Gilead, the East Bank, was not
actually part of the ‘Promised Land’ on the eve of the Israelite entry into
Canaan. It was specifically excluded by Moses, but came to be regarded as
part of the Land since it had been settled and inhabited by generations of
Israelites during different periods of history. By invoking God's covenant,
Begin's address conveyed a divine significance, which implied a different
set of borders from those of his Herut movement. By playing both cards at
once, Begin could lay claim to Jabotinsky's ideological inheritance as well
as to that of the far right. In practical terms, this imagery allowed him to
demolish the Revisionist Party led by Arieh Altman,48 to belittle the
Fighters' Party of Lehi in the 1949 elections, and to emerge as the
undisputed leader of nationalist opposition to Mapai's hegemony. It further
allowed him to establish a coalition of the right and to heal the schisms in
the Revisionist movement, following Herut's success in the first elections to
the Knesset, in which it won fourteen seats. His appeal to religiosity and to
messianism found sympathy with the religious electorate and later with the
traditionally minded Sephardim, which served him well in creating a broad
anti-Labour coalition in 1977 and beyond.
Begin, however, continued to promote the idea of shlemut ba-aretz – the
‘completeness’ or entirety of the Land – in speeches and in Herut
manifestos throughout the 1950s. In June 1948, a few weeks after the
declaration of independence, Herut enunciated its ‘principles’:
1. The Hebrew homeland, whose area stretches east and west of the River
Jordan, is a historic and geographical entity.
2. The dismemberment of the homeland is an illegal act. The agreement
to such a partition is quite illegal and in no way commits the People of
Israel.
3. It is the task of our generation to bring back under Hebrew sovereignty
all those areas which have been torn away from us and given to foreign
rule.49
In a speech to the Twenty-Fourth Zionist Congress in 1956, Begin defined
Israel as a ‘Jewish state in a small part of the ancient Hebrew homeland’,
and concluded ‘we, the disciples of Zeev Jabotinsky believe in the rights of
the Jewish people on our integral homeland, we believe in the liberation of
the entire homeland and its eternal capital, Jerusalem’.50 The election
manifesto for the fourth Knesset in 1959 spoke about the ‘right of the
Jewish people to Eretz Israel in its historic entirety is an eternal and
inalienable right’.51
Even after the pact with the Liberal Party to form Gahal in 1965 was
signed, Herut reserved the right to maintain its belief and to express it -
although such a demonstration of belief was diluted in the interests of
building an anti-Labour coalition. In 1967, Ben-Gurion argued that Herut
did not have to surrender their strong belief in shlemut ha-aretz, but if they
wished to participate in government they would have to proceed on the
basis of the status quo in terms of seeking peace with the Arabs. Ben-
Gurion tried to point Herut in the direction of political pragmatism and
away from the intellectual admonitions of Israel Eldad and the mystical far
right. ‘Shlemut ha-aretz’, he argued, ‘would arise with the coming of the
messiah’.52 Ben-Gurion implicitly was arguing that the messiah had his
own timetable and that human intervention should be confined to the
building of the state and peace with its neighbours. In one sense, this
symbolized Ben-Gurion's growing ideological proximity to the heirs of
Jabotinsky. His last party, the State List, crossed the political divide to
become a founding member of Likud in 1973, and Moshe Day an, of
course, became Begin's first Foreign Minister four years later.
The victory in the Six Day War effectively reversed history. Maximalists
from all quarters, however they defined Eretz Israel, argued that Judea,
Samaria and Gaza should not be returned. Former enemies from left and
right, religious and secular, found common ground in this stand. Even so,
there was disagreement relating to the understanding of Eretz Israel. Zvi
Yehuda Kook, the mentor and spiritual guide of the religious settler
movement refused to sign the Land of Israel Movement manifesto because
it proclaimed that the ‘whole of Eretz Israel is now in the hands of the
Jewish people’.53 According to the Bible, Kook argued, this was not the
case.
The prospect of a Likud victory in the 1977 election influenced the
wording of the manifesto in that it had to appeal to an audience beyond
Herut loyalists. It had to attract both a religious electorate who believed that
God had promised the Land to the Jewish People for all time as well as to
those who still adhered to the Jabotinskyian notions of a state. The Likud
manifesto therefore stated that
The right of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel is eternal, and is an
integral part of its right to security and peace. Judea and Samaria shall
therefore not be relinquished to foreign rule; between the sea and the
Jordan, there will be Jewish sovereignty alone.
Any plan that involves surrendering parts of western Eretz Israel
militates against our right to the Land, would inevitably lead to the
establishment of a ‘Palestinian State’, threaten the security of the civilian
population, endanger the existence of the State of Israel, and defeat all
prospects of peace.54
This synthesis between traditionalism and classical Revisionism was
immediately apparent in Begin's visit to the synagogue of the settlement at
Qaddum within hours of winning the election. Moreover, this approach also
struck a chord amongst those maximalists whose background was in the
Labour movement, such as Arik Sharon, Rafael Eitan and the disciples of
Yitzhak Tabenkin's Ahdut Ha-avoda. In a speech to the Tel Aviv
Commercial and Industrial Club a few weeks before the election, Moshe
Dayan told his audience that the ‘Jewish affinity to Kiriat-Arba, Beit-El and
Shechem go far beyond security considerations’.55 No doubt Dayan was
signalling his dissatisfaction with Labour policy and his courtship of Begin,
but he also symbolized the sentiments of a section of the Labour movement.
With Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel, Begin could no longer ignore the fate
and future of the Palestinians in the Territories. His answer was to formulate
an autonomy plan at the end of 1977, which was based on Jabotinsky's
proposals in the Helsingfors programme of 1906 for minorities in the
Tsarist Empire. While the Palestinians were granted responsibility for
education, transportation, housing, health and areas which would not inhibit
the right of Jews to buy land and settle there, the autonomy plan concluded
with the assertion that:
Israel stands by its right and its claim of sovereignty to Judea, Samaria
and the Gaza district. In the knowledge that other claims exist, it
 proposes for the sake of the agreement and the peace, that the question of
sovereignty in these areas be left open.56
This wording pointedly appeared to differentiate between the dream and the
reality. Was Likud suggesting that eastern Eretz Israel was now the
kingdom of the Hashemites? Begin appeared to operate on two levels. On
the one hand, he reputedly refused to meet King Hussein clandestinely, on
the other, his government's policy was directed towards the reality of Jordan
and not the dream of the Revisionists. Even so, at a Likud rally during the
Lebanon War in 1982, he spoke about a ‘free confederation between
western Eretz Israel and eastern Eretz Israel’. The subtlety of this
watershed, catalyzed by the Camp David Accords, was not lost on those
who adhered to a more rigid understanding of the dimensions of Eretz
Israel, whether located in the far right of the 1930s or the religious
interpretations of the Bible. Israel Eldad, the ideologue of Lehi, in an open
letter to Begin accused him of leading the state to a ‘new partition of
western Eretz Israel’.57 Shmuel Katz resigned as Begin's information
advisor to form the ‘Circle of Herut Loyalists’.
The English version of the ‘Framework for Peace in the Middle East’
spoke about the ‘legitimate rights of the Palestinian people’, although it
read as the ‘Arabs in Eretz Israel’ in Hebrew. Begin's decision to return
Sinai to Egypt effectively reinstated the southern border as that of the
original Zionist map of 1919. In religious eyes, the return of Sinai meant the
return of part of Eretz Israel, whether Genesis (the ‘river of Egypt’) or
Numbers (the ‘brook of Egypt’) was the reference point. Moreover, if Sinai
was returned, then so was the cradle of Jewish civilization, Mount Sinai,
where the Torah was given to Moses and the Jewish People. The
dismantling and destruction of settlements in Sinai therefore confronted
maximalists in the religious camp, and on the far right as well as those in
the Labour movement who defined the borders by the extent of settlement.
The Camp David Accords thus unravelled the coalition of the right, which
Begin had painstakingly assembled since the 1930s and, more specifically,
after 1967, 1973 and 1977. Significantly, only 57.1 per cent of Herut
Knesset members voted in favour of the Camp David framework, compared
with 67.6 per cent of the government coalition and 75 per cent of Likud
members.58
THE RESURRECTION OF THE FAR RIGHT
This eventually led to the establishment of the far right Thiya in 1979, a
party of both secular and religious maximalists whose mentors included
both Rav Kook and the sons of Yitzhak Tabenkin. This was followed by the
emergence of other far right parties such as Tsomet and Moledet, whose
founders were ideologically rooted in the labour movement. The National
Religious Party moved further to the right under the influence of Zvi
Yehuda Kook and his disciples in Gush Emunim. Lehi bequeathed its
legacy to a new generation of maximalists. The Jewish Underground, which
carried out acts of reprisal against Palestinians and their leaders in the mid-
1980s, included Lehi veterans and their children. Yehuda Etzion who
planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock was inspired by the poetry of Uri
Zvi Greenberg. His mentor in the post-Camp David trauma was a little
known religious writer, Shabtai Ben-Dov, who had been a member of Lehi
in his youth. In addition to national religious figures, some haredi leaders,
such as the Lubavicher Rebbe, consistently campaigned against any Israeli
withdrawal from Biblical territory, whether it was captured in 1967 as a
result of the Six Day War or occupied in 1982 through the invasion of
Lebanon.
The fear of those who dissented from Begin's Camp David policy was
that he would also return the West Bank. However, they did not understand
Begin's desire to achieve a bilateral agreement with Egypt within – as far as
possible – the boundaries of the British Mandate. He did not adhere to the
interpretation of Eretz Israel either by the far right or the national religious
camp, despite the fiery rhetoric of a lifetime. When he had effectively
achieved the bilateral agreement, he was able to ditch his instruments of
rapprochement, Day an and Weizmann. By 1981, he was able to return to
the Betar radicalism of his youth, establish a much more homogeneously
ideological government and subsequently crush Thiya in the 1981 elections.
This radical policy led to the debacle of the Lebanon War, but it allowed
Begin to present a less than moderate, more acceptable persona to the far
right. The stagnation of the Camp David process was symbolized in
referring to Sadat as ‘that peasant from the Nile’ in private discussions with
Thiya.59
 Yitzhak Shamir's election as Begin's successor was perceived as an
instance of expediency to ensure political continuity. Like US President
Harry Truman, he ascended to power by accident rather than by design.
Both Begin and Shamir were seen as being of the porshim generation, but
their ideological backgrounds and world outlooks were clearly fashioned by
different mentors and different experiences. Unlike Begin, the unemotional
and spiritually unchallenged Shamir may have admired Jabotinsky publicly
but he was not a disciple. He had followed a path that was fundamentally
post-Jabotinsky. According to Shamir, Jabotinsky ‘sounded not unlike Ben-
Gurion’.60 In the emerging split in Lehi in the late 1940s, Shamir followed
the more rationalist line of Natan Yellin-Mor rather than that of Israel
Eldad, who eulogized Avraham Stern in heroic terms in his writings and
followed his approach to Eretz Israel. Yellin-Mor returned Lehi to a more
realizable, Jabotinskyian position which appealed to Shamir's sense of
pragmatism. At the first and only conference of the Fighters' Party, Shamir
attacked the intellectual tradition in Lehi:
‘Intelligent’ individuals play an important and necessary role in any
political movement, but they show a tendency to show detachment and
disregard for realistic factors when implementing their ideas. Without
their ideas we are nothing, but without an understanding of reality, their
ideas will forever remain strictly in the realm of theory.61
Without forsaking his Lehi past, Shamir joined Herut in 1970 and rose to
become Prime Minister by 1983. He was, however, closer to the far right in
ideological terms but not in terms of its modus operandi. For example,
Moshe Arens was concerned about Shamir's repeated references to shlemut
ha-aretz, which he feared would damage Likud by scaring away floating
voters.62 Arens also attempted to find a solution to the poisoned chalice of
Gaza, especially in view of the rising tide of Islamic fervour. But Shamir
was unwilling to contemplate withdrawal from Gaza, since he considered it
to be part of Eretz Israel. Yet Shamir was willing to go to the Madrid
Conference in 1991 in order to secure a bilateral agreement with the
Jordanians and to draw out any negotiations with the Palestinians. This
approach, which was similar to Begin's over Sinai, also aroused the ire of
the far right and the national religious camp, which feared a capitulation
over the West Bank. This led, in turn, to the collapse of the government
coalition and to Shamir's defeat in 1992.
VIRTUAL IDEOLOGY IN THE 1990S
Prior to Yitzhak Rabin's assassination, Netanyahu had been perceived as an
admixture of modernizing politician, opponent of the Oslo Accords and
pragmatic opportunist. In government, however, Netanyahu's attempts to
straddle coalition pressures created a political imagery which seemed
permanently out of focus. Few observers could claim to know that they
really understood where Netanyahu stood on specific issues. Netanyahu's
long sojourn in the US initiated his evolution as an ‘American politician’ –
albeit with Republican Party sympathies. Lauded as the Abba Eban of the
CNN era',63 Netanyahu attempted to colour his approach to leadership in
the 1990s with the ethos of rationalized managerialism which took
precedence over a clear-cut ideological stand. In part, this was enhanced in
1996 by the introduction of the new electoral system for both prime
minister and party. In addition, there had been a dilution of ideological
positions in the public arena, partially during the 1992 Israeli elections and
more overtly in the 1996 elections. This reflected a general consensus
amongst the electorate that practical solutions to practical problems had to
be located. Thus, in 1996, both Labour and Likud wanted to secure the
centre ground vacated by the martyred Rabin, and thereby attempted to
avoid displays of ideological zeal. Hence the electorally successful ‘peace
with security’ slogan of the Likud campaign was indicative of the new
politics, in that Likud faced in both directions in assuaging hopes and
stoking fears.
Since the 1980s, Netanyahu himself had always concentrated on security
issues when discussing territory rather than emphasizing an ideological
adherence to Judea and Samaria. But did this mean that he had abandoned
the latter? It can, of course, be argued that subsuming territorial demands
within the consensual catch-all of security concerns and the subsequent
delay in returning territory to the Palestinian Authority was a subtle
masking of ideological desires. Yet in the 1996 elections there were no
pointed references to Judea and Samaria. Indeed Netanyahu previously
hinted that ‘we cannot always fulfil our dreams’.64 In his book A Place
Amongst the Nations, he juxtaposed leftist dissidence with religious zeal to
pose as a man of the rational centre-right.
 A mirror image of the messianism of the left is found on the religious
right where it is believed that the act of settling the land is in and of itself
sufficient to earn divine providence and an end to the country's woes.65
In 1983, at the start of his political career, Netanyahu had made a rare
reference to ‘eastern Palestine’66 – the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. By
1994, as leader of the Likud opposition, Netanyahu was present at the
ceremony in the Arava when a peace treaty was signed between Israel and
Jordan. There was an unspoken recognition that there was a difference
between the dream and the reality.67 Even then, in opposition, it appeared
that the process of a revisionism of Revisionism was proceeding apace. In
the aftermath of the historic handshake on the White House lawn then,
could that same sense of realism apply to the West Bank as well as to the
East Bank? Could Likud's fierce determination to retain and settle Judea
and Samaria be relegated to the nostalgia of yesterday? Netanyahu clearly
could not ignore the profound opposition to the Oslo Accords within his
own party and from the far right which initially erupted. In the Knesset, he
had compared the Oslo Accords to the Munich Agreement and Peres to
Chamberlain. In a mass rally on the eve of the White House signing, he
termed the process an ‘enormous lie’.68 Rabin's decision to agree to
international observers in Hebron at the beginning of 1994 was regarded as
a ‘crime against Zionism’.69 Following the suicide bombing of a bus in
Hadera, Netanyahu called upon Rabin to ‘stop the process, back out of the
deal or face the voters’.70 Even so, despite the trauma of the Oslo Accords,
there was an obvious need to synthesize the reality of negotiations with the
PLO with an ideological continuity, especially in terms of adherence to
Judea and Samaria. Zalman Shoval, an Israeli Ambassador to the US under
Shamir, proposed what was tantamount to a partition of the West Bank –
western Eretz Israel – into Palestinian areas and Jewish settlements under
Israel's sovereignty. The latter would be contiguous with the state. Shoval, a
former member of Rafi who succeeded to Ben-Gurion's seat in the Knesset,
was Dayan's central representative in the Knesset through various party
guises – Rafi, State List, La-am, Telem and Likud. His proposal essentially
moved Likud away from Dayan's functional approach as envisaged in
Begin's autonomy plan. It also aligned Likud with the growing consensus of
Labour and the political centre around the format of the Abu Mazen-Beilin
plan or a modification of it. Thus a few weeks before the 1996 elections,
Netanyahu was publicly stating that the new facts could not be ignored and
that Israel could not return to cities now under the jurisdiction of the
Palestinian Authority. Significantly, he did not recognize the Oslo Accords
but the ‘facts created by the Oslo agreement’.71 This crucial distinction left
open the way to adhere to past ideology in theory but also to deal with the
current reality in practice. Moreover, ‘sharing the land’ was not a static
phenomenon, given that Likud's settlement policy was different from that of
Labour. Netanyahu's strategy has been to retain Judea and Samaria – or at
least parts of it – within the constraints of the political situation, but also to
embellish it with tactics which publicly projected flexibility. The latter was
often portrayed as a willingness to compromise on ends rather than simply a
more sophisticated approach to means. For many in Likud and on the right
generally, the difference between means and ends was unclear.
It thus seemed that Netanyahu had by-passed his father's generation and
followed a line closer to that of Jabotinsky himself, while distancing
himself from the far right influences of Begin and Shamir. Yet in seeming to
be less ideological and willing to make apparent compromises, Netanyahu
encountered a backlash. Many members of the older generation such as
Yitzhak Shamir and Dov Shilansky became increasingly critical publicly.
Moshe Arens's surprising decision to run against Netanyahu for the
leadership of Likud served in reality as a means to transmit this criticism.
Arens, the self-styled mentor of the Prime Minister, was essentially a bridge
between the succeeding generation and yesteryear's Betari. As natziv of
Betar in the US in 1948, Arens had condemned the partition of Mandatory
Palestine and the loss of the East Bank.72
Several commentators hinted that Arens's later low placing in the Likud
primaries was no accident.73 Ehud Olmert pointed out that Arens was
‘neither a frustrated politician in search of a career nor was he a staunch
rival of Netanyahu’.74
Netanyahu faced similar problems to those of Begin and Shamir in terms
of his relationship with the far right, both within and outside Likud. He
accused Sharon of ‘incessant and tireless subversion’. Unlike his
predecessors he returned parts of the West Bank to the Palestinian
Authority. This reflected an understanding of the post-Oslo reality rather
than the inflexibility of the Irgun fighting family. Even Arens himself
considered that the political situation had moved on since the days of the
British Mandate. Classical Revisionist ideology was not the central factor in
the Middle East in the 1990s,75 and he did not regard the borders of the
British Mandate as sacrosanct.76 In his famous article, ‘The Iron Wall’,
Jabotinsky comments:
As long as the Arabs feel that there is the slightest hope of getting rid of
us, they will refuse to give up this hope in return for either kind words or
for bread and butter, because they are not a rabble, but a living people.
And when a living people yields in matters of such a vital nature, it is
only when there is no hope of getting rid of us, because they can make no
breach in the iron wall. Not till then will they drop their extremist leaders
whose watchword is ‘never’.
And the leadership will pass to the moderate groups who will approach
us with a proposal that we should both agree to mutual concessions. Then
we may expect them to discuss honestly practical questions, such as a
guarantee against Arab displacement or equal rights for Arab citizens or
Arab national integrity. And when that happens, I am convinced that we
Jews will be found ready to give them satisfactory guarantees so that
both peoples can live together in peace like good neighbours.77
Clearly if Netanyahu had openly interpreted Jabotinsky's concept of mutual
concessions as relevant to the 1990s, it would have fragmented his warring
party and endangered his position. Netanyahu's balancing act was to
continue to strive ideologically for shlemut ha-aretz while accepting the
restricting reality of dealing with the Palestinians. The pace in manipulating
each strand of this twin-track approach was regulated by the dynamics of
the situation and the threat of counter-pressure by his opponents on the
Israeli right. Whilst the rhetoric of loyalty to Judea and Samaria was
occasionally polished for true believers and coalition coalescence, the
political reality forced Likud to settle for an uneasy hybrid on the question
of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The ideological dream was not
abandoned, but it remained deceptively and ambiguously dormant during
the Netanyahu years.

THE RETURN OF RAFI

When Ariel Sharon formally became Prime Minister of Israel at the
beginning of March 2001, he was the first Likud leader not to have emerged
from a Revisionist-Zionist background. Indeed, this point was hardly
mentioned in the polemical press coverage which greeted his election
victory over Ehud Barak. He was deemed to be a master of political
expediency – a man without ideology. To some extent this was true, but he
was also raised in the Labour Zionist movement – albeit with a sense of
Revisionist dissent – in an era of ideological fervour. He came of age during
the 1940s and was fashioned politically and militarily by Israel's struggle
for independence. Sharon was formally a card-carrying member of Mapai
from the late 1950s.78 He was thus drawn towards the nationalism of Ben-
Gurion and Dayan in the early years of the state as opposed to the more
liberal attitudes of Moshe Sharett. In hindsight, the reprisal raids which
were promoted by Ben-Gurion, Dayan and Sharon were also part of the
struggle within Mapai between the hawkish elements more inclined to a
hard-line military approach and those who pursued peace with the Arabs
through more conciliatory measures such as clandestine diplomacy.
Sharett's reaction to the 1953 Qibya Operation was clear, as he recorded in
his diary: ‘There was never a reprisal of this scope and force. I walked into
my office confused, utterly depressed and helpless’.79
The moderate wing of Mapai had effectively neutralized Ben-Gurion's
tendency towards military activism for the greater part of twenty years, but
this came to an end when he returned to government as Defence Minister at
the beginning of 1955. In the political wilderness for ten years, a dying
Sharett returned in a wheelchair to deliver his last public speech at the
Tenth Congress of Mapai in 1965, in which he openly and fiercely attacked
Ben-Gurion as a leader and as a policy-maker. Ben-Gurion's subsequent
defeat at the Congress led to his exit from Mapai together with his
supporters, Dayan, Peres and other notables, and the formation of a new
party, Rafi.
Yet Rafi did poorly in the 1965 elections and achieved only ten seats in
the Knesset. It also negotiated with Gahal in early 1967 to form an
alignment of the centre-right. Indeed, there was considerable common
ground between the right wing of Mapai and the Liberals within Gahal.80
The party split after the Six Day War, essentially because a return to the
newly-formed Labour Party was the only pathway by which prominent
figures such as Dayan and Peres could accede to positions of power in
national politics. Sharon, who occupied senior positions in the IDF,
identified more with Ben-Gurion and the faction which stayed out of the
Labour Party, the State List. This grouping remained small, politically
insignificant and finally without Ben-Gurion, who retired from political life
in 1970.
Sharon's first moves to leave the army and enter the maelstrom of Israeli
politics began before the 1969 elections. He remained at odds in personal
terms with Chief of Staff Haim Bar-Lev and many senior military figures.
He also disagreed with the construction of the Bar-Lev line to keep the
Egyptians at bay. The antagonism was such that Sharon's retirement was
being facilitated by his opponents in the General Staff on the technicality
that he had not completed the form requesting a continuation of his army
service. Sharon's reaction was to make contact with Menachem Begin and
to indicate that he was interested in standing for Gahal in the 1969
elections. Leaked reports in the press that he was offered fifth position on
the Gahal list prompted a rethink in Labour circles. There were fears that
Sharon's entry into political life would catalyze the breakaway of Dayan
and the Rafi faction and thereby initiate a coalescence of the right. It would
also implement the recall from Washington of Rabin, who would challenge
the old guard in Labour. Pressure on Bar-Lev resulted in Sharon's
appointment as head of Southern Command and an extension of his tenure
in the army.
In 1973, Sharon left the army to join the Liberals within Gahal although
both the Rafi wing of the Labour Party and the Free Centre made overtures
to him. Within 48 hours of leaving the army, he announced at a press
conference that he would seek to create a broad centrist party as an
alternative to Labour. This alignment of the centre-right would comprise
Herut and the Liberals from Gahal, the Free Centre, the State List and
possibly the Independent Liberal Party. Despite initial opposition within
Herut -an ‘unworkable polygamy’ – Sharon effectively created Likud in
September 1973. It was even rumoured that he would be appointed Foreign
Minister in Begin's shadow cabinet.81
After the Six Day War, Sharon had moved from an essentially hard-line
Mapai position personified by Dayan, Rafi and the State List towards a
more right-wing stance. Although he had joined the Liberals, his views
were far more radical than those of his party colleagues. Sharon projected
the image of an Israel in a state of perpetual crisis, which called for
permanent national cohesion with himself playing a leading role. His
leadership model was Ben-Gurion during the early period of the state. In
May 1976, he commented:
Zionism was a fantastically successful revolution which achieved the
establishment of the State of Israel, but this revolutionary élan began to
peter out in the mid-1950s. It is imperative that this revolutionary aspect
of Zionism be rejuvenated by establishing new goals. But for this you
need effective leadership; and this requires an urgent change in the
political system from which leadership arises and functions.82
In part, these new goals included new settlements on the West Bank. Such
enthusiasm for building was the Mapai ideological tradition. Immediately
on leaving the army, Sharon commented that ‘there has to be an Upper
Jenin, an upper Nablus and an upper Ramallah just as there is an Upper
Nazareth’.83 In the summer of 1974, he joined Begin and Zvi Yehuda Kook
in visiting new settlements and complained that not enough was being done
to help them. He viewed the occupation of the West Bank as a continuation
of the settlement drive which had characterized the Zionist enterprise in
pre-state days. He pointed out that between 1967 and 1976 only 74
settlements had been established, whereas between 1930 and 1940, 110 had
been founded.84 Jordan was Israel's eastern border and as early as 1974 he
stated that Judea and Samaria were an ‘inseparable part of Israel and from
the security point of view there is no chance of giving them up’.85
Although he was appointed Minister of Agriculture in Begin's first
government, of greater importance was his chairmanship of the
government's Ministerial Settlement Committee. His task was to build ten
new towns in Judea and Samaria and populate them with 150,000 Jews.86 In
September 1977, Sharon announced that he planned to settle two million
over a period of 20 years. He ridiculed the demographic argument by
deriding statistical projections and suggested that Israel could easily absorb
the West Bank population despite its higher birth rate and still remain a
democratic state.87 He later argued in 1991 that building settlements did not
hamper the peace process, but through increasing Israel's sense of security,
it actually enhanced the chance of peace.88
 Like Dayan and unlike Begin and the religious settlers, Sharon advocated
settlement in all areas where there was a sparse Arab population:
If we want a strong independent state we must give up settling just on the
coastal strip and move elsewhere. Otherwise Israel would consist of a
mass of concrete from Ashkelon to Nehariya – all within the range of
Arab guns and having to rely on friendly powers for protection.89
Even though he joined Herut in 1977, Sharon's general approach was thus a
maximalist Mapai one, convoluted and radicalized by personal factors. His
pan-Arabist espousal of the view that ‘Jordan is Palestine’ emerged as early
as December 1974 when he called for Hussein's overthrow and the
establishment of a Palestinian state in its stead.90 During his brief attempt to
don the mantle of a convincing dove, as the leader of the Shlomzion Party
prior to the 1977 elections, he more than once stated that he would be
prepared to meet PLO representatives.91 Although he rejected the Allon
Plan, on another occasion he spoke about the possibility of a Jordanian-
Palestinian state on both sides of the Jordan.92 All this vanished when the
rival Democratic Movement for Change captured Labour's disillusioned
voters and Sharon reverted to his former self. He maintained that a
cessation of violence must occur before negotiations could commence with
Syria over the Golan Heights or with the Palestinians regarding the West
Bank.93
In the years between 1977 and 2001, Sharon consistently continued along
this political path. His views made him an icon for the far right and a
bulwark against the moving tide of historical accommodation with the
Palestinians. Moreover when he was in government, the Jewish population
in the West Bank increased dramatically. In Jerusalem, he set a personal
example by purchasing an apartment in 1987 in the Muslim quarter – in the
midst of 20,000 Arabs and 40 Jews.
His far right stance rejected any rapprochement with the PLO. Speaking
at a ceremony to mark the tenth anniversary of Dayan's death in 1991, he
said that ‘if Moshe Dayan were alive today, there would be no intifada and
its leaders would not be legitimate partners to peace negotiations’.94 After
the violence inspired by Hamas at the Temple Mount in October 1990, he
demanded that Israel assume control of the area and argued for the removal
of the keys from the Waqf.95
Following his defeat by Barak in 1999, Netanyahu had left Likud with a
mere 19 seats as a result of his enthusiastic support for the dual electoral
system for both prime minister and party. He had obscured their ideological
focus by withdrawals from the West Bank and his implementation of the
Hebron Accord. He had lost to Barak by a considerable margin and left
Likud $15 million in the red. But Sharon was viewed by his party and the
electorate as yesterday's man. He was nothing more than a caretaker leader
of Likud, awaiting Olmert or perhaps the resurrection of a sanitized and
seemingly chastened Netanyahu. His views on the settlements and security
appeared to be those of an ever shrinking minority. During his tenure as
leader of Likud, Sharon was virtually invisible. The next elections were
scheduled for November 2003 when Sharon would be 76.
Barak's determination to settle all outstanding issues – the occupation, the
evacuation of settlements, the exchange of land, the ‘right of return’ as well
as Jerusalem – unnerved the right and the national religious movement. On
the eve of the Camp David summit in the summer of 2000, several parties
withdrew from the government and others threatened to do so. The
Palestinians were similarly unprepared politically and psychologically
unwilling to contemplate finality and compromise. They were disposed to
endorse neither a Palestinian state truncated into three blocs connected by
roads and bridges nor the suggested division of Jerusalem. Moreover,
Arafat was unable to deliver, not simply because the differences between
the two sides were too wide and essentially unbridgeable, but also because
the corruption of his regime had given birth to an opposition that had to be
listened to. In addition, the frustrations of the Netanyahu years, the
postponements and prevarications, had produced a generation of no hope.
Sharon's settlement drive moreover had been more than matched by the
Barak regime. The lack of any vision of a future, bolstered by an
educational system that airbrushed out of existence or demonized even the
Israeli peace camp, produced the foot soldiers of the new intifada and the
suicide bombers of the Islamists. The dream of Oslo had become a
nightmare.
When Arafat returned in triumph to the West Bank, having resisted
American demands, but also having turned down the best Israeli offer so
far, arms dumps were being created and the training of recruits
intensified.96 In all likelihood, the intifada would have taken place anyway,
but Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount prematurely but predictably ignited
a combustible mixture of frustrated ambitions, national politics and Islamic
fury. As during the first intifada at the end of the 1980s, when Shamir was
elected, and following the bus bombings by Hamas in early 1996, after
which Netanyahu obtained the premiership, there was a dramatic move to
the right which manifested itself in the election of Sharon. Lightening had
struck not twice but three times in the same place.
In a Birzeit University Development Studies poll of 1200 Palestinians in
the West Bank and Gaza in mid-February 2001, only 11.5 per cent believed
that Sharon was serious about reaching a comprehensive and conclusive
agreement. Some 77.2 per cent supported military attacks against Israeli
targets. When asked about the nature of those targets, 60.4 per cent stated
that any Israeli should be considered a target. The Palestinians restored to
prominence the absolute ‘right of return’ of all four million refugees instead
of promoting a two state solution with the return of some refugees plus
compensation. Establishing a Palestinian state on the West Bank did not
mean an abrogation of the ‘right of return’ to Israel. Israel was asked to
repent and accept the total rather than a shared responsibility for the
Palestinian exodus of 1948.
Sharon thus came to power almost by default, with only some 36.69 per
cent of the eligible vote, but carried along by a combination of political
shrewdness and a degree of luck. It was a remarkable about turn. The new
national unity government of Israel was thus headed by the disciples of
Ben-Gurion and former adherents of Rafi, Sharon and Peres. Jabotinsky's
‘Iron Wall’, first unveiled in 1923, had been resurrected. Although there
was much dissension in the Labour Party, there was no immediate split with
the doves forming a new social democratic party with Meretz, Meimad and
Shinui. Even so, the division within the party suggested a realignment
between the adherents of Jabotinsky and Ben-Gurion in government and the
followers of Sharett in opposition.

NOTES
1. Natan Sharansky, ‘Not Just a Piece of Paper’, Ha-aretz, 17 October 1998.
2. Martin Gilbert, Sharansky, London, 1986, p.417.
3. Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem, New York, 1958, p.27.
4. Menachem Begin, Speech in the Knesset on 7 January 1952, in Netanel Lorch (ed.), Major
Knesset Debates, Vol.3, London, 1992, p.722.
5. Genesis, 15:18–21.
6. Responsa, Hatam Sofer, Yoreh De'ah, 234.
7. Numbers, 34:1–4.
8. Numbers, 32:16–32.
9. I Samuel, 24:2; I Kings 5:5.
10. I Samuel, 13:19.
11. Genesis, 40:15.
12. Joshua, 11:22.
13. M. Gittin, 1,2.
14. Ibid.
15. Tos. Gittin, 2a, sv Ashkelon k'Darom.
16. Ibid.
17. Joshua, 24, 13:3.
18. Tos. Gittin, 2a, sv Ashkelon k'Darom.
19. B. Gittin, 4a.
20. Joshua, 18:27.
21. Note 9 on B. Gittin 2a in the Schottenstein edition of the Babylonian Talmud, New York, 1993.
22. B. Gittin, 8a. There is a tradition that the ‘mountains of Ammanon’ and Mount Hor are one and
the same. See Tos. Gittin, 8a, sv kol shofe'a ve-yored.
23. Note 2 on B. Gittin 8a in the Soncino edition of the Babylonian Talmud, London, 1963.
24. I Chronicles, 13:5.
25. Richard S. Sarason, The Significance of the Land of Israel in the Mishnah in The Land of Israel:
Jewish Perspectives, Bloomington, 1986, pp. 109–36.
26. Avi Ravitsky, Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism, Chicago, 1996, pp.211–
34.
27. M. Kelim, 1, 6–9.
28. Arnon Sofer, ‘Ha-aspekt Ha-geographi, Ha-histori Ve-hapoliti shel Medinat Israel Ve-eretz
Israel’, in Adam Doron (ed.), Medinat Israel Ve-eretz Israel, Tel Aviv, 1988, p.6.
29. Joseph Klausner, Menachem Ussishkin, London, 1944, pp.61–2.
30. The Times, 26 January 1870.
31. ‘State-Zionism’, The Jewish Call, Vol.3 No.8 (August 1935).
32. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The War and the Jew, New York, 1942, p.211.
33. Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘Li-she'elat Ha-dat’ (1935), in Speeches 1927–1940, Tel Aviv, 1948, p.192.
34. Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘Sha'atnez lo Ya'ale Alekha’ (1933), in Ba-derekh Lmedina, Tel Aviv,
1945, pp.69–75; Jewish Herald, 21 January 1938.
35. Vladimir Jabotinsky, Tsionut Ve-Eretz Israel’ (Yevreiskaya Zhizn, 1905), quoted in Raphaella
Bilski Ben-Hur, Every Individual a King: The Social and Political Thought of Ze'ev Vladimir
Jabotinsky, Washington, 1993, pp. 123–4.
36. Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘Socialism and the Bible’, Jewish Chronicle, Supplement No. 121, January
1931.
37. Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘Ra'ayon Betar’ (1934) in Ba-derekh Lmedina, Tel Aviv, 1945, p.334.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘Address to the World Conference of Betar’, Danzig, 1931, in Hadar,
Vol.3, No.5–8 (November 1940).
41. Colin Shindler, Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream: Power, Politics and Ideology from Begin to
Netanyahu, London, 1995, p. 176.
42. Joseph Heller, The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics and Terror, London, 1995, p. 105.
43. David Ben-Gurion, ‘Al Gvulot Historiim Ve-gvulot Ha-medina’, Mabat Hadash, 19 April 1967.
44. Israel Eldad, He-hazit, Vol.2 (August 1943).
45. Lehi submission to all (but the British) delegates to the UN General Assembly, September 1947.
46. Ibid.
47. Menachem Begin, ‘Address on Irgun Radio’, 15 May 1948.
48. Ha-aretz, 22 January 1998. The recent opening of CID files from 1941 shows that Altman was
talking to the British authorities about the Irgun and Lehi.
49. Motherland and Freedom Herut publication, June 1948.
50. Menachem Begin, ‘Right Makes Right’, Address to the Twenty-Fourth Zionist Congress,
Jerusalem 1956.
51. Programme for a National Liberal Government, headed by Tenuat Ha-Herut, 1959.
52. Ben-Gurion, ‘Al Gvulot Historiim’.
53. Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right, Oxford, 1991, p.46.
54. ‘Foreign and Defence Policy and the Effort to Assure True Peace’, Likud Platform for the
Elections to the Ninth Knesset, Tel Aviv, 1977.
55. Shindler, Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream, p.86.
56. Moshe Day an, Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the Egypt-Israel Peace Negotiations,
London, 1981, p.361.
57. Israel Eldad, Jerusalem Post, 9 January 1978.
58. Shindler, Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream, p.98.
59. Interview with Yuval Ne'eman, 25 October 1994.
60. Yitzhak Shamir, Summing Up, London, 1994, p.30.
61. Jerusalem Post, 23 June 1989.
62. Moshe Arens, Broken Covenant, New York, 1995, p.294.
63. Sunday Telegraph, 5 September 1993.
64. Danny Ben-Moshe, ‘Elections 1996: The De-Zionisation of Israeli Polities’, in Efraim Karsh
(ed.), From Rabin to Netanyahu, London, 1997, p.68.
65. Benjamin Netanyahu, A Place Among the Nations: Israel and the World, London, 1993, pp.373–
6.
66. Wall Street Journal, 5 April 1983.
67. Interview with Uzi Landau, 21 October 1994.
68. Daily Telegraph, 8 September 1993.
69. Independent, 1 April 1994.
70. Ibid.
71. Ha-aretz, 22 April 1996.
72. Moshe Arens, ‘The Independence of Israel’, Hadar, Vol.5, No.l (June 1948).
73. Ha-aretz, 9 February 1999.
74. Ibid., 12 January 1999.
75. Interview with Moshe Arens, 26 October 1994.
76. Arens, Broken Covenant, p.210.
77. Vladimir Jabotinsky, ‘The Iron Wall’, Rassviet, No.42–43, 4 November 1923; Jewish Herald, 26
November 1937.
78. Ariel Sharon with David Chanoff, Warrior, London, 1989, p.224.
79. Moshe Sharett, Yoman Ishi, 15 October 1953, quoted in Gabriel Sheffer, Moshe Sharett:
Biography of a Political Moderate, Oxford, 1996, p.685.
80. Interview with Zalman Shoval, 28 October 1994.
81. Jerusalem Post, 21 August 1973.
82. Ibid., 4 May 1976.
83. Ibid., 18 July 1973.
84. Ibid., 18 July 1976.
85. Ibid., 23 April 1974.
86. Ha-aretz, 1 August 1977.
87. Jerusalem Post, 18 July 1973.
88. Jerusalem Report, 16 May 1991, 24 October 1991.
89. Jerusalem Post, 4 September 1977.
90. Maariv, 29 November 1974.
91. Jerusalem Post, 17 November 1976.
92. Ibid., 10 December 1976.
93. Ibid., 2 May 1974.
94. Ibid., 1 October 1991.
95. Jerusalem Report, 25 October 1990.
96. Jerusalem Post, 4 March 2001.

______________
Colin Shindler is a Fellow in Israeli Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London.
 The Delicate Framework of Israeli
Democracy During the 1980s:
Retrospect and Appraisal
RAPHAEL COHEN-ALMAGOR

More than 200 years have passed since the outbreak of the French
Revolution, an event that shaped the face of France and brought political
spirits that changed the face of world history. The revolution carried the flag
of Liberté, Égalité and Fraternité, symbolizing the end of aristocratic rule
and the growing aspirations for the rule of the people. The French nation
paid dearly during that period when tyranny ruled the streets: some 300,000
people died. Nonetheless, the French Revolution provided the motivation
for the spread of democracy, which has since become the preferred form of
government.1 We witness many states using the sanctified French trio as an
Orwellian fig leaf with which to cover their nakedness, even when in
essence they are very far indeed from these principles.
The representative, indirect form of democracy is considered throughout
the world as the preferred form of government, for otherwise military
governments, totalitarian regimes, single-party systems, theocratic states
and even terrorist (or liberation) organizations would not take pains to call
themselves ‘democratic’ or ‘people's republic’. The themes of liberty,
equality and fraternity have been adopted in the Western democracies; to
them were added the liberal principle that places the individual at the
centre, and the practical principle that enables this form of government –
civic participation. Today, active individualism and the French trio
constitute the very foundation, the necessary precondition, to define a
democracy as liberal and to fortify its rule.
 Many have grown accustomed to viewing democracy as the given form
of government, forgetting how young liberal democracy is from an
historical perspective – less than 100 years old. Full acceptance of the
democratic idea and its establishment occurred only during World War I.
Lord Bryce once wrote that ‘seventy years ago [in the 1850s], the
approaching rise of the masses to power was regarded by the educated
classes of Europe as a menace to order and prosperity. Then the word
Democracy awakened dislike or fear. Now [in 1921] it is a word of praise’.2
Because democracy is young, it needs protection and reinforcement to
enable its continued development. Democracy is not without flaws and
imperfections. One should, therefore, be aware of the ‘ailments’
challenging democracy and try to devise the proper supervisory and
controlling mechanisms to reinvigorate it. By way of doing so, this article
will examine some of the more daunting problems confronted by Israeli
democracy during the 1980s, and suggest several remedies that might help
heal Israel's tumultuous political culture.

WHAT IS DEMOCRACY?
Before discussing the Israeli case, a clarification of the term ‘democracy’ is
in order, since there is no conclusive agreement as to its meaning, and it is
difficult to find one definition that would be acceptable to all. The
definitions of democracy range from seeing it as an idea and an ideal on the
one hand, to a practical form of government and a mechanism on the other
hand. To a great extent, the definition determines the point of reference:
those who see democracy as an ideal will certainly view it as an end,
whereas those viewing democracy as a mechanism will consider it a means
for pursuing various ends.3
One of the accepted definitions of democracy views it as a form of
government in which political power belongs to the public at large and not
to a certain person or to a limited group of people. The term ‘democracy’ is
used in relation to the terms ‘monarchy’ and ‘aristocracy’ to differentiate
between states of monopoly, oligopoly and polyarchy. This definition is far
from satisfactory because it characterizes the democratic process too
sharply. Similar opinions view democracy as a political system in which the
citizens enjoy the right to express their priorities, and in its framework these
priorities are taken into consideration during the process of decision-
making. Others suggest examining the extent of democracy in a given state
on the basis of the number of participants involved in the decision-making
process. The more citizens are able to influence the decision-making
process, the more democratic the state. This view implies that democracy is
a matter of degree, as opposed to a permanent concept with clearly defined
conditions and principles.4
A different school of thought emphasizes the importance of the elite and
its task in directing the masses to ensure the correct management of
political life. As a consequence, the masses are seen as a mediocre
population, lacking talent, justifying activities here and there only to remind
the rulers that they are dealing with the rule of the citizenry. The public is
characterized as usually delegating the freedom of action necessary for the
proper management of public life to the elite, upon the understanding that if
the latter abuses this freedom, they will foot the bill on election day. The
masses, therefore, seem to be commenting more than initiating. They must
be active, but only to a limited extent, for otherwise they will be interfering
with the elite group that is acting in their name and for their benefit.5
This article does not subscribe to this point of view, which cynically
shifts the point of reference from the public to a small group of elected
representatives, neglecting the importance of open discourse and the flow of
opinions between the public and their representatives, a discourse that does
most certainly exist in democracy. The responsibility of the citizens does
not end at the ballot box; rather they should be encouraged to participate in
everyday life through the variety of venues open to them. Moreover, a
democracy that does not encourage its citizens to play an active role in
community life is bound to degenerate. Participation is the jewel in the
crown of democracy, the hinge holding and strengthening it.6 Without it, the
government of the many will become a government of the few.
Furthermore, it is important to differentiate between the rule of the
‘people’ and the rule of the ‘citizens’. Demos cratia means the rule of the
people; in practice, however, it is not the people who take part in the
decision-making process. It is the citizenry. Not everyone is eligible to elect
and to be elected, and in every government a person must pass the
requirements of age, mental health and criminal record, past and present, in
order to receive this eligibility. Also, the process of naturalization in many
countries is not a simple one, and persons choosing to emigrate from their
country must meet certain demands to acquire the citizenship of their
choice. Thus democracy is actually the rule of the citizens and not the rule
of the people.
Moreover, policy is not the result of decisions made by the entire
citizenry. In the modern state it is recognized that it is impossible to cater to
all wishes. Compromise is achieved by fulfilling the will of the majority of
the citizens, who provide their parliamentary representatives with the
legitimacy and the authority to act in their name. There is always a minority
that must accept what has been decided by the majority, and wait its turn in
the democratic processes until it becomes part of the deciding majority. No
majority is permitted to abuse the rights of the minority and prosper at their
expense.
This article deals with Israeli democracy. To start with, it should be noted
that Israel is not liberal in the sense that the United Kingdom and the United
States are. Collectivist elements are still quite prominent in its structure, a
derivative of the socialist ideology that shaped decisionmaking in Israeli
society from the early days of the Yishuv (the pre-state period) to the rise to
power of the Likud Party in 1977. Israeli leaders never decided whether
they wanted Israel to be socialist or capitalist, thus creating a mixture of
these ideologies that has long influenced Israeli economic and social life. In
addition, Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state introduces perfectionist
elements into its framework that go against the neutral characterization of
liberalism.7 Finally, the lack of separation between state and religion makes
Israel prone to non-liberal tendencies, though it is by no means the only
democracy where state and church inhere in the same body of the
sovereign. The United Kingdom is a prominent example of such non-
separation.
Yet the crucial consideration and the common denominator of all liberal
societies is the acceptance of two principles: respecting others, and not
harming others.8 Both of these principles underpin Israeli society. The
Israeli political culture contains liberal and republican ingredients as well as
a sense of a community that has been crystallizing since the late nineteenth
century.9
 True, the fact that since 1967 Israel has governed the Palestinians of the
occupied territories under military rule, as this area (with the exception of
Jerusalem) has never been made an integral part of Israel, has somewhat
eroded Israeli democracy. And while the Oslo Accords (Oslo A in 1993;
Oslo B in 1995) have resulted in the surrender of parts of these territories,
and 95 per cent of the population, to the Palestinian Authority, the process
has yet to be completed. This, however, does not mean that Israel, within its
pre-1967 borders, is not a democracy. There are occasional manifestations
of injustice, and liberal codes are not always closely followed in some parts
of the land, as is the case in other democratic societies such as the United
Kingdom, Australia, the US or Canada. In Northern Ireland, for example,
liberal codes are not closely followed. And the attitudes of the United
States, Canada and Australia towards their native American and aboriginal
populations10 can hardly be described as liberal. In other words, occasional
manifestations of injustice do not constitute the sole arbiter of whether
societies can be described as liberal democracies. The United States,
Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom are all described as liberal
democracies despite, not because of, their less than perfect treatment of
cultural and national minorities. No democratic society is immune to
problems and deficiencies, and Israel is no exception.
All Israeli citizens are formally equal before the law, regardless of ethnic
affiliation, religious beliefs and political stands. Still the country's Arab
citizens,11 the Bedouins and the Druze, do not fully share and enjoy the
same rights and duties as do Israeli Jews. The Law of Return, passed on 5
July 1950, for example, accords automatic citizenship to every Jew who
decides to make aliya (immigrate) and to settle in Israel. This Law – as
Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, described it – is the law of
perpetuity of Jewish history. And while Israel is not wholly unique in
granting citizenship as of right based on ethnicity – a similar law on the
admission of ‘ethnic Germans’, wherever they are, to full citizenship
existed in Germany – its pronounced Jewish nature is certainly more
ubiquitous than is the case in Western societies, which identify nationality
with citizenship in the state.12
Notwithstanding these reservations, Israel is a democracy. It is far from
‘perfect’, certainly, although a perfect democracy has yet to be found in
today's world. But it is certainly no less democratic than such Western
countries as Germany,13 Austria,14 France15 and Italy,16 all of which are
considered fully-fledged democracies despite the less than satisfying
attitude of their governments and/or peoples towards foreign nationals and
minorities living in their midst. Notions of the separateness, purity and
uniqueness of European and other cultures are prevalent in all these as well
as other countries. Hostility towards foreigners finds its expression in
murders, attacks, threats, damage to property, graffiti, malicious pamphlets
and bodily harm. The increased xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism in
Europe has propelled those organs of the EU concerned with labour and
immigration to call for more EU action against hatred of foreigners. Thus,
on 29 May 1990, the Council of the European Communities and
representatives of the governments of the member states adopted a
declaration on combating racism and xenophobia. The European Parliament
in turn noted its concern that certain democratic parties were giving way to
pressure from racist and extreme right-wing movements and were taking
advantage of the situation to limit the right of asylum.17
As for Israel, its democracy is young and fragile. It is still at a formative
stage and it suffers from internal schisms and tensions. These make Israeli
democracy vulnerable to anti-democratic and illiberal notions. The Jewish-
Arab divide is one such schism. Other important examples are those
between orthodox and secular Jews, and between Sephardim and
Ashkenazim.18 The Jewish state was founded in accordance with
democratic principles. Its political system is based on free elections and
multi-party competition. It honours the basic freedoms of its citizens
(speech, journalism, movement, assembly, demonstration and religion, as
well as freedom to resist the government within the law) and on most
occasions refrains from resorting to arbitrary arrests. The Israeli political
culture values open exchange of ideas and compromise, acknowledges the
plurality of ethnic groups, cultures, religions and nationals that exists in the
land, promotes tolerance and peaceful conflict resolution, and denies
legitimacy to intolerance and violence. This democratic culture finds
explicit and formal expression in leaders' utterances and in the laws and
declarations of the state. Israeli leaders hold that Israel maintains a ‘stable
democratic regime’, and that it guarantees a maximum degree of civic
freedom.19 The Declaration of Independence affirms that Israel will foster
the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; that it
will be based on the foundations of liberty, justice and peace; that it will
ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all of its citizens,
irrespective of religion, race or sex; and that it will guarantee freedom of
religion, conscience, language, education and culture. Furthermore, two
Basic Laws guarantee the basic rights and liberties of all citizens. Basic
Law: Human Dignity and Freedom (1992) purports to protect human
dignity and freedom in order to anchor the values of the State of Israel as a
Jewish and democratic state. It maintains that a human being's property
must not be harmed; that every person is entitled to the protection of his or
her life, body and dignity; and that no person's freedom may be taken or
restricted by arrest, imprisonment, or extradition, or in any other manner. In
turn, Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1992) holds that every citizen or
resident of the state is entitled to engage in any occupation, profession or
line of work, and that every governmental agency must respect the freedom
of occupation of every citizen or resident.20 Formal law is of course not
enough. There is still room for hard work to eliminate existing prejudice in
Israeli society against non-Jews as well as against Jewish cultural
minorities, most notably Russian and Ethiopian immigrants.

DEMOCRACY'S NEED TO DEFEND ITSELF

Liberals view democracy as a form of government preferable to all other
known forms of government, and emphasize that tolerance towards various
opinions is the essence of democracy. With this in mind, the limitations of
democracy must be recognized. Indeed, one of the problems of any political
system is that the principles that underlie and characterize it might also,
through their application, endanger it and bring about its destruction.
Democracy, in its liberal form, is no exception. And because democracy is a
relatively young phenomenon, it lacks experience in dealing with pitfalls
involved in the working of the system. This can be termed the ‘catch’ of
democracy.
Democracy is the rule of the majority while protecting the rights of the
minority. There are two parts to this statement, both of which are necessary
for describing a given form of government as a democracy. For one thing,
decisions are made and followed on the basis of the will of the majority,
though this does not necessarily make them just or right. In a group of ten
people, a decision on the part of nine to kill the tenth person does not make
it just or moral solely because it was a majority decision. Immoral majority
decisions make such actions more horrid, not more just.
A democracy that allows the many to oppress the few is no more just
than a personal ruler pursuing self-serving interests at the expense of the
nation. Democracy should encourage and strengthen the Galileos to stand
up to a tyrannical majority, to reach yet greater exposure of truth, and to
bring society at large a step further in their collective advance. Democracy
must defend itself from the tyranny of the many and to prevent injustices to
the few, just as it must guard against attempts at tyranny by the few.
Liberalism, as espoused by Alexis de Toqueville, John Stuart Mill and
James Madison, underscored the danger of the tyranny of the majority, to an
extent that belittles the dangers emanating from a non-democratic minority
exploiting the mechanisms provided by democracy to ruin the base upon
which it stands. The question to be asked in this context is: should one
tolerate in the name of democracy any opinion, however repugnant, and
allow it to compete in the free marketplace of ideas, even if the
consequence could be the destruction of democracy itself?21
A popular view, which seems very attractive at first glance because of its
straightforward logic, advocates fighting action with action and fighting
opinion with opinion. This is a view reinforced by the handy quip that
‘sticks and stones can break my bones but names will never hurt me’. Its
proponents believe that freedom of speech should be without constraints,
and that any restriction on freedom of speech compromises the very
principle of tolerance that stands at the root of democracy. They also claim
that those who wish to place restrictions upon words distance themselves
from the democratic ideal, since the essence of democracy is nothing
without the provision of free expression of opinion. Any harming of liberty,
even the smallest, harms democracy. Moreover, in a place where there
exists the possibility of constraining the freedom of speech, there may also
be a possibility of placing further restrictions: what seems to a ‘democrat’
(so say those who oppose) to be a window of opportunity for protecting
democracy (such as the restriction of marches by racists in African-
American neighbourhoods) might enable further limitations on marches and
demonstrations and might increase oppression.22
 On the other hand, history has demonstrated the opposite as well. The
example of the Weimar Republic, which in many ways promoted national-
socialism in a democratic fashion, should serve as a caution those who
support total freedom of speech. Must society stand idle while political
movements, clearly boasting totalitarian leanings, accumulate power and
attract growing public support, knowing that upon taking power these
movements will destroy the very democracy that enabled them to obtain
that power? Is not the damage caused by allowing them that freedom
greater than that caused by placing limits on tolerance? These questions are
central to the discussion of the paradox of tolerance and the concept of
defensive democracy.

THE PARADOX OF TOLERANCE

Karl Popper asserted that it is paradoxical to allow freedom to those who
would use it to eliminate the very principle upon which they rely, and that
one should therefore claim in the name of tolerance the right not to tolerate
the intolerant. He urged that any movement preaching intolerance be placed
outside the law, and that incitement to intolerance and persecution should
be regarded as criminal, in the same way as incitement to murder or to the
revival of the slave trade are considered.23 Acts of self-defence against the
intolerant may necessitate inflicting pain upon them. Sometimes this may
be the only way to prevent the pain one person is willing to cause to others.
Tolerance needs to be limited when it is necessary to protect the moral
principles that justify it. The concept of tolerance as a prerequisite for
democracy supposes mutuality, and those who do not accept it as a
condition for their action do not have the right to demand it of others.
Because there is a conflict of demands that might harm democracy,
democracy must stand on the side that protects it and allows intolerance
towards its oppressors.
By the same principles that underlie criminal law, democracy can deny
and punish people for taking part in organizations aimed at its destruction.
There is no part in democratic ideology that asks the individual to sit idly
by while witnessing attempts to harm the very foundations of democracy.
Tolerance does not mean pacifism, nor does it mean impotence.
 The State of Israel has painfully questioned these issues in the past two
decades with the rising of Kahanism. The atmosphere in Israel at the time
of the Lebanon War (1982–85) was a comfortable greenhouse for the
growing of the Kahanist ideas. The war did not actually cause the
polarization and the rift; rather it raised notions of ‘no consensus’ regarding
the justifiability of the war to the surface. Consequently, the schism
between the leadership and large segments of the public was expanded. Into
this schism seeped the effects of the Kahanist ideology.24
Violence and terrorism were meaningful determinants for Meir Kahane,
who himself confessed that ‘every further victim [of Arab violence], and I
say this with pain, builds our movement’.25 The Lebanon War deepened the
split between the left and right wings, and it also drove a wedge between
the leadership and wide sectors of the population. Israeli society, tired of the
vague promises of its leaders, sought solutions there and then. Kahane was
there to offer his decisive plans and to capitalize on them.26
Prior to the 1984 elections, the Israeli parliament plunged into its first in-
depth discussion about the Kahanist phenomenon, in the face of surveys
that predicted the entry of Kahane's political party, Kach, into the Knesset.
Until that point, the Israeli political system saw in Kahane a minor episode
of a strange screamer. The surveys, which showed for the first time that
Kahane had a fair chance to enter the house of legislators, shook the parties
into action to stop the evil. A wall-to-wall consensus grew to do away with
Kahane's legitimacy and to stop him. It was mainly the left-wing parties that
could not come to terms with what they considered a form of Jewish
fascism.27 Some of the right-wing parties were also shocked by the words
of Kahane, and they had additional pragmatic interest in stopping him: the
fear of losing votes to the Jew from Brooklyn who had come to preach
about the best way to ‘handle’ the Arabs. The entire Israeli political system
joined forces to ‘handle’ Kahane, and to deny him legitimacy.
As a result of these initiatives, the Central Elections Committee
disqualified the Kach list, as well as the ‘Progressive List for Peace’. The
Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, rejected this in its
ruling of the Neiman case, and called upon the Knesset to establish the
necessary legal basis for the exclusion and disqualification of the two
movements.28
 Kahane won one seat in the 1984 elections. A year later, the Knesset
decided to take legal measures to provide grounds for the disqualification of
racist and/or anti-democratic parties. It thus amended the Basic Law: The
Knesset (1958) so as to include Section 7A. It is clear that this section was
legislated under the influence of the Court's ruling in the Neiman decision,
and that Kach was the prime concern which brought about this piece of
legislation. The section reads:
A list of candidates shall not participate in Knesset elections if any of the
following is expressed or implied in its purposes or deeds:

1. Denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the State of the

Jewish people;
2. Denial of the democratic character of the State;
3. Incitement to racism.29

Section 7A served as the basis for the disqualification of Kach in the 1988
elections. Kahane appealed again to the High Court of Justice, but this time
the Court reaffirmed the decision and allowed the disqualification of
Kach.30 While I am not happy with the existing procedure for the
disqualification of lists on the grounds of ideology and political aims, I
nevertheless think that the Court's decision was correct as an act of self-
defence, since it is one thing to express an opinion and quite another to pass
laws that transform democracy into an anti-democratic entity. Hence there
should be more room for freedom of expression than for the freedom to be
elected and enjoy the ability to pass laws. The power to legislate could
immediately transform society from a democracy, allowing the expression
of detestable opinions, to one that imposes uniformity and coercion. Hence,
as a matter of moral principle, violent parties which act to destroy
democracy or the state should not be allowed to run for parliament.31
Liberals in Israel did not, by and large, accept this view. They claimed
that just as there was room in Israel for small, marginal movements on the
left and on the right, there was also room for the Kahane phenomenon; the
people of Israel were clever enough to keep Kahane's supporters in a
powerless stand without any real governing, and thus there was room for
Kach as well. The case in favour of Kach competing in the free marketplace
of opinions was made on two parallel and complementary planes during the
1980s: as a matter of principle, every citizen was entitled to express his or
her truth without interruption; and as a political issue, it was seen as
appropriate and important that such a person came along to put the Arabs in
their ‘rightful’ place.
Kahane exacerbated Israeli society's encounter with the Palestinians.
Following the 1967 War, the occupied territories began to provide Israel
with cheap labour willing to take any relief work at minimum wage, thus
creating a split labour market.32 The employers, the labour managers, and
the contractors were consequently less and less interested in the better paid
Jewish labourers, when they could make a much higher profit by employing
Arabs; thus a menial labour market composed almost exclusively of Arabs
was established.
This phenomenon had, and still has, far reaching psychological effects,
because Jews of North African and Middle Eastern origin, who were, and
still are, found in large numbers in the lowest echelons of Israeli society,
found that an even lower class had come into existence. Certain occupations
acquired the nickname ‘Arab jobs’, referring to the menial jobs rejected by
Jews. Some employers defined the situation bluntly, saying that there were
jobs that were not suitable for Jews but were only appropriate for Arabs.
In came Kahane, giving literal, pseudo-establishment legitimacy to these
feelings and thoughts. His words justified Jewish superiority at the expense
of Arabs. The Jew was nobler than the Arab, and so it should be. Kahane
planted seeds of doubt in democracy, which he attacked without hesitation,
claiming that it granted too much freedom to various groups which he saw
as traitors to the national spirit. On the other hand, he also coined the phrase
‘Democracy for the Jews’, excluding all those who did not pass the ethnic-
religious criterion test successfully. Kahane was not pretentious and did not
mince his words: if you were not a Jew, you would be disqualified from the
democratic game.33
Even though the political system viewed Kahane as the person it ‘loved
to hate’, to ordinary Israelis he was worth noting. He created some
consensus about the Arabs, the treatment they deserved, and their place in
society. Kahanism paved the way for further movements that gave
legitimacy to the open expression of opinions which earlier, if expressed at
all, had been expressed privately, and furtively. When the struggle against
Kahane ended with his removal from the political stage, many of the votes
which would have been cast for him, had he competed in the elections, went
to his authentic Sabra successor, a man deeply rooted in the soil of the land,
General (res.) Rehav'am Ze'evi (and his Moledet Party).
Since the disqualification of the Kach and Kahane Hai (Kahane Is Alive)
movements in 1988, and even more so since their outlawing in 1994,
following the massacre by Dr Baruch Goldstein of Muslims praying in the
Hebron Cave of Machpellah, the media has hardly used the term Kahanism
and treats the Kach movement as a historical rather than contemporary
phenomenon.34 And yet, though Kahane is dead and the Kach movement
politically defunct, Kahanism is still alive and flourishing, and will continue
to exist so long as Arabs are not seen as fully equal to Jews.
The situation is further complicated, since a distinction should be made
between formal citizenship and social citizenship. Formal citizenship
expresses official belonging to a certain state, regardless of whether the
minority has a feeling of identification and true partnership with the
population at large; whereas full social citizenship applies to citizens who
enjoy equal respect as individuals, and who are treated equally by the law
and in its administration. Israeli Palestinians formally enjoy equal rights and
liberties with the Jewish community, yet they see themselves as an
aggrieved minority whose rights are not respected by the majority.35 A
democracy that perpetuates feelings of disappointment and deprivation
inexorably moves towards disintegration.

DEMOCRACY IN THE SHADOW OF THE INTIFADA

Israeli Arabs found themselves in an especially severe state of dissonance
after the outbreak of the intifada in December 1987. Their loyalty to the
state collided with their brothers' striving for liberty and self-determination.
The popular uprising came as a surprise to Israel's democratic structure. The
turning point was 1982. The Palestinians understood that it was possible to
harm substantially the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) by using guerrilla
warfare. The stature of the IDF as a victorious army following the Six Day
War was waning after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and the Lebanon War had
shown that organizations without any real framework could use guerrilla
warfare to wear down the IDF. The Lebanese battleground brought the
change of consciousness that is necessary for any revolution or uprising.
There was no need to match the Zionist power in order to fight against it.
Even a mosquito can harm an elephant if it finds the right spot. An
organized group of mosquitoes could drive an elephant mad. Because of
Israel's great sensitivity to the lives of its hostages, it did not follow a
rational and organized decisionmaking procedure, and it gave its enemies
the organizational framework they needed by freeing well-trained fighters
to the streets of the villages (the Jibril Deal of May 1985, in which hundreds
of convicted terrorists were released in return for a handful of hostages). At
the right time, after consciousness was augmented by organization, the
intifada broke out.36
The intifada had a far-reaching impact on Israeli democracy in the 1980s.
Prior to the uprising, the concept of occupation was alien to large segments
of Israeli society. The uprising brought the occupation to every Israeli
home, making deep inroads into peoples' souls and minds. Many Israelis
who had no wish to visit the territories in their civilian lives found
themselves chasing stone-throwing boys as part of their military reserve
duty. At the beginning of the 1990s, an original Israeli folklore dealing with
the phenomenon was developed: poetry, prose, theatre, films and even
humour. On the political plane, the intifada brought a wave of followers to
movements and political parties offering sharp and precise cures for its
termination while dismissing moral considerations (Moledet and Tzomet);
other parties offered an anchor to hold on to in the face of what was seen as
implacable Palestinian enmity, hope enhanced by the strength of God (the
religious party Mafdal moved substantially rightward).

THE NEED FOR EXPANDING PARTICIPATION

Another danger to Israeli democracy is posed by the over-centralism of its
politics. The roots of the Israeli political establishment lie in the pre-state
Yishuv period, when decisions and policy were determined in the various
forums of Mapai, and were often modelled by the preferences of one man,
David Ben-Gurion. Since then to this very day, life in Israel is highly
political, to the extent that any voluntary organization, even the seemingly
most apolitical, would find it difficult to disassociate itself completely from
politics. A clear example of this situation is the phenomenon of sport
associations that are subordinated to political parties. Indeed, sport
associations often serve as a political springboard for meddling third-class
politicians to climb up the rungs of their party hierarchy. The inevitable
consequence is the stifling of many voluntary groups whose members fear
entering the political sphere, as well as growing centralism in public life.
The place of participation in democracy has been largely seized by Israeli
centralized democracy.
In the last decade or so the major parties have been holding American-
style primaries that create the illusion that the ranks of decision-makers
have expanded. It is true that today political candidates are elected by
hundreds of thousands of party members, and that, as far as participatory
democracy is concerned, this phenomenon is preferable to the era of
organizing committees. Nevertheless, power is still concentrated in very
limited corridors. Instead of decentralizing its power, to create more
intimate communal frameworks in which citizens can take part in
communal life and promote interests directly related to them, the Israeli
system prefers to channel all its power to the parties and the Knesset.
Instead of bringing politics to the citizens, to bring them closer to public life
as the democratic concept requests, Israeli democracy creates alienation
between politics and ordinary civilians to the extent that they lose faith in
their ability to bring change.
A system operating in this manner should be subjected to effective
supervision and control to prevent malfunction. Any government working
without effective opposition is ultimately likely to increase authority and
corruption, particularly in a centralized democratic system like Israel's.
Indeed, between 1984 and 1992, when the two major parties (Labour and
Likud) shared power in what is known in Israeli politics as a ‘national unity
government’, there seemed to be no effective opposition that could
challenge governmental practices and decisions.

CONCLUSION AND FURTHER THOUGHTS

This essay has emphasized the importance of the active participation of
citizens in democratic life, as well as the need for compromise and
pluralism. It has also described the tension between majority rule and
minority rights, and asserted that threats to democracy could develop from
either the majority's or the minority's tyrannical disposition. It is therefore
incumbent upon democracy to protect itself from both evils, as well as from
the pursuit of parochial interests and an unbridled desire for power at the
expense of the citizenry.
Israeli democracy is young and fragile, and saddled with inherent
problems. It is quite reassuring to realize that during the State's first fifty
years, democracy has proved resistant to the extraordinary domestic and
external pressures confronting Israel. Yet further measures are needed to
ensure that it survives and flourishes, especially in view of Israel's special
circumstances. It is a nation in arms, whose citizens live under a constant
feeling of siege; whose institutions do not separate between church and
state; whose territory includes occupied zones (which shrink with time);
and which includes a substantial Arab minority. All of these factors hinder
the development of the liberal tradition in Israel. Many politicians and
ordinary citizens still believe that it is the citizens who should ask what they
can do for their country rather than the other way around. The state is thus
put at the centre of reference, and the individual is subordinate to its needs.
This in turn makes it easier to justify the compromising of individual or
minority rights in the name of the national interest and majority will.
The Kahanist phenomenon did not create the need for democracy to
defend itself; rather it increased the awareness of this need. The fact that a
movement that boasted blatantly anti-democratic ideals won representation
in the legislative house and received a measure of popularity indicates the
extent of the problem and the degree of urgency for ample remedies. The
Israeli public is unaware of the necessity and importance of democracy, as
witnessed during the 1980s by repeated surveys showing that some 20–30
per cent of the adult population, especially the younger adults, did not see
the necessity of democracy and expressed a willingness to establish an
authoritarian government. Such a government would provide, as they
understood it, an immediate answer to the problems confronted by Israel,
problems which could be solved by tough measures.37
Moreover, the settlers in Judea and Samaria have occasionally warned
that should the Israeli government decide to withdraw from these territories,
they would oppose such an act by all means at their disposal, including the
use of arms if need be.38 This is because, in the opinion of many members
of Moetzet Yesha (the council of the Jewish settlements in the territories),
the government and the Knesset do not have the authority to decide on the
matter of returning territories, certainly not as long as the decision is based
upon the votes of Arab representatives. Thus, for example, when the
ideologist of the Jewish Terror Organization, Yehuda Etzion, was asked if
he recognized the legitimacy of the Israeli government, he answered: ‘I
recognize its legitimacy as a sovereign government in the nation. I do not
recognize the legitimacy of every law. I must examine each law
individually: does it exist in accordance with the superior law of the Torah
and the Jewish chronology, as we understand it, or does it contradict. And
these are two different planes’.39
This claim has been publicly repeated in various ways by different
segments of the nation. It is no secret that part of the religious public does
not recognize the authority of the state or its laws, and an even greater part
of this public would prefer abiding by Halachic decisions if and when they
would contradict, in their opinion, the laws of the state. Moreover, members
of the radical left received much attention during the 1980s owing to their
claim that under certain conditions it was permissible and correct to disobey
the rules of the state (Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit) Movement).40 The
cumulative effect of this view paves the way to a state in which each person
does as he or she pleases.
On this issue of upholding the law, Israel faces a real battle which the
government is procrastinating in fighting, despite being given the blessing
of the system at large. A key role in reinforcing the democratic
infrastructure and uprooting any Kahanist notions must be played by the
educational system.41 If left unchecked, the growth of prejudice and bigotry
could lead to the destruction of Israeli democracy.
The severity of the evil became clear on 4 November 1995, when Yigal
Amir assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The writing had been on
the wall for many years, but the various systems – political, security,
judicial and rabbinical – had treated the ideological law-breakers
complacently, even when they used force to promote their ideas. In their
complacency, they aided the growing fanaticism. They should have
condemned the fanatics and excluded them. The complacency transmitted a
message, its consequences proved quite destructive. Messages were
transmitted in both directions: the security forces conveyed that they had
‘more important things to do’. Most of their energy was invested in
preventing Palestinian terrorism and they treated Jewish fanaticism lightly.
This message came through to the radical right: they understood that they
would be able to proceed with their activities without paying a price.
Immediately after the assassination, Minister of Justice David Libai and
Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair recommended that the Penal Law
dealing with seditious conduct be refined and defined more clearly. Libai
initiated a draft proposal of a new incitement law, but this initiative was
quickly abandoned, apparently for partisan political reasons. Titled
‘Prohibition of Incitement and Indirect Incitement’, the proposed law was
drafted by Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer of the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem. Its first part read as follows:
Any person who does one of the following shall be liable to
imprisonment for five years

1. publishes a call, explicitly or implicitly, to commit a crime or act

of violence;
2. publishes anything which involves exertion of pressure to commit
a crime or act of violence;42
3. publishes anything which is likely, in the circumstances, to bring
about commission of a felony or act of violence … with the aim
that such an offence will be committed.

In private discussions and public forums Kremnitzer presented his draft

proposal, explaining that his aim was to draft the legislation as narrowly as
possible so as not to make room for the slippery slope syndrome. Yet in its
current phrasing, this draft proposal may well open the door to excessive
limitations on free speech. Let me explain why.
First, rather than talk about ‘indirect incitement’, it might be better to use
such terms as preaching, teaching or advocating violence since incitement,
by definition, is a direct mode of action. ‘Indirect incitement’ constitutes a
contradiction in terms. In his renowned work, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill
wrote that opinions lose their immunity when the circumstances under
which they are expressed constitute by their expression a positive
instigation to some mischievous act. Thus, the opinion that corn-dealers are
starvers of the poor may be prevented from being delivered orally to ‘an
excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer, or when handed
about among the same mob in the form of a placard’.43 Nevertheless, that
same opinion ought to go unmolested when simply circulated through the
press.
Though Mill does not explicitly define an intention to drive people into a
harmful action – in circumstances conducive to such action – as instigation,
this is certainly implicit in his analysis. At the same time, Mill approves of
an advocacy voiced as a matter of ethical conviction. This is indeed one of
his major contributions to the free speech literature: being the first to
distinguish between instigation and speech (or discussion) as a matter of
ethical conviction. This essential distinction should be incorporated into any
legal and political framework aimed at shoring up Israeli democracy. For, as
vividly demonstrated by Mill's corn-dealer example, instigation is speech
closely linked to action.
Second, there is a wide gap between the intentions of Kremnitzer's draft
proposal and its actual wording. While expressing the wish to be as specific
and focused as possible, section 1 of the draft proposal holds any person
urging, whether explicitly or implicitly, a crime or an act of violence, as
liable to five-year imprisonment. How a specific call can be implicit the
draft proposal does not say. In referring to this point, Kremnitzer explained
that what he had in mind was a pre-determined code known to the speaker
and to his audience. But if this is the case, would it not be better to speak
only of ‘explicit calls’ and forego any reference to ‘implicit calls’, which
open a wide door for possible restrictions on free speech.
It is striking to note that this illiberal phrasing, ‘explicit or implicit’, is
common enough among Israeli liberals. To the best of my knowledge, no
liberal jurist or judge has ever questioned this phrasing, which has become
part of the Israeli legal environment. Consider, for instance, section 7A of
Basic Law: The Knesset (1958) (see above) and similarly, Section 5 of the
Parties Law, 1992, which provides that:
A party will not be registered if any of its purposes or deeds, whether
explicitly or implicitly, contains

1. negation of the existence of Israel as a Jewish, democratic state;

2. incitement to racism.
 3. reasonable ground to deduce that the party will serve as a cover
for illegal actions.44

Both provisions are problematic in that they lay the ground for the
disqualification of a party from competing in elections, or even from
registration, on the basis of implicit possible actions. But then, intentions
can be implicit, but activities speak for themselves. It is unclear how any
one of the above three categories can be implied from an attempt to bring
them about. And if a party could be disqualified just because any of these
issues are conceivably implied from its actions, or even its agenda, then
again the scope for curtailing fundamental democratic rights is too broad,
and the slippery-slope syndrome becomes tangible.
Bearing in mind these two problematic laws, in adopting the terms
‘explicitly or implicitly’, Kremnitzer's draft proposal treads a familiar and
fashionable Israeli path. This, however, is not the path that liberals should
take.

NOTES
1. Cf. Keith Michael Baker (ed.), The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political
Culture, Oxford, 1987; Steven L. Kaplan, Farewell, Revolution: Disputed Legacies: France,
1789–1989, Ithaca, 1995.
2. James Bryce, Modern Democracies, Vol.1, London, 1921, p.4.
3. For further discussion, see C.B. Macpherson, The Real World of Democracy, Oxford, 1972,
Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval, Oxford, 1973, and The Life and Times of Liberal
Democracy, Oxford, 1977. See also Andrew Levine, Liberal Democracy: A Critique of Its
Theory, New York, 1981; J. Roland Pennock, and John W. Chapman (eds.), Liberal Democracy,
New York, 1983; Anne Phillips, Engendering Democracy, Cambridge, 1991; David Held,
‘Democracy: From City-States to a Cosmopolitan Order?’, Political Studies, Vol.XL (1992),
pp.10–39; Robert D. Putnam, Robert Leonardi and Raffaella Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy
Work, Princeton, 1993; Anthony Arblaster, Democracy, Buckingham, 1994.
4. P. Railton, ‘Judicial Review, Elites and Liberal Democracy’, in J.R. Pennock and J.W. Chapman
(eds.), Liberal Democracy, New York, 1983, pp. 153–80; J. Lively, Democracy, Oxford, 1986,
p.51.
5. J.A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, London, 1943, especially pp.284–5;
Bernard Berelson, Paul F. Lazarfeld and William N. McPhee, Voting, Chicago, 1954; G. Sartori,
Democratic Theory, New York, 1962; Lester Milbrath, Political Participation, Chicago, 1965,
especially pp. 143–6; WH. Morris Jones, ‘In Defence of Apathy: Some Doubts on the Duty to
Vote’, Political Studies, Vol.11, No.1 (1954), pp.25–37; Eva Etzioni-Halevy, ‘Elite Power,
Manipulation and Corruption: A Demo-Elite Perspective’, Government and Opposition, Vol.24,
No.2 (1989), pp.215–31.
 Cf. Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory, Cambridge, 1979; Richard Dagger,
6. Civic Virtues, New York, 1977, esp. ch.9.

7. For deliberation on the distinction between neutrality and perfectionism, see Joseph Raz, The
Morality of Freedom, Oxford, 1986; John Rawls, Political Liberalism, New York, 1993; R.
Cohen-Almagor, ‘Between Neutrality and Perfectionism’, The Canadian Journal of Law and
jurisprudence, Vol.VII, No.2 (1994), pp.217–36; Stanley Eugene Fish, The Trouble With
Principle, Cambridge, MA, 1999.
8. Cf. Ronald M. Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, London, 1977, and A Matter of Principle,
Oxford, 1985; R. Cohen-Almagor, The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance, Gainesville, 1994.
9. For further discussion, see Benjamin Neuberger, ‘Israel's Democracy – How Liberal? How
Stable?’, Kaplan Centre Papers, University of Cape Town, 1988, pp. 1–33; Yoav Peled, ‘Ethnic
Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship’, American Political Science Review,
Vol.86, No.2 (1992), pp.432–43.
10. Cf William Janzen, Limits of Liberty: The Experiences of Mennonite, Hutterite, and
Doukhobour Communities in Canada, Toronto, 1990; Robert Williams Jr., ‘Sovereignty,
Racism, Human Rights: Indian Self-Determination and the Postmodern World Legal System’,
Review of Constitutional Studies, Vol.2 (1995), pp. 146–202; Will Kymlicka, Multicultural
Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, Oxford, 1995; Guy Laforest and Roger
Gibbins (eds.), Breaking the Impasse, Montreal, 1997; Will Kymlicka and Raphael Cohen-
Almagor, ‘Democracy and Multiculturalisme in R. Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Challenges to
Democracy: Essays in Honour and Memory of Isaiah Berlin, London, 2000, pp. 89–118.
11. This essay uses the terms ‘Arab’ and ‘Palestinian’ interchangeably when referring Israel's non-
Jewish citizens. In recent years, there has been a growing inclination among these citizens to
define themselves as Israeli Palestinians rather than Israeli Arabs.
12. For further discussion, see Roselle Tekiner, ‘Race and the Issue of National Identity in Israel’,
International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.23 (1991), pp.39–55. See also Raphael
Cohen-Almagor, ‘The Intifada: Causes, Consequences and Future Trends’, Small Wars and
Insurgencies, Vol.2, No.1 (1991), pp. 12–40; Yonathan Shapiro, ‘The Historical Origins of
Israeli Democracy’, in Larry Diamond and Ehud Sprinzak (eds.), Israeli Democracy Under
Stress, Boulder, 1993, pp.65–80, and Riad Ali, ‘Us and You’, Davar Rishon (Israeli daily), 1
February 1996, p.5.
13. The problem of a diffuse, populist sentiment in Germany is fed from different sources, among
them the fear of uncontrolled immigration, particularly from former Eastern Bloc countries;
tensions in the relationship between former East and West Germans; and worries about the
socio-economic stability of the Federal Republic of Germany in general. Between 10 and 15 per
cent of the German people have some reservations regarding foreigners. The number of attacks
on asylum seekers, migrants and Jews has risen tremendously since 1991. Until 1989, the
number of such acts in a given year hardly ever exceeded 100. In 1991, estimates of recorded
acts of violence range from 1,483 to 2,426. The year 1992 witnessed an increase in the number
of such crimes to 6,336. The first quarter of 1993 indicated 1,339 criminal acts against
foreigners. Since 1992, at least twenty-one people have lost their lives. In most cases the
violence was directed against foreigners from south-eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. In the
former GDR, the incidence of violent acts was twice as high as in the former West Germany.
The German government has been criticized for doing little to control the violence or to deal
with the underlying hatred. It is further contended that the police have failed to perform their
duty in several instances. Cf. Peter Frisch, ‘Right-Wing Extremism in Germany’, in German
Democracy on Guard: Confronting Political Extremism, Neo-Nazism and Xenophobia,
 Washington, 1993, pp.3–10; Michael Mertes, ‘Right-Wing Extremism and Radicalism in
Germany’, ibid., pp. 17–22; Wolf-Dieter Pfutzenreuther and Hans-Joachim Veen, lectures in a
conference on German-Israeli Relations held at the Davis Institute, Jerusalem (15–17 June
1993). Transcripts and valuable material were provided by Dr Michael Lange of the Konrad
Adenauer Stiftung. I am grateful to him for his assistance. For information on right-wing
extremist organizations and the measures of the Federal Government to combat extremism and
xenophobia see ‘Xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Germany’, Justice, Vol.2 (June 1994), pp.
12–13, and German Federal Ministry of the Interior, Survey of the Policy and Law Concerning
Foreigners in the FRG, July 1993; Human Rights Watch, ‘Germany for Germans’ – Xenophobia
and Racist Violence in Germany, New York, 1995. See also ‘Soldaten an die Grenzen’, Der
Spiegel, No.37 (9 September 1991), p.36.
14. Austria experienced a growing wave of xenophobia and racism during the 1990s. Jörg Haider,
the controversial leader of the Freedom Party, grows from strength to strength. In the last
national elections, held in October 1999, the far right Freedom Party finished second, gathering
more than 27 per cent of the votes. Haider's declared aim is the office of the Chancellor. ‘A
moral duty for Austria’, editorial, Ha'aretz, 5 October 1999. For further discussion, see Anti-
Defamation League and World Jewish Congress, Anti-Semitism Worldwide, 1997/98, pp.46–52;
Eva Wakolbinger, ‘The Danger of Populism’, in Bernd Baumgartl and Adrian Favell (eds.), New
Xenophobia in Europe, London, 1995, pp. 10–27; Gil Feiler and Rachel Rimon, ‘Xenophobia,
Immigration and Refugee Trends and Legislation in Europe and the Middle East in the
Aftermath of the Cold War’, Newsletter, Vol.7 (1992), The International Association of Jewish
Lawyers and Jurists, pp.5–14.
15. The French Movement against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples (MRAP) estimated
that more than 200 racist murders were committed in France in 1990–91. Hostility towards
immigrants has been exploited by the extreme-right FN of Jean-Marie Le Pen, which won
almost 14 per cent of the vote in regional elections in March 1992. See Feiler and Rimon,
‘Xenophobia’, pp.5–14. For further discussion, see Maxim Silverman, Deconstructing the
Nation: Immigration, Racism and Citizenship in Modern France, London, 1992, especially
chs.4, 6; Shlomo Ben-Ami, ‘The Pang of Conscience’, Ha-aretz, Special Issue dedicated to the
European Unification (December 1992), pp.56–7; Christian Charriere-Bournazel, ‘Immigration
and Asylum – Conflicting Rights and Interests’, Justice, Vol.14 (September 1997), pp.32–3;
Anti-Semitism Worldwide, 1997/98, esp. p.64; Rob Witte, Racist Violence and the State, London,
1996, esp. p.111.
16. On intolerance and prejudice against foreigners in Italy see Stefano Curti, ‘Becoming an
Immigration Country: Italy's New Attempts to Control non-EEC Immigration’, Immigration and
Nationality Law & Practice, Vol.5, No.1 (1991), pp.8–12; Georgio Sacerdoti, ‘Legal Protection
Against Anti-Semitism – The Case of Italy’, Justice, Vol.5 (May 1995), pp.28–30.
17. For further deliberation see Peter Leuprecht, ‘Europe vs. Intolerance’, Justice, Vol.12 (March
1997), pp.27–33.
18. Generally speaking, three groups of people are distinguished in the Jewish population in Israel:
Sephardim, whose origins lie in Asia and Africa; Ashkenazim, whose origins lie in Europe and
America; and Sabras, native-born Israelis. For further discussion see R. Cohen-Almagor,
‘Cultural Pluralism and the Israeli Nation-Building Ideology’, International Journal of Middle
Eastern Studies, Vol.27 (1995), pp.461–84.
19. See David Ben-Gurion, Israel: Years of Challenge, London, 1964, pp.212–40, 233, and Rebirth
and Destiny of Israel, London, 1959, pp.363–80.
20. On the importance of these two basic laws, see Chief Justice Aharon Barak, ‘Constitutional
Revolution: Protected Basic Rights’, Mishpat U-mimshal, Vol.1, No.1 (1992), pp.9–35;
‘Protected Human Rights: Scope and Limitations’, Mishpat U-mimshal, Vol.1, No.2 (1993);
Constitutional Interpretation, Jerusalem, 1994, especially pp.261–646 (all in Hebrew).
21. For criticism of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ metaphor see J.R. Pole, ‘A Bad Case of
Agoraphobia’, Times Literary Supplement, 4 February 1994, pp. 13–14, and his article in
Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Challenges to Democracy.
22. See, for instance, Alf Ross, Why Democracy?, Cambridge, 1952; Hugo L. Black, ‘The Bill of
Rights’, New York University Law Review, Vol.35 (1960), pp.865–81; Alexander Meiklejohn,
Political Freedom, New York, 1965; Aryeh Neier, Defending My Enemy, New York, 1979;
Anthony Skillen, ‘Freedom of Speech’, in Keith Graham (ed.), Contemporary Political
Philosophy, Cambridge, 1982, pp. 139–59; Lee C. Bollinger, The Tolerant Society, Oxford,
1986; Norman Dorsen, ‘Is There A Right to Stop Offensive Speech? The Case of the Nazis at
Skokie’, in Larry Gostin (ed.), Civil Liberties in Conflict, London, 1988, pp. 122–35. See also
Frederick Schauer, ‘The Cost of Communicative Tolerance’, and Owe Fiss, ‘Freedom of Speech
and Political Violence’, both in R. Cohen-Almagor (ed.), Liberal Democracy and the Limits of
Tolerance: Essays in Honor and Memory of Yitzhak Rabin, Ann Arbor, MI, 2000, pp.28–42 and
70–8, respectively.
23. K.R. Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol.1, London, 1957, p.265. See also his essay,
‘Toleration and Intellectual Responsibility’, in S. Mendus and D. Edwards (eds.), On Toleration,
Oxford, 1987, pp. 17–34.
24. Eliezer Shveid, in A. Ravitzky (ed.), Kahanism as a Consciousness and Political Phenomenon,
Jerusalem, 1986, p.47 (in Hebrew).
25. Haim Shibi, ‘Wherever There Is Bloodshed – Kahane Is Around’, Yedioth Ahronoth, 1 August
1985, p.11.
26. Cf. R. Cohen-Almagor, ‘Vigilant Jewish Fundamentalism: From the JDL to Kach (or “Shalom
Jews, Shalom Dogs”)’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.4, No.1 (1992), pp.44–66.
27. See the statements of Shulamit Aloni and Tamar Gojzanski in Protocol No. 14 of the Central
Elections Committee, 17 June 1984 (in Hebrew).
28. E.A. 2/1984, Neiman and Avneri v. Chairperson of the Central Committee for the Elections to
the 11th Knesset, P.D. Vol.39 (ii), p.225 (in Hebrew).
29. Basic Law: The Knesset. Amendment No.9, 1155. Sefer Ha-hukim, 1985 (in Hebrew).
30. E.A. 1/1988, Neiman and Kach v. Chairperson of the Central Committee for the Elections to the
12th Knesset, P.D. Vol.42 (iv), p.177 (in Hebrew).
31. For elaboration on this theme, see R. Cohen-Almagor, The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance,
Gainesville, FL, 1994, esp. ch.11, and ‘Disqualification of Political Parties in Israel: 1988–
1996’, Emory International Law Review, Vol.11, No.1 (1997), pp.67–109. This view differs
significantly from those of Thomas Scanlon and Frederick Schauer, among other philosophers.
While they concentrate on the practical consideration of the magnitude of the threat, I address
the ethical question of the constraints on tolerance since, in my opinion, the fundamental
question is ethical rather than practical. See, Thomas Scanlon, A Theory of Freedom of
Expression’, in R.M. Dworkin (ed.), The Philosophy of Law, Hong Kong, 1977, pp. 153–71;
Frederick Schauer, Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry, New York, 1982.
32. On the split labour market theory see Edna Bonacich, ‘A Theory of Ethnic Antagonism: The
Split Labor market’, American Sociological Review, Vol.37 (1972), pp.547–59, and ‘The Past,
 Present and Future of the Split Labour Market Theory’, Research in Race and Ethnic Relations,
Vol.I (1979). See also Michael Hechter, ‘Group Formation and the Cultural Division of Labour’,
American Journal of Sociology, Vol.84, No.2 (1978), pp.293–318.
33. See Meir Kahane, They Must Go, New York, 1981, Listen World, Listen Jew, New York, 1983,
and Uncomfortable Questions for Comfortable Jews, Secaucus, 1987.
34. The two movements were outlawed on the basis of the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance
(No.33 of 1948). Section 1 of the Ordinance defines ‘terrorist organization’ as ‘a body of
persons resorting in its activities to acts of violence calculated to cause death or injury to a
person or to threats of such acts of violence’. The Ordinance specifies the penalties for activity
and membership in such an organization. Section 2 holds, inter alia, that a person performing a
function in the management or instruction of a terrorist organization or participating in the
deliberations or the framing of the decisions of a terrorist organization or delivering a
propaganda speech on behalf of such an organization commits a criminal offence and is liable to
maximum punishment of twenty years imprisonment. Mere membership in a terrorist
organization is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years (Section 3). In
addition, a person publicly expressing praise, sympathy or encouragement for acts of violence
calculated to cause death or injury, and a person assisting the organization in its activities, is
subject to criminal proceedings and a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment (Section
4). Cf. The Official Gazette, No.24 (29 September 1948).
35. A survey held by the Guttman Institute of Political Social Research in June 1989 by E. Katz, M.
El-Haj and H. Levinson demonstrated that 45 per cent of Israeli Arabs ‘do not feel at home’ in
Israel and 69 per cent felt that discrimination between Jews and Arabs occurs ‘often’ or ‘very
often’.
36. See Don Peretz, Intifada, London, 1990; R. Cohen-Almagor, ‘The Intifada: Causes,
Consequences and Future Trends’, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Vol.2, No.1 (1991), pp.12–40.
37. See, for example, the survey by the magazine Monitin (February 1981), in which 21 per cent
preferred a non-democratic government and 40 per cent supported a strong government of
leaders who were independent of party manipulation and control. The Van-Leer Institute survey
of 1983 tells of 30 per cent of the youth who wish an authoritative government. The Monitin
survey of April 1985 speaks of 36 per cent who ask for a strong government of leaders
independent of party manipulation and 23 per cent who ask explicitly for a non-democratic
government. Ephraim Yaar conducted two surveys in July 1987 and in January 1988, which
brought him to the conclusion that 15–20 per cent of the Israeli public hold anti-democratic
opinions. See Eli Tavor, ‘Israel is Too Democratic’, Yedioth Ahronoth, 20 March 1988, p.17.
38. A survey held in Kiryat-Arba in 1986 showed that 30 per cent of the inhabitants would
forcefully oppose evacuation. The head of the Shomron district council, Benny Katzover, when
asked what would actually happen, answered as follows: ‘I estimate that 95 per cent of the
settlers will leave quietly; 5 per cent will take weapons in their hands’. See Ariella Ringel-
Hoffman, ‘5 per cent Lunatics Will Take Weapons in Their Hands’, Yedioth Ahronoth, 20
January 1989, p.11. Also see Dan Margalit, ‘Isaiah Hammers Again’, Ha-aretz, 27 September
1985, p.15; Orna Qadosh, ‘The Salvation Army’, Ha-ir, 8 November 1985, p.20; statements of
Elyakim Ha-etzniin, Nekuda, No.94 (20 December 1985), pp.22–5; interview with Sefi and
Benny Elon, Yedioth Ahronoth, 7 Days Supplement, 24 November 1995, p.21.
39. Aviva Shabi, ‘In Tel-Mond I have Established the Geula (redemption) Movement’, Yedioth
Ahronoth, Political Supplement, 6 January 1989, p. 13.
40. Yishai and Dina Menuchin (eds.), The Limits of Obedience, Tel Aviv, 1986 (in Hebrew).
 Studies have shown a positive correlation between education and tolerance. See, for example,
41. Samuel Stouffer, Community, Conformity and Civil Liberties, New York, 1955; James W
Prothro and Charles M. Grigg, ‘Fundamental Principles of Democracy: Bases of Agreement and
Disagreement’, Journal of Politics, Vol.22, No.2 (1960), pp.275–94; D.G. Lawrence,
‘Procedural Norms and Tolerance: A Reassessment’, American Political Science Review,
Vol.70, No.1 (1976), pp.80–100; John L. Sullivan, James E. Piereson and George E. Marcus, ‘A
Reconceptualization of Political Tolerance: Illusory Increases 1950s–1970s’, American Political
Science Review, Vol.73, No.3 (1979), pp.781–94; John L. Sullivan, James E. Piereson, George
E. Marcus and Stanley Feldman, ‘The Sources of Political Tolerance: A Multivariate Analysis’,
American Political Science Review, Vol.75, No.1 (1981), pp.92–106; John L. Sullivan, James E.
Piereson and George E. Marcus, Political Tolerance and American Democracy, Chicago, 1982.
42. Kremnitzer explains that by ‘exertion of pressure’ he refers, inter alia, to rabbis who issue
persecution orders (din rodef) against designated individuals.
43. J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism, Liberty, and Representative Government, London, 1948, p.114.
44. Parties Law, 1992, in Dinim, at 12036c (in Hebrew).

__________
Raphael Cohen-Almagor is Chairperson of Library and Information Studies at the University of
Haifa. A former, much shorter version of this essay was published in Tarbut Demokratit, Vol.2
(1999), pp.79–100.
 State-Religion Relations in Israel:
The Subtle Issue Underlying the
Rabin Assassination
EFRAIM BEN-ZADOK

In 1974, Yitzhak Rabin became the new Prime Minister of the Labour-led
government in Israel. Rabin, who had been the Chief of Staff and the hero
of the legendary victory over the Arab countries in the 1967 war, was
attempting to rescue the declining Labour Party, whose leadership was
blamed for the costly results of the indecisive 1973 Yom Kippur War. But
even with Rabin as a premier, Labour's three decades in office would soon
come to an end. The backlash of the war, as well as internal political
rivalries and financial corruptions after long tenure in power, all led to a
Labour defeat in the 1977 elections. A right-wing Likud-led government
then entered office for the first time since the establishment of the state in
1948.1
Not too many Israelis remember, however, the direct cause for the fall of
the first Rabin government just before the 1977 elections. And again,
perhaps not too many Israelis acknowledge the direct cause for the
assassination of Rabin and, as a result, the fall of his second government
just before the 1996 elections. The direct reason for the fall of these two
secular Rabin governments was their tense conflict with powerful elements
in the religious Jewish community.
Rabin stepped down and elections were declared for 17 May 1977, after
the National Religious Party abstained in a no confidence motion against
the government, in effect removing itself from the Labour-led coalition
government. The motion was introduced in the Knesset by Agudat Israel,
another religious party, because of what the party viewed as a government
sponsored violation of the Sabbath. The party claimed that the arrival of the
first American F-15 jets to Israel had been celebrated in a military
ceremony that ended only 15 minutes before sundown on a Friday (10
December 1976), when the Jewish Sabbath begins. The timing of the
official ceremony was much too late for Sabbath observers.2
It was the clash around the holiness of the Sabbath that served as the
direct cause for the fall of the first Rabin government. Ironically perhaps, it
was the clash around another religious issue, the holiness of the Land of
Israel, that was the direct cause for the assassination of the Prime Minister
on 4 November 1995 and the fall of the second Rabin government. The
famous war strategist who emerged to power in 1974, and re-emerged in
1992 to lead Labour back to office after fifteen years of Likud rule, lost in
his final two battles against powerful elements in the religious Jewish
community.
Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom, and the one that has been
repeatedly discussed in the media, was that the Rabin assassination was a
reflection of Israel's left-right debate regarding the future of the West Bank
and Palestinian Autonomy.3 This article argues that this view is only a
partial explanation and that the assassination largely reflected another, more
critical debate – Israel's secular-religious debate regarding state-religion
relations.4 The tension between state and religion, so goes the argument, is
the most subtle and sensitive issue facing Israeli politics today.

THE CONTEXT OF THE RABIN

ASSASSINATION
After Rabin's Labour government signed the September 1993 agreement for
Palestinian self-rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, it triggered the
most sensitive nerve of the secular religious debate regarding state-religion
relations. That is, it violated the holiness of the Land of Israel, something
that is not within the state's authority according to the fundamentalists in the
religious Jewish community. That point was violently made clear by one
fundamentalist, Baruch Goldstein, who released a barrage of bullets in a
Muslim mosque in Hebron, killing 29 Arabs at morning prayers in February
1994. Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were frozen for a few months, but the
government then proceeded to sign the October 1994 peace treaty with
Jordan.5
After Israel began its withdrawal from the West Bank, Jewish
fundamentalists drew their line with a Rabin government that they felt did
not represent them. The Prime Minister was assassinated by one
fundamentalist, Yigal Amir, who took the law into his own hands, hoping to
stop the withdrawal from the holy land of Judea and Samaria (the West
Bank) and to reverse the government's peace policy.
The holiness of the Land of Israel is non-negotiable for Rabin's assassin
and many others in the religious Jewish community in Israel. For most
religious Jews, Amir's horrible act was unacceptable, but for the minority of
fundamentalist religious Jews whom Amir represents, Rabin's murder was
absolutely justified. For them, God sanctified the Land of Israel and its
boundaries forever to the Jewish people. Any attempt to surrender parts of
the land, especially to an enemy, is an unforgivable act against God's will
and a betrayal of the Jewish people. Accordingly, Rabin did exactly that
when he began the Israeli withdrawal from the biblical core of the Holy
Land – Judea and Samaria. He had to be killed because handing this Holy
Land to the Palestinians endangered the life of the Jewish settlers there.6
In the fundamentalists' doctrine, it was the Prime Minister's Day of
Judgement. As Amir would state, ‘I acted alone on God's orders, and I have
no regrets’.7 He continued, ‘I know Jewish law and “din rodef” means that
if you have tried everything else and nothing works, then you have to kill
him’. That was Amir's explanation to the court, referring to the ritual
Hebrew command to kill anyone, including the Prime Minister, who intends
to cause the death of Jews.8
The holiness of the Land of Israel and the importance of settling its
spiritual core – Judea and Samaria – is a central tenet for Amir and many
other religious Jews. Their position, which is advocated by the religious
parties in the Knesset, is that Judea and Samaria must remain under Israeli
control in the future. The right-wing Likud Party shares this position. But
there is a difference. The religious parties come to this position from an
uncompromising religious viewpoint. Likud comes to it from
uncompromising historical and security viewpoints. The few small religious
parties, Likud and a few small nationalistic parties, all constitute the right
wing of Israeli politics.9
After the Rabin assassination, the right, still in opposition at the time,
continued to maintain its traditional position that Judea and Samaria must
remain under Israeli control. But ‘security’ turned out to be the
overwhelming justification for this position. The shrill tones of the religious
and historical justifications, that characterized the political rallies against
the Rabin government in 1995, were barely heard again. The right even
became somewhat more moderate in its security-driven peace policy.
Indeed, this more pragmatic platform ultimately proved helpful in bringing
the right wing back to power in the May 1996 elections.
The leader of Likud, Binyamin Netanyahu, claimed after the
assassination that Rabin had been ‘slain by a madman’ who stood outside of
the legitimate left-right public debate on the future of Judea and Samaria.
But Netanyahu and other right-wing leaders had often been associated with
the tense political atmosphere that existed before the assassination. They
were silent when the late Prime Minister was called ‘traitor’ and ‘murderer’
at rallies and protests. They said nothing when he was pictured with a
hooked nose dripping blood (as a Jew in the Nazi paper Der Sturmer) and
was caricatured in the uniforms of an SS officer and the Palestinian leader
Yasser Arafat.10
Alas for Likud and its allied parties, the Rabin assassination will
probably remain a major traumatic event in Israel's political history. For the
historical record, Amir's act has been interpreted by the right as the result of
madness. In turn, the court denied this diagnosis,11 and the left viewed the
assassination as the result of collective right-wing ideology. This belief is
only partially correct and the issue is far more complicated. The deeper
motive for Amir's act was religious – that is, Jewish ownership of the Holy
Land of Judea and Samaria which was sanctified by God to the Jewish
people. Politicians and the public have downplayed this motive because it
touches on Israel's most divisive domestic issue – state-religion relations.

STATE-RELIGION RELATIONS
This issue has always been the most sensitive and complex in Israeli
politics. It is largely due to the tension between state and religion that Israel
does not have a constitution. The Rabin assassination is a striking
representation of this tension. If the issue of the assassination is subjected to
a serious inquiry (beyond the already-completed security investigation), it
could lead to a public debate on Israel's most sensitive issue – state-religion
relations. This would be risky and costly to both Likud and Labour, and
neither of the two parties can afford to alienate the religious parties.
The religious parties have historically held a little under one-sixth of the
total electoral power, but they have always been a vital element required to
form the parliamentary majority upon which the secular-controlled coalition
governments were built. Perhaps few remember today that Rabin himself
relied on them when he accelerated the settlement in the West Bank in the
mid-1970s. The religious parties increased their votes dramatically from 14
to 20 per cent in the 1996 elections and occupied 23 seats out of the 120 in
the Knesset. And they have continued to play an increasingly crucial role.
The political strength of the religious parties is evident in their
tremendous bargaining power, which has enabled them to gain a
disproportionately large slice of the government budget and control state-
sponsored religious institutions, including schools, religious councils,
rabbinate offices, synagogues, cemeteries, offices to supervise the
observance of the Sabbath and kosher dietary laws, and religious courts
which deal with matters of personal status such as marriage and divorce.12
The Israeli public, like its politicians, has generally been reluctant to
open the divisive and sensitive issue of state-religion relations. Even the
secular majority in Israel, although non-observant, maintains favourable
attitudes towards religious values, including that of the holiness of the Land
of Israel. The secular majority also accepts the legitimacy of the state-
sponsored religious institutions mentioned before.13
This blurred and fragile status quo is carefully maintained and threats
upon it are usually swept under the rug. That is why the Israeli public
avoids a secular-religious debate on the Rabin assassination – for this would
mean a debate on the issue of the holiness of the Land of Israel, which
would lead in turn to debate on the broader, and potentially explosive, issue
of state-religion relations.
POST-1996 ELECTIONS
After the 29 May 1996 elections, Israelis continued to debate the future of
the West Bank along the left-right line of security and defence policy. The
elections did not provide a clear direction for the debate. The votes for the
Knesset and the premiership were very close: 34 and 32 seats went to
Labour and Likud respectively, and 50.5 per cent and 49.5 per cent went to
Netanyahu and Peres respectively.14
In the new government, Prime Minister Netanyahu, despite his historical
rhetoric on Judea and Samaria, tried to be pragmatic at the beginning and
kept security needs as the base for policy-making in the West Bank. But the
new Prime Minister had little experience and many hurdles, and he faced
tremendous pressures from his religious partners in government. By the end
of 1996, the government was involved in a struggle concerning the
withdrawal from the West Bank town of Hebron. The withdrawal was
delayed time and again due to disagreement on the future settlers residing
there amid 120,000 Arabs.15
In the Knesset, the religious parties, with a record number of seats,
increased the demands for state-sponsored religious legislation and the
enforcement of religious observance in local communities. Sometimes they
even surprised the Likud politicians who had become concerned with the
state's democratic foundations.16 Right- and left-wing politicians have
constantly voiced their opinions in favour of a Likud-Labour National
Unity Government to oppose religious demands. In the streets, secular and
religious Israelis have been confronting each other more and more over
both the future of the West Bank settlements and the moral norms of
everyday life in the community, and the silent status quo has been
challenged by all sides.17 Academia and the media have been constantly
assessing the possibility of a secular-religious kulturkampf whose potential
increasingly threatens the fragile balance in society.18

FUTURE DIRECTION
For many religious Israelis, Amir did not represent an outcast who had
crossed the boundaries of the legitimate political debate. Rather, he was the
messenger of God, symbolizing the eternal holiness of the Land, which
goes far beyond the secular issues of security and peace or other mundane
issues of the politics of the day. His strike bluntly indicated that the state is
subjected to religion. This extreme view is diametrically opposed by the
secular majority and is probably unpopular among most religious Jews in
Israel. At the same time, the vast majority of Israelis are still not ready for a
fully-fledged debate on state-religion relations.
The commonly held view of Orthodox Judaism as the only outlet to
practice religion is a major obstacle for opening the debate. Orthodox
Judaism is functioning as the official state religion, with a monopoly over
government resources that are denied to other religious Jewish streams, and
it is generally viewed as the only religious option available. The Jewish
streams that offer more liberal religious practices and are so common in the
West have only a small, albeit growing, representation in Israel. These
streams, conservative, reform, and reconstructionist, provide a wide range
of views on the relations between state and religion. If the vast majority of
Israelis are to become familiar with these streams and their views, the
coming debate on state-religion relations will be more open and tolerant and
will yield more effective and constructive results.
Keeping the state-religion issue suppressed, something which has served
Jewish unity in the past, equally serves Jewish separatism in the present.
The silent historical debate is becoming vocal and will only be accelerated
by the peace process and the increasing legislative pressures on the
religious parties. The issue of state-religion relations is likely to be the
subject of a crucial public debate in the near future, a debate on the essence
of the Zionist state. The largely secular Israeli democracy will find it more
and more difficult to fund public religious institutions and allow them to
control private life. It will deal more openly with these painful ideological
contradictions and theocratic trends.
Indeed, on the one hand, the Rabin assassination quickly faded from the
news headlines. Hizballah and Hamas terrorism, the Palestinian and Israel
elections, the faltering peace process and the local confrontations in the
West Bank, leading to the new intifada have all captured the headlines. On
the other hand, political assassinations usually leave deep scars in the
national psychology and become entrenched in the collective memories.19
The Rabin assassination is the undercurrent that continues to drive the
mainstream of Israeli politics in its attempt for peace with the Arabs and for
reforms of the secular-religious status quo.
The public debate, which has been repressed for decades, must soon be
brought to the forefront of Israeli politics. It will be a debate on the meaning
of the state and its relations with religion. It is not yet clear which road will
eventually be taken between these two. But the road of the past, where the
issue was hidden, must not be taken again.

NOTES
1. Nadav Safran, Israel: The Embattled Ally, Cambridge, 1981, pp.172–99.
2. Ibid., p.196.
3. For this prevalent view, see for example Israel's two leading daily newspapers – Ma'ariv and
Yedioth Aharonoth, November–December 1995.
4. A number of critical essays discuss the religious-ethical meaning of the assassination. See for
example Danny Ben-Moshe, ‘The True Meaning of the Rabin Assassination’, Israel Affairs,
Vol.2, No.2 (1995), pp.136–41; Marc H. Ellis, ‘Murdering Rabin and the Jewish Covenant’,
Middle East Policy, Vol.4, No.3 (1996), pp.72–83; and Isi J. Leibler, ‘The Cancer Within
Religious Zionism’, Midstream, (February–March 1996), pp.2–4.
5. Robert Slater, Rabin of Israel: Warrior for Peace, London, 1996, pp.587–98.
6. For a further analysis on fundamental religious Judaism and the holiness of the Land of Israel,
see Ian S. Lustick, For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, New York,
1988.
7. New York Times, 6 November 1995.
8. Jewish Journal, 13 March 1996.
9. On these ideological differences within the right, see Giora Goldberg, ‘Gush Emunim New
Settlements in the West Bank: From Social Movement to Regional Interest Group’, in E. Ben-
Zadok (ed.), Local Communities and the Israeli Polity: Conflict of Values and Interests, Albany,
1993, pp.189–208.
10. Leibler, ‘The Cancer Within Religious Zionism’; see also New York Times, 6 November 1995.
11. Ma'ariv, 3 March 1996.
12. For more on the political economy of the religious parties, see Safran, Israel, pp.200–19. See
also Aaron P. Willis, ‘Shas – The Sephardic Tora Guardians: Religious “Movement” and
Political Power’, in A. Arian and M. Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel, 1992, Albany, 1995,
pp.121–39.
13. Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel, Berkeley, 1983.
14. Ma'ariv, 2 June 1996.
15. New York Times, 31 December 1996.
16. Ma'ariv, 7 June 1996.
 One interesting confrontation was between a secular student and the religious Bar-Ilan
17. University in October 1997. The student, who was found ineligible for on-campus housing
because he was not religiously observant, has continued to struggle against the university for his
right to live on-campus. See Jewish Journal, 22 October 1997.
18. Ma'ariv, 13 September 1996; Yedioth Aharonoth, 22 September 1996.
19. A special memorial service for Rabin has been held yearly already on the Gedaliyahu Fast day.
Gedaliyahu was an historic Jewish governor who was assassinated by a Jew. The fast in his
memory takes place on the fourth day of the month of Tishri in the Jewish calendar.

______________
Efraim Ben-Zadok is Professor of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University.
 Referenda in a Post-Consociational
Democracy: The Case of Israel
DANA ARIELI-HOROWITZ

Since its establishment Israel has never enacted a referendum, though from
time to time there have been calls to make use of this instrument, either as a
one-time decision-making device, or as a permanent mechanism designed
to reflect the will of the people on a regular basis. Israel is one of a small
number of countries which have never deployed a referendum.1
Arguably, there have been a number of issues which would have been
suitable for a direct choice made by the electorate: the agreement with West
Germany in 1952 for payments in reparation for Nazi war crimes; the
withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in 1956; the establishment of
diplomatic relations with West Germany; ceasefire agreements with Arab
countries; the signing of the peace agreement with Egypt; the making of
recent peace agreements with Jordan and the PLO; as well as a number of
moral issues, in particular those bearing on the relationship between
religion and the state.2
This article argues that the main stumbling block in the use of referenda
as a decision-making device in Israel originates from the heavy emphasis
placed upon a representative form of government in ‘quasi-consociational’
democracy.3 As opposed to consociational democracy, in which the
‘centrifugal tendencies inherent in a plural society are counteracted by the
cooperative attitudes and behavior of the leaders of the different segments
of the population’,4 the ‘quasi-consociational’ tradition is reflected, as
Horowitz and Lissak claim, ‘in arrangements granting partial autonomy in
the provision of services on a particularistic basis to cultural, ideological or
political enclaves’,5 which promote a political culture of representative
democracy.
 As this tradition retreated, inroads were made both into the armour of the
representative model and the Zionist ideological consensus upon which this
model was based. It was only then that demands for the deployment of
referenda began to appear. Within comparative context one must examine
how strongly the absence of use of the referendum device correlated with
the consociational characteristics of Israel, and to what extent this
correlation is universal.
Bogdanor distinguishes between two types of democracies in western
Europe, which hardly ever use the referendum. ‘The first such society’, he
claims ‘is a pluralistic one such as Belgium, or a consociational democracy
such as Austria or the Netherlands’.6 The second type of democracy in
which the referendum will not be given a prominent place is one that has
just emerged from dictatorship. He then explains that the referendum is ill-
suited to a divided society, ‘Such a society, in order to obtain stability needs
to employ strategies that depart from the majoritarian model’.7 This
approach suggests that the reluctance to use the referendum in Israeli
democracy is not a unique phenomena, but a reflection of the nature of the
political system.
Butler and Ranney single out four democracies that have never held a
referendum, namely, Japan and India, described as ‘former one-party
democracies’, and the Netherlands and Israel – two examples of the
consociational model. Belgium and Austria – described as exhibiting
consociational traits – are grouped under the category of countries which
held one referendum only as an ‘instrument of radical change’.8 It can
therefore be concluded that the countries which represent some version of
the consociational model show little tendency to employ referenda.
An exception to this trend is Switzerland, which since the 1950s has
exhibited quasi-consociational characteristics. Butler and Ranney are well
aware of the problem posed by the Swiss example; they point out that the
consociational patterns of political action have left their imprint on the
referenda issues in that country and imposed rules of the game whereby a
large proportion of referenda are of a constitutional, incremental and
technical nature.9
Having studied the degree of aggressiveness of Swiss political parties in
their efforts to mobilize supporters, Alan Ware came to a similar
conclusion. He argued that the ‘non-competitive’ features of the Swiss
political system cushioned the divisive impact of potential cleavages.10 By
the same token, questions of critical importance for ethnic divisions can be
expected not to figure prominently as referenda issues.
In this context Lijphart's discussion of Switzerland as a quasi-
consociational society displaying attributes of direct democracy – in
apparent contradiction to consociationalism – is of considerable interest. On
the one hand, the Swiss appear to be in need of instruments designed to
establish compromise among the country's elites, and, therefore, for
representatives. At the same time, however, they make decisions on a
variety of issues without interference from these representatives who
conduct negotiations aimed at compromise. Lijphart concludes:
‘Switzerland therefore exhibits a curious mixture of proportional delegation
of decisions of the level of national executive with occasional lapses into
polar opposite direct democracy with majority rule’.11

THE DECLINE OF THE REPRESENTATIVE

MODEL
In the period that preceded the establishment of the state, Israeli democracy
rested upon a voluntaristic model of authority without sovereignty.12 In a
voluntaristic society that is intent upon nation-building, the constant threat
of departure from the government encourages coalition politics and
negotiation. In the British Mandate period, negotiation for compromise and
consensus in the Jewish society aimed at preventing social or ideological
groups from leaving the political centre. Representative democracy
therefore came into existence as a by-product of a voluntaristic society.
Representative politics accorded well with the form of party organization
prevalent in the Yishuv of the 1920s and the 1930s; the parties performed a
number of functions related to the absorption of immigrants, and the Jewish
collectivity engendered a large number of political institutions. Following
the establishment of the state, and with the influx of hundreds of thousands
of new immigrants, the parties became so important that Israeli democracy
was termed statpartei.13 In fact, Israeli democracy emerged directly from
consociational praxis and activity; it lacks a liberal, constitutional
tradition,14 or European continental conceptions of popular sovereignty
such as the model that came into existence in the French Revolution.
The logic of Zionist politics forestalled the emergence of a framework
conducive to the development of a contractual-individualistic conception of
democracy whereby citizens participate freely in fateful decisions. Instead,
the model of citizenship in Israel incorporates a special fusion of obliged
consent and willing expression of solidarity15 with the claims to authority
made by the political mainstream.
The form of democratic authority that crystallized in a ‘garrison state’16
further strengthened the trend for reliance upon the representative model.
The politico-military elite gained the appearance of an entity that governed
at times of crisis with appropriate skill, and that formulated decisive foreign
and security policies on the basis of prudent decisions. A culture of secrecy,
bolstered by the co-optation of the media, also strengthened the trends of
representative democracy in which the public gives a mandate to policy-
makers, and the public's participation in the invisible processes of decision-
making undertaken by representatives is tenuous at best.17
The emphasis upon the representative, quasi-consociational model
characterized domestic issues in Israeli politics as well. The cleavage
between religious and secular citizens in Israeli society demanded
regulation in terms of what was called the status quo – a parliamentary
framework of compromise and bargaining between elites.18
Ben-Gurion justified the status quo machinery with ideological
arguments. He claimed that the period of nation-building was not a time
ripe for solving issues of identity, because collective questions had to be
solved first. This solution in the form of compromise and bargaining led to
the deferral of the promulgation of a constitution in Israel, and decisions on
several fundamental issues were based on a number of basic laws.
Since the end of the 1980s, a group of sociologists have been describing
Israel as a ‘post-Zionist’ society.19 In the political system, this trend has
manifested itself in the demand for party primaries, the adoption of a quasi-
presidential model in which the prime minister is elected directly by the
electorate, changes in patterns of leisure, the increased use of public opinion
polls as an instrument in the formation of policy, and the calls for the use of
referenda. All these developments are claimed to reflect uneasiness with
‘inadequate accountability’.20 Whereas Zionist ideology and the challenges
of state-building were identified with the representative/consociational
model, post-Zionism is portrayed as a backlash against the machinery of
representative democracy, and as a demand for direct democracy.21
This development, however, can hardly be described as linear and
symmetrical, as different groups have a complex relationship with it. The
consociational values of compromise and bargaining both left their imprint
on the political culture, particularly in the form of the idea of ‘consensus’,
which cemented collectivism while binding together groups with
considerable potential for conflict. However, many Israelis no longer regard
such ‘cementing’ norms as binding, though the segmental autonomy, which
Lijphardt described as the ‘most striking consociational element’22 of
Israeli society, has not disappeared. Instead, it now encompasses only
‘substantial’ minorities, while the majority remains outside its bounds.
The multi-party political system, the coalition bargaining and the balance
between religious and secular Israelis have retained numerous vestiges of
the consociational era. At the same time, however, the social accords which
until recently constituted one of the pillars of Israeli political culture in the
consociational era appear to have lost their grip on the country's various
elites.23

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE CALLS

FOR REFERENDA
The history of calls for the establishment of referenda in Israel coincides
with periods of discontent with the quasi-consociational model. In the
1950s, when de Gaulle was articulating the vision of a plebiscite
democracy,24 Ben-Gurion embraced a proposal to use the referendum to
further constitutional changes and reform in the electoral system.25 At the
same time, Ben-Gurion qualified this proposal by arguing that the intention
was not to involve citizens in decision-making matters which they were ill-
equipped to judge; instead, he viewed the referendum as an instrument
useful in laying down the rules of the game by which citizens would come
to elect their representatives. Ben-Gurion sought to establish regional
elections, which would promote the formation of a two-party system along
the lines of the Anglo-Saxon model. In this manner, he hoped to weaken the
small parties without harming the principle of representative democracy.
Interestingly, Ben-Gurion did not discern the contradiction between
consociationalism and the system of elections he proposed.
Ben-Gurion offered an explanation for the absence of referenda from
Israeli politics prior to 1958. He claimed that as a result of an emergency
situation at the time of the establishment of the state, citizens forfeited their
ability to decide how their representatives ought to be chosen. Ben-Gurion's
political opponents and historians alike were not convinced that the
authoritative leader of the young state really believed in the social contract
theory of democracy. Still, his argument suggests that he viewed the quasi-
consociational model not as an ideal system but as method forced by
circumstance.26 On the other hand, when confronted by opposition
legislation promoting direct democracy a few months later, Ben-Gurion's
party member called these proposals ‘fascist’ and ‘totalitarian’.
The absence of debate over referenda in the first two decades of the
existence of the state only brings into sharp relief the fact that during that
time Israel absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants from
many different countries. The prolonged process of acculturation and their
socialization into the political system stood in contradiction to the models
of direct democracy. These processes, in conjunction with traditions of
representational democracy and the fact that, during the period in question,
one party dominated the political system, explain why the agenda of
proposals for constitutional reforms favoured solutions in the shape of
reform of the electoral system.
To these explanations we should add also the fundamental test of
legitimacy of a political venture, radical as it may be: the peace treaty with
Egypt, for example, enjoyed the sweeping support of the Israeli electorate.
The representative model was not put to the test at the time, neither within
the political system nor outside of it. Although Israel made fateful policy
decisions on many questions, it emerged that they enjoyed broad legitimacy.
At the same time, however, we should bear in mind that their appearance on
the national agenda coincided with strong sway exerted by the
consociational model over the country's political culture.
 The popular image of the referendum as a highly legitimate device was
useful as a political bargaining chip during negotiations over coalitions and
the composition of the government. Animated by strong ideological
commitments, the small parties would not give their assent to positions on
controversial issues unless they were formulated in ambiguous ideological
terms. Agreements that such parties signed with the majority party forming
the coalition included a special clause: divisive issues such as the future
disposition of the disputed territories would be decided either through a
referendum or elections. Examination of such coalition agreements suggest
that though the public viewed these arrangements as commitments to a
referendum, they were usually formulated vaguely, and in most instances
amounted to an obligation to call for elections.27
Preference for the option of new elections rather than a referendum
stemmed from the fact that a government whose coalition partners differed
about some pivotal issue could not be expected to last long in any case; the
referendum was likely in all events to be followed by elections.
Furthermore, resolving a problematic issue through a referendum violated
the principle of mutual responsibility.28

THE POLITICS OF ‘MUTUAL VETO’

A deep political crisis transpired in Israel in 1990 when the National Unity
Government, which was based on the rule of ‘mutual veto’,29 became mired
in a deadlock of the parliamentary system. The rule of mutual veto, or
consensus by agreement, dissipated when the question of the continuation
of the political process with the Arabs came to the fore. Under these
circumstances, the ultra-Orthodox parties, whose consent on an issue was
necessary to keep the coalition together in parliament,30 wielded power that
was entirely disproportionate, especially since they did not much care about
this particular issue, which primarily divides left from right.
While the ultra-Orthodox parties made extraordinary demands as their
price for remaining in the coalition, the two main political parties engaged
in negotiations with them aimed at forming an alternative to the National
Unity government. The behaviour of the religious parties, in conjunction
with the unsavoury nature of the negotiations, caused a feeling that the
quasi-consociational model had reached the point of absurdity and had lost
its efficacy.
The large, extra-parliamentary protest movement that arose at this time
called for a three-pronged constitutional reform. Representative democracy
was called upon to enact a constitution for Israel, change the system of
election to the Knesset, and allow for the direct election of the prime
minister. Thousands of demonstrators and hunger strikers threatened to
break into the Knesset, providing a striking testimony of the low popular
regard for it and the Israeli government.
The protest movement's agenda was accompanied by popular demands
for the arrangement of a referendum to confirm the called-for reform. The
apparatus of direct democracy was described at this point as the only
method that could guarantee the accountability of the elected
representatives. The call for a referendum accelerated the decline of the
legitimacy of the representative model, even though it was not a central part
of the 1990 protest movement platform.
The movement for reforming the government focused its efforts on
parliamentary lobbying aimed at passing reform legislation. Acting from a
position of strength, this extra-parliamentary movement decided to pursue
the representative parliamentary track to reform the system. The utilization
of direct democracy devices was designed as a fallback position.
As early as the 1980s, other forces had come into play, pushing the call
for the implementation of a referendum onto Israel's national agenda. The
political fringe Kach party, which the Supreme Court had described as an
anti-democratic and racist organization and had subsequently disqualified
from participating in the elections for the twelfth Knesset,31 campaigned in
favour of a referendum. Kach deployed a slogan, ‘the people will decide’,
which depicted the Knesset, the Supreme Court and the government as
agents who distorted the will of the electorate. This slogan dovetailed with
the party's propaganda that portrayed its leader, Rabbi Kahane, as daring to
say what many Israelis thought about the Arabs.
Mainstream parties whose platforms focused upon economic issues, or
specific group based parties like those comprised of new immigrants from
the former Soviet Union, made use of the call for a referendum to obfuscate
their positions on the issue of the future control of the disputed territories.
By committing themselves to a referendum, such ‘one-issue’ parties
expected to boost the ranks of potential supporters. In cases where they
gained the number of votes necessary for representation in the Knesset,
their delegates could join the government coalition on the grounds that they
were committed to a referendum in the event that questions concerning
territorial compromise had to be confronted.
Until the 1990s, no serious debate about referenda as a means of deciding
controversial issues was held in the Knesset. One reason for the absence of
such a debate had to do with the negative image of direct democracy, as
well as several proposals for ‘theoretical referenda’.32 Proposals for
referenda of this type involved issues of importance to the nation's future in
a hypothetical fashion, and were not designed to ratify a concrete
agreement. On one occasion, for example, a right-wing Knesset member
suggested that the electorate ought to be asked whether they agreed that the
‘Israeli government should transfer control of parts of the Land of Israel to
terrorist organizations’.33 Phrased in such a provocative and inflammatory
manner, the proposal diverted the attention of the Knesset away from
considering the usefulness of a referendum.34

A REFERENDUM ON PEACE TREATY WITH

‘TERRITORIAL CONCESSIONS’
The Labour Party's victory in 1992 marked a potential turning point in
terms of the future disposition of the disputed territories controlled by
Israel. Since positions taken on the issue of territorial compromise involved
complex questions of Israeli collective identity,35 opponents of such a
compromise argued that any peace agreement that involved withdrawal
from areas controlled by Israel could not be accorded legitimacy except
through a special process. Responding to claims that his government lacked
a ‘mandate’ to effect territorial concessions, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
declared that any agreement involving ‘territorial concessions’ would be put
to a referendum. Rabin's promise turned out to be quite effective in
deflecting protest against the enactment of agreements with the Palestinians
and with Arab states.
 In fact, a public opinion survey showed that a majority of Israelis
believed that any peace agreement involving ‘territorial concessions’ should
be ratified by a referendum or elections.36 Right-wing politicians felt
trapped by the Prime Minister's commitment because, by their very nature,
the negotiations proceeded stage by stage; between each stage the status of
the territories changed, and the autonomy granted to the Palestinians gained
substance. A referendum addressing the issue of withdrawal from the
territories could only ratify retroactively the Oslo agreements, and it would
probably include a decision as to the evacuation of Jewish settlements in the
territories. The decision as to when and at what stage a referendum would
be held was likely to be arbitrary, if not manipulative.
The government's commitment to hold a referendum sparked a public
debate on two levels. On one level, the debate involved the question of
indirect democracy along the lines of the quasi-consociational model, as
opposed to direct democracy in the context of post-Zionist politics. Another
debate was triggered about the advantages and disadvantages of a
referendum as a means of reaching decisions – not just in the context of a
peace agreement, but also in the context of domestic policy.
After Prime Minister Rabin's assassination in November 1995, the
question of holding a referendum was left untouched for another three
years. In 1998, Binyamin Netanyhu, reflecting his uneasiness with the Oslo
agreement, called for a referendum concerning any further withdrawal from
the territories. This time a number of private bills were proposed in the
Knesset to influence the final version of the referendum. Prior to the 1999
general elections in Israel, Ehud Barak promised that any withdrawal from
the Golan Heights would be put to a referendum. Once elected as Prime
Minister, Barak seemed committed to his preelection obligation and the
possibility of holding the first referendum in Israel appeared inevitable.

THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST THE

REFERENDUM IN ISRAEL
The fears of opponents of referenda in Israeli democracy focus on the
channels through which conflicts between Arabs and Jews, left and right,
and Jews of different ethnic origins are regulated. They claim that referenda
are especially threatening to the current political culture, which moderates
conflict between secular and religious citizens. Last but not least, opponents
of referenda argue that policy decisions made directly by the majority are
apt to endanger the existing state of social solidarity; this particular claim
originates in a cluster of widely-held images which provide ready-made
definitions about the character of a ‘good society’ (in terms of borders, the
status of religion, culture and the state of economic well-being).
Critics of referenda also maintain that as a decision-making instrument of
direct democracy, its use in the context of state and religion would bring
about the withdrawal of religious groups from the political arena. By
assuming that the source of authority commanded by religious Jews was not
political, this position suggests that one of the advantages of the quasi-
consociational model in Israel was that it did defer a decision as to the
symbolic source of sovereignty in society.37
The partial rupture of liberal democratic values in Israeli society troubles
those who side with regulated representative democracy. They claim that
direct democracy is liable to degenerate and give way to personal
populism;38 since the country lacks a constitution, politicians would be able
to appeal directly to voters and bypass the legislative branch. This claim
appeared to gain in potency as Israel embarked on the quasi-presidential
model in 1996, and in light of changes in mass-communications that
include the advent of cable television and commercial channels.
The influence of terrorism upon Israeli society is also related to the
danger of the weakening of regulation by representative forces. Public
opinion in Israel and the nation's mood is often influenced by the
occurrence of ‘traumatic’ events. Various political groups in Israeli society
make use of public rage in order to advance their own agendas, while the
organizations that carry out terrorist attacks attempt to perpetrate acts that
will have a significant impact upon Israeli society. Critics thus claim that
referenda are more likely than elections to be influenced by dramatic
events.39
Another claim used in the argument against referenda relates to the
special composition of Israeli society. This argument focuses upon
peripheral groups,40 particularly the Arabs, whose status in the democratic
state of the Jewish people41 is ambiguous in both bureaucratic and
constitutional terms. Both the quasi-consociational model in Israel, and the
political culture which derived from it, created representative machinery
which promoted the participation of Arab Israeli citizens in the political
process. In a case where a referendum was arranged to address the subject
of the status of the Jewish religion in Israel, there would be an imperative to
overcome the call to disqualify the enfranchisement and participation of
Arab Israeli citizens on various issues related to the character of the Jewish
society.
In fact, ever since the subject of referenda as the means to ratify peace
agreements has made its way onto the national agenda in Israel, right-wing
parties have voiced a call to disqualify Arab Israelis from participation in
referenda so that decisions are made on the basis of a ‘Jewish majority’.42
This argument, termed racist by Prime Minister Rabin, holds that Arab
Israelis would be forced to decide between loyalty to the Palestinian people
and loyalty to the State of Israel.
The quasi-consociational model of Israeli democracy is based upon the
postulated existence of a centre that regulates political extremes. The
regulatory machinery, which operates Israel's representative democracy,
bridges over the fissures and leaves politicians with a relatively large room
for manoeuvre. Critics of referenda claim that the machinery of direct
democracy will accentuate the areas of fissure and exacerbate the existing
conflicts in Israeli society.
Proponents of referenda who view the device as a means of reaching
decisions on divisive issues define referenda as a harness that reins in the
excessive and alienating power of political parties. They also view them as
a counter-balance that should rectify the situation, which has ensued for a
long period, whereby consociationalism cloaks what in many spheres
amounts to a dictatorship of the minority. Advocates of the use of referenda
in Israel argue that their support for this electoral device fits well with the
general tendency toward the establishment of forms of direct democracy – a
trend discernible in party primaries, in the direct election of the prime
minister, in the strengthening of interest groups, and in the attempt to draft a
patchwork constitution by incorporating basic laws. Under these
circumstances, the use of referenda can have functional merit in an
educational sense, and ‘bring the public closer to legislative processes and
to political activity’.43
 A post-Zionist approach is closely related to some of the arguments in
favour of referenda. According to this approach, the period of emergency
and state-building has ended, and Israeli society should reach decisions in a
way that accords with her situation in a period of ‘normalization’.44 The
transition from a Zionist to a post-Zionist era is related, in terms of this
conception, to the necessity of defining the borders of the Israeli collective.
Decision on this matter will indeed be difficult, yet the deployment of the
instruments of direct democracy, so the argument goes, will enhance the
legitimacy of the choice made by the electorate.
Some defenders of referenda in Israel argue for a version in which
selective use is made of the devices of direct democracy; that is, these
instruments should penetrate Israeli politics on the level of local
government, as used, for the first time recently, in Japan.45 Only after their
usefulness in the resolution of municipal issues is reviewed gradually, and
only to the extent that an appropriate political culture is created, will it be
prudent to use referenda for issues that concern the entire population.
Another selective approach advocated by some proponents of referenda
argues for their use exclusively on the issue of the ratification of peace
agreements; this exceptional resort to referenda would be accompanied by
the nullification of any possibility of the further use of such an instrument
of direct democracy. Advocacy of such one-time use derives its logic from
the apprehension that if direct democracy is not conferred special, formal
legitimacy and status, the political establishment is liable to fall into a
tailspin, with the outcome being a bitter struggle between left and right.
Beyond sociological arguments on both sides, the one-time or continual
use of referenda in Israel would engender a host of technical problems.
Most of these problems are universal and relate to the democratic theory of
the referendum. Others, even if only a few in number, are peculiar to the
Israeli case.
As an expression of a direct choice made by voters, a referendum is
based upon an assumption about the flow of information and the electorate's
ability to judge.46 In a manner similar to the complexity of the Maastricht
agreements, the agreements reached between Israel, the Palestinians and the
Arab states involve treaties with complicated clauses and often abstruse
phrasing that is not easily understood without a legal background.
Proponents of referenda argue that this obstacle is overcome by the
effective use of a system of explanation that would simplify the public
discussion as much as possible. Among the critics of the use of referenda,
however, there are those who point out that, in contrast to the Maastricht
agreements, there are hidden aspects of the agreements to which Israel is
signed that are not amenable to public discussion. Such issues include
Israel's nuclear policy and that of other countries in the Middle East;
collaboration by intelligence agencies in the struggle against groups
opposed to the peace process; or understandings reached with other
countries that are not parties to the peace process.47 These are just a few of
the complex examples that could be mentioned here.
The question of what should constitute a decisive majority in a
referendum that addresses territorial compromise concerning the areas now
under Israeli occupation touches upon more than the issue of the inclusion
of non-dominant groups. Public opinion polls suggest that Israeli society is
divided down the middle when it comes to the question of the collective's
borders, even though there is a slight majority in favour of the peace
agreements.
Intended as a device that bolsters the legitimacy of important decisions, a
referendum is indeed built upon the premise of a simple majority. Still, in
instances where the majority that favours a certain policy is slight, as in the
case of the Danish, French and even the Norwegian votes on the Maastricht
agreements, the results of the polling can hardly be described as
strengthening the policy. There is also always an apprehension that a
referendum will be boycotted, or that its results will not be recognized, and
if this were to happen, the failure of the referendum experiment would be
likely to lead to a serious fracture in Israeli democracy. Statements made by
various opponents of the peace agreements with the Palestinians and the
Arab states imply a view that there is no political mechanism able to bestow
legitimacy upon a compromise on the issue of territories now controlled by
Israel. These opponents aver that the geographical entity of the biblical
Land of Israel belongs eternally to the Jewish people; and thus a
referendum would have to take into ‘account the wills of all the Jews who
have lived and died’.

CONCLUSION
By the end of the 1980s, Israeli society was showing signs of dissatisfaction
with the model of quasi-consociationalism prevalent until then. A model of
direct democracy aimed at enhancing the accountability of politicians was
proposed as an alternative to representative, regulated democracy. In this
context, extra-parliamentary protest groups attempted to exert pressure in
favour of constitutional reform; such reform, they claimed, would curb the
power of the small parties and enhance the governance of Israeli society.
This call for reform was accompanied by an individualist platform that
urged, among other things, that a constitution protecting human rights and
the rights of citizens be adopted. As a reaction against the collectivist
strains of Israeli society, this individualist orientation coincided with a
demand for a transition from the model of representative democracy to the
model of direct democracy.
The necessity of reaching a decision about the future of the borders of the
Israeli collective was played out against the backdrop of these processes of
change in Israeli democracy. In the eyes of proponents of reform and direct
democracy, a referendum is a natural continuation of the processes of
building anew the system of government in Israel. As far as opponents were
concerned, the use of referenda would constitute a precedent for making
decisions about controversial issues, and consequently speed up the retreat
from the quasi-consociational model and amount to a tyranny of the
majority.
The argument about referenda on issues concerning the borders of the
Israeli collective is essentially a debate between different schools of
thought. One school views representative democracy on the quasi-
consociational model as the machinery which promotes political stability;
the attainment of this stability is the objective, no matter that the machinery
might be somewhat detrimental to efficiency in the decision-making
process. The other school aims precisely at honing the decision-making
process, and augmenting expressions of sovereignty by use of the devices
of direct democracy. Both approaches do not readily confer legitimacy on a
decision which fissures Israeli society, and neither provides the key to the
prevention of ideological, social and political conflict within it.
To a large extent, the difference between opponents and proponents of
referenda corresponds to the distinction between those, on the one hand,
who view the political process as aimed toward stability and integration
even at the cost of weakened decision-making capabilities, and those, on the
other hand, who consider a referendum as a device capable of changing and
shaping political realities. The debate over a referendum on the question of
future Israeli rule over the territories, therefore, reflects the desire to
regulate political conflicts, while endeavouring to solve them. It comes as
no surprise that the repertoire of images dear to referendum supporters
draws upon de Gaulle's attempt and the vision of plebiscite democracy. The
transition from the Fourth to the Fifth Republic is portrayed as an example
of a possibility to deploy a referendum as an instrument for shaping realities
precisely because it had been successful in replacing a stalemated political
system.
In the comparative context, the debate outlined above raises questions
with regard to Butler and Ranney's conclusion whereby those countries
which have not held referenda – the Netherlands, Israel, Japan and India
(the United States is described by them as an exception) – share ‘no obvious
common characteristics’.48 The fact that the countries to which the
consociational model remains applicable held one referendum or none at all
(with the exception of the special case of Switzerland) lends itself to a
relatively simple explanation: direct democracy entails decision-making,
whereas devices of representative democracy are built on compromise.
Consequently, consociational models are representative par excellence:
the underlying assumption of consociational democracy holds that the
intermediary elite is invested with powers of decision-making. The
institutional structure and political culture, therefore, also tend to
correspond to the representative model. By its very nature, the striving
toward direct democracy undermines the legitimacy of these patterns of
mediation and compromise. Moreover, it could have been expected that the
dissatisfaction with the consociational model in Israel that mounted in the
wake of changes in political culture, patterns of leisure, forms of economic
organization and the status of the state, would manifest itself in growing
demands for putting devices of direct democracy into effect.
The fact that the two non-consociational democracies which have not
held referendum at all, namely Japan and India, had for a long time
functioned as one-party democratic systems, indirectly bears out the
argument whereby a measure of contradiction exists between
consociationalism and direct democracy. This is because in this type of
political system the single party regulates conflicts within its own
framework. In a one-party system the model of compromise and bargaining
– similar to relationships between elites in the consociational model on a
state level – exists within the dominant party.
Israeli democracy before 1977 was described by Lijphart as ‘semi-
consociational’ and considered an exemplary ‘one-party system’. After the
Labour Party had been voted out of power and in the wake of the 1982
invasion of Lebanon, the Palestinian intifada, and the decline of collectivist
ideologies, a process of gradual decomposition of consociational constraints
was set in motion. One consequence of this development was the growing
demand for the referendum as an instrument of decision-making at the
expense of compromise and bargaining.

NOTE
1. Vernon Bogdanor, ‘The Electoral System, Government and Democracy’, in Ehud Sprinzak and
Larry Diamond (eds.), Israel Democracy under Stress, Boulder, 1993, p.101; David Butler and
Austin Ranney (eds.), Referendums around the World, Washington, 1994, p.258.
2. For a definition of moral issues in referendums see Butler and Ranney (eds.), Referendums
around the World, pp.2–3.
3. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, Albany, 1989, p. 154; Arend Lijphart,
Democracy in Plural Societies, New Haven, 1977, pp. 129–34.
4. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, p.1.
5. Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, p. 154.
6. Vernon Bogdanor, ‘Western Europe’, in Butler and Ranney (eds.), Referendums around the
World, p.87.
7. Ibid., p.88.
8. Butler and Ranney (eds.), Referendums around the World, pp.4, 25.
9. Kris W Kobach, ‘Switzerland’, in ibid., p. 109. See also Alexander H. Trescsel and Hanspeter
Kriesi, ‘Switzerland: The Referendum and Initiative as a Centrepiece of the Political System’, in
Michael Gallagher and Pier V Uleri (eds.), The Referendum Experience in Europe, London,
1996, pp.185–208.
10. Alan Ware, Citizens, Parties and the State, Princeton, 1987, p. 114.
11. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, p.40.
12. Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Origins of the Israel Polity, Chicago, 1978, ch.9.
13. Itzhak Galnoor, Steering the Polity: Communication and Politics in Israel, Beverly Hills, 1982,
ch.5.
14. Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar and Yochanan Peres, ‘Trends in the Commitment to Democracy:
1987–1990’, in Sprinzak and Diamond (eds.), Israel Democracy under Stress, pp.226–8.
15. On political participation in Israel, see Gadi Wolfsfeld, ‘The Politics of Provocation Revisited:
Participation and Protest in Israel’, in Sprinzak and Diamond (eds.), Israel Democracy under
Stress, pp. 199–220.
16. See Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, p.204.
17. Galnoor, Steering the Polity, pp.213–14. This trend weakened during the 1980s and did not
reflect the interrelations between the media and the political system in the 1990s. On the
complex interrelationship between the Israeli media and the army, see Pnina Lahav, ‘The Press
and National Security’, in Avner Yaniv (ed.), National Security and Democracy in Israel,
Boulder, 1993, pp.188–9.
18. Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, p.62.
19. Erik Cohen, Annual Conference of the Israeli Sociological Association, March 1989.
20. D. Shimshoni, Israeli Democracy, New York, 1982, pp.455–6.
21. Bogdanor claims that the public quest for referendums is a consequence of the demand to open
and reform the political system. Lijphart suggests that Israel's semi-consociational model has
worked reasonably well in extremely difficult circumstances, see Bogdanor, ‘The Electoral
System, Government and Democracy’, p. 105; Arend Lijphart, ‘Israeli Democracy and
Democratic Reform in Comparative Perspective’, in Sprinzak and Diamond (eds.), Israel
Democracy under Stress, p. 122.
22. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies, p. 130.
23. Avner Horowitz (ed.), State and Religion in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1995, pp.100–2 (in Hebrew).
24. See Laurence Morel, ‘France: Towards a Less Controversial Use of the Referendum?’, in
Gallagher and Uleri (eds.), The Referendum Experience in Europe, pp.69–78.
25. Divrei ha-Knesset (Knesset Record), Vol.26, 9 December 1958, meeting no.540.
26. Mitchell Cohen, Zion and State, Oxford, 1987 p.201.
27. Dana Arieli-Horowitz, In Labyrinth of Legitimacy: Referendum in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1993, p.43
(in Hebrew).
28. Zeev Segal, Israel Democracy – Governance in the State of Israel, Tel Aviv, 1988, pp.138–41
(in Hebrew).
29. Dan Horowitz, ‘Politics of Mutual Veto: The Israeli National Coalition’, in A. Arian and M.
Shamir (eds.), The 1988 Elections in Israel, Boulder, 1990, pp.223–34.
30. Dan Korn, Time in Grey, Tel Aviv, 1994, p.30 (in Hebrew).
31. Raphael Cohen-Almagor, The Boundaries of Liberty and Tolerance: Liberal Theory and the
Struggle against Kahanism, Jerusalem, 1994, pp.272–6 (in Hebrew).
32. Haim J. Zadok, former Minister of Justice, coined the concept ‘theoretical referendum’ in the
Israeli context.
33. Arieli-Horowitz, In Labyrinth of Legitimacy, p.43
34. Austin Ranney (ed.), The Referendum Device, Washington, 1981, p. 190.
35. Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, p.3.
36. Gallop Survey for Ma'ariv, April 1992.
37. In a state without a written constitution, and based on the declaration of independence, the
question of the sources of sovereignty is vague. See Menachem Friedman, ‘The State of Israel
 as a Religious Dilemma’, Alpayim, Vol.3 (1990), p.24 (in Hebrew).
38. Yaron Ezrahi, ‘The Case Against Referendum in the Israeli Democracy’, in Arieli-Horowitz, In
Labyrinth of Legitimacy, p.61.
39. On the timing of referendums in general, see John Rourke, Richard Hiskes and Cyrus
Zirakzadeh, Direct Democracy and the International Politics, Deciding International Issues
Through Referendums, Boulder, 1992, p.176.
40. Galnoor, Steering the Polity, pp.348–59.
41. This is the legal definition according to the Basic Law: Knesset.
42. Rabbinical Conference for the People and Land of Israel, October 1993, see Avner Horowitz
(ed.), State and Religion Yearbook 1993, Tel Aviv, 1994, p.190 (in Hebrew).
43. Bogdanor, ‘The Electoral System, Government and Democracy’, p. 103.
44. The originator of this strongly ideological concept is the Marxist-Zionist thinker, Dov Ber
Borochov. It still appears in the discourse of the 1980s.
45. It should be noted that in September 1996 a referendum was held in Okinawa, Japan on the issue
of American military presence in the country.
46. Ranney (ed.), The Referendum Device, pp. 182–4.
47. Arieli-Horowitz, In Labyrinth of Legitimacy, p.50.
48. Butler and Ranney (eds.), Referendums around the World, p.298.

_______________
Dana Arieli-Horowitz is Lecturer in Political Seience, Tel Aviv University.
SOCIETY
Kibbutz or moshav? Priority Changes
of Settlement Types in Israel, 1949–
53
YOSSI BEN-ARTZI

Since its early days, the new Jewish community in the Land of Israel (or the
Yishuv) has been vying to maximize the financial, social and land resources
at its disposal. Concomitant with central questions such as land acquisition
and economic development, the question of ‘settlement type’ regarding
social organization and economics has always existed. While the traditional
family farms – whether separate and physically afar from each other or
gathered in rural communities – were the dominant settlement type
throughout the world, the Jewish pioneers in Eretz Israel were constantly
searching for a novel structure that would best suit their needs. Like
Utopian thinkers elsewhere, these pioneers were looking for a form of
settlement that would incorporate their social and economic aspirations into
a system suitable for the attainment of broader goals, whether political or
social. Unlike the Utopians, however, the Jews in Eretz Israel did not aspire
to develop a universal ideology that would make the world a better place
but rather concentrated, by and large, on achieving their own objectives.
Their broad and long-term goal was to establish a new national Jewish
entity in Eretz Israel through a fundamental social transformation and the
creation of a ‘new Jew’. Rural settlement was to play a central role in the
creation of both the new individual, working with his hands and living off
his labour, and the foundation of Jewish existence and presence in Eretz
Israel. Therefore, the more successful the rural settlements and the more
numerous their inhabitants, the faster the attainment of the general goal.
This conception underlay the rural settlements' prestige and focal place in
the Yishuv, or indeed in the overall Zionist movement to this very day.1
 The choice and suitability of a settlement type was not, therefore, simply
a question of organization or general maximization, but also a social,
cultural, political and geographic question. This quest and its adaptation to
the changing reality has not ended yet, and even today Israel finds itself
amidst powerful changes that are shaking up accepted conventions. New
forms of settlement which have brought the Yishuv and the State of Israel
widespread international prestige, such as the kibbutz and the moshav, are
presently going through upheavals that threaten their very existence as well
as their organizational, social and economic definition. These upheavals
have of course their more recent causes, but one cannot understand their full
significance without placing them in their historic context, for the simple
reason that they are but the latest link in a 110-year-old chain of changes,
quests and adaptation to a changing environment.
This essay examines a major crossroad on the long and winding road of
the kibbutz and the moshav during Israel's early years. A definitive decision
had to be made at the time, namely what form of settlement would best suit
the absorption of the mass immigration to Israel and the wide expanse of
land at its disposal.
The historiographical literature on the transitional period from Yishuv to
state allows one to examine this period on two historical levels: the period
itself, namely the specific time frame within which it was defined; and a
historical perspective, that is, an assessment of the implementation process
and long-term implications of the decisions made during those years.
Indeed, only a long-term perspective can shed true light on these decisions,
since they involve processes and changes of great ideological depth and
geographic space.

THE FORMATION OF SETTLEMENT TYPES UP

TO ISRAEL'S ESTABLISHMENT
During the pre-state period, several types of settlement were tried and
fashioned, with different organizational, social and ideological
characteristics.2 In the first period, during and after the First Aliya (1882–
1903), tightly clustered villages were formed, with a private family-based
social and economic organization called moshava (plural moshavot).3 In
essence, the moshava was a village in the classic sense, since land
ownership, production, marketing, consumption, financing and so on, were
based on the individual. True, a certain amount of co-operation
characterized the moshavot at their outset and during the period of their
patronage under the wing of Baron Rothschild's administration. However,
this was not ideological communalism, but rather a necessity dictated by the
needs of the time. Once the moshava began to strive for independence,
voluntary communal means were adopted for well-defined needs, such as
marketing and supply. During this stage, several attempts were made to
establish family farms, notably those of Reuven Lehrer in Wadi Hanin and
the Feldmann family in Sumeil, yet they failed to develop into communal
settlements.
It was during the Second Aliya (1904–14) that the foundations of the
moshava were firmly laid, and its economic and administrative
independence developed. This was largely due to the drive on the part of
some new immigrants towards ‘conquest of the land’, namely the toiling of
the land through Jewish, rather than hired Arab, labour. At the same time,
the Zionist Organization began formulating patterns of action in Eretz Israel
through the newly-established Palestine Bureau, headed by Arthur Ruppin,
and with the help of the organs it created – the Jewish National Fund, the
Palestine Land Development Company and the Anglo-Palestine Bank.
Yet these two factors – the workers of the Second Aliya and the Palestine
Bureau – effectively rejected the moshava as a viable type for achieving the
goal of mass Jewish settlement in the country. The workers were
disappointed with the farmers of the moshavot and their attitude towards
their Jewish labourers and their aspirations, while Ruppin was not
impressed by the broken spirit which he had found in the moshavot and
their lack of economic success. This view was further reinforced by the ill
disposition towards the moshava amongst new settlers from the 1890s
onwards. Moreover, the moshavot and their farmers were not free at the
time to form institutions, organizations or bodies that would advance their
cause and compete for the resources at the disposal of the Zionist
Organization. The economic struggle for survival in which they were
embroiled drained all their material resources and emotional strength; hence
no awareness was created in the moshava of the need for an ideological
struggle to promote their type of settlement.
 New types of settlement appeared during the years 1908–14, each in turn
tried out by various elements. The last moshavot of Kinneret and Miztpe
were established in 1908, and training farms were set up. The ‘labourers'
moshav’ provided an answer for the aspirations of veteran workers and
family bread-winners to settle near their workplace as day labourers in the
farmers' orchards and at the same time owners of their own auxiliary farm.
Various social and doctrinal principles were developed (independent work,
Jewish labour), but hard and fast rules that would regulate all walks of
settlers' lives were not established. This hybrid form, attempted for the first
time in Ein-Ganim (1908) and later in Nahlat Yehuda and Ein-Hai, did not
last long and failed to become an optimal form of large scale settlement.4
The lessons learned were even expressed in the name of the settlement
type – labourers' moshav – which emphasized the dependence of the settler
as daily worke on the farmer of the adjacent moshava. In turn, this term
came to imply settlers working on their own farms, using their own hands,
thus maintaining the social and national principles of the Second Aliya
labourers. A complete draft of regulations for this type of settlement was
drawn up only after World War I, when Eliezer Jaffe published his article,
‘The Foundation of the Workers' Moshavim’ (moshav ovdim, plural
moshavim).5
In the meantime, until the outbreak of the war, other types of settlement
were tried. Though the ‘training farm’ was not meant to turn into a central
instrument of settlement, it did have an important function: training the
labourers and masses that wanted to settle, and turning them into
experienced workers of the land. This idea, borrowed by Ruppin from the
Sejera farm of the JCA (Jewish Colonization Association), was carried out
in Kinneret, and, following a score of battles that were waged there, a new
type of settlement was born – the kvutza. Yet it was only in the early 1920s
that the kvutza, as well as the kibbutz, formed a real structure.6
Another type of settlement that was pursued during those years was the
co-operative (Merhavia, 1911). The ‘official’ type of settlement adopted by
the Zionist Congress, it was formed on the basis of Franz Oppenheimer's
concept and viewed the collective as the first of many stages on the road to
a rural settlement in which farmers would maintain a high level of co-
operation in the fields of production and marketing. Its dissolution during
the war made it impossible to put Oppenheimer's ideas to the final test.7
To these settlement types, one may add the Plantation Farm, like Hulda
and Ben-Shemen, and the ahuza – a type of settlement expected to result in
private-family settlements, like the moshava.
This short-lived historical stage (1908–14), then, contained a cornucopia
of ideas and types of settlement. What was common to all came from the
conclusion that the moshava was not appropriate to the settlement ideas
held by the national institutions, on the one hand, or to the character of
future aliya, on the other.
At the end of this period, Jewish rural presence in Eretz Israel comprised
some 52 settlements. Among them were 30 moshavot, 7 ahuzot (most of
which fell apart or became moshavot), 4 labourers' moshavim, 1 co-
operative, 1 kvutza, and the rest – training, plantation and other farms.8
The first few years following the war were a period of exploration and
examination. In the struggle over principles between the possible types of
settlement, the Yishuv adopted the working class as its standard bearer; and
while it did not rule out private settlement, not one moshava was
established from 1921 onwards by any Zionist settling body. The principles
of national lands, Jewish labour, independent labour and mutual assistance
were, to various degrees, accepted as absolute conditions for encouraging
settlement groups.
The kvutza, and from 1923 the kibbutz as well, proved themselves to be
efficient vehicles for attaining goals such as land occupation and settlement
in difficult areas. In 1929, there were 26 kvutzot and kibbutzim in the
country as opposed to 14 workers' moshavim. In the 1930s, with the
increase in aliya from central Europe, the moshav came yet again to be seen
as the most appropriate type; and indeed, in 1935 there were only 43
kibbutzim as opposed to 48 moshavim.9 A year later, in 1936, the first
‘collective moshav’ (moshav shitufi) was established. This type of
settlement combined the advantages of the collective farm and the
aspirations of the family unit. But only 6 settlements of this nature, which,
in essence, brought Oppenheimer's ideas to life, were founded up until the
establishment of the State of Israel.
 The struggle between the main types of settlement – the moshav and the
kibbutz – intensified during the 1940s. Each had by that time crystallized its
own economic, educational and organizational network, and they were
divided among various movements and political streams. This struggle was
expressed in every new settlement region by the allocation of resources and
mobilization for the needs of the settlement. Even before World War II, but
mainly in its wake, rural settlement was accompanied by a substantial
dimension of security. In this, the collective farm proved to be the more
viable under the stark conditions in the country. In addition, the long-term
efforts made by the kibbutz movement to train Jewish youth in the Diaspora
bore fruit at this time, increasing the number of kvutzot and kibbutzim. By
1947 there existed 127 kibbutzim, 78 workers' moshavim, 6 collective
moshavim and 50 moshavot and other undefined settlements in Eretz Israel.
The Mandate period, in contrast to its Ottoman precursor, was thus
characterized by two processes: the almost total halt in the establishment of
moshavot and similar forms of private-rural settlements, and the dominance
of varying degrees of co-operative-type settlements. In contrast to the
searching and experimentation that had characterized the decade preceding
World War I, the following years saw a crystallization of clear patterns
favouring the communal system. This was accompanied by internal
competition between the collective (kvutza and kibbutz) and the co-
operative (workers' moshav), with the collective moshav being crystallized
in their midst.
Other settlements were established during the War of Independence
(1947–49). By May 1948, 7 settlements had been formed, and by the end of
the war another 80 had come into being, of which 44 were kibbutzim and
36 were moshavim, 7 of the latter being collective moshavim.10 To a certain
extent, the establishment of these settlements was related to the period in
question, but, to a much greater degree, they still reflected the settlement
process of the Mandate period.
The annals of Jewish rural settlement up to the establishment of the State
of Israel is, therefore, a continuous process of trial and error, of searching
for the right pattern while matching types of settlement not only to the
geographic and historical conditions, but also, and perhaps mainly, to the
jigsaw puzzle of the settling population and its social and ideological
character. The permutation in the dominance of one type or another grew
out of this.
The establishment of the State of Israel was accompanied by a dramatic
change in the entire framework of settlement: no more ‘national bodies’,
but rather a state; no more fighting over lands, but ownership of a huge
expanse of land; and no more dependence on permits for establishing
settlement, but an urgent need for mass settlement and absolute sovereignty
over it.

KIBBUTZ OR MOSHAV: DECISIONS ON

SETTLEMENT 1949–53
The two-and-a-half years of large scale aliya following the War of
Independence, during which 716,000 immigrants arrived in the country,
were stormy and full of sundry problems. Alongside the needs of security,
economy, government and society, the new state, which had just emerged
from a war in which it had lost about 1 per cent of its population, had to
absorb hundreds of thousands of immigrants, house them, provide them
with work and education, and help them integrate into the country and the
society. The settlement processes were, therefore, combined and
simultaneous and were carried out under the pressure of time and various
demands, though not without a certain amount of planning and forethought.
These years also witnessed a big surge in rural settlement, for which major
decisions had to be made in several areas, such as geographic location,
economic basis and security. Since it was a population of potential settlers
that was being dealt with, most of whom had not gone through ideological
or practical training before coming to the country, two essential questions
had to be addressed by the policy-makers: was it at all possible to settle
immigrants in rural communities? And if so, where, and in which type of
settlement?
Even before Israel's creation, and as soon as the results of the UN
General Assembly's vote on partition were known, Mapai's Committee for
Settlement and Irrigation Problems met to discuss the settlement plan that
would be brought before the party's central committee (with the underlying
assumption that it would form the future government). The committee
discussed the issue at several meetings, and finally formulated a 3-year plan
(1948–50), entirely based on forecasts of aliya to the nascent Jewish state.
The plan designated about 20 per cent of all immigrants who would be
arriving every year during this 3-year period for rural settlements, and
foresaw about 60,000 people (24,000 nuclear families with 16,000
providers) making a living from agriculture. The committee did not hesitate
to determine that the immigrants would be fit for mass rural settlement. As
things were, the estimated number of immigrants was higher by more than
100 per cent. The committee had apparently based its forecast, among other
things, on the fact that some of the immigrants who would be working in
agriculture belonged to pioneer youth movements that had already been
through some amount of training in the Diaspora.11
With the establishment of the state, and when the enormous influx of
immigrants proved the planners wrong, some of the committee members,
including settlement leaders like Yossef Weitz, Shmuel Day an, Levi
Eshkol, Pinhas Sapir, Avraham Hertzfeld, Simha Bias and others, were
plagued by doubts about the suitability of the immigrants to rural
settlement. They based their doubts mainly on the demographic structure of
the immigrants, mostly large families, and on their ideological
‘unsuitability’ to the idea of the co-operative on which the settlement plan
had been predicated. At the 48th Agricultural Council, held in January
1949, it was argued that ‘we must see things in the proper light… [the
immigrants] did not come from pioneer movements and their age does not
fit every type of settlement. We must go to the Negev and the borders – no
one thinks that these immigrants will be able to meet the task’.12
The person who gallantly defended the immigrants was Levi Eshkol who,
as head of the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, was entrusted
with the implementation of the rural section of the population distribution
plan. According to him, the founders of Degania (the first kvutza) had also
no idea about toiling the land when they assumed responsibility for the
farm. Actually, it was Eshkol who was decisive in relegating immigrants to
settlement. He was quicker than the others to read the situation: there was
abundant land at his disposal, yet transit camps were mushrooming and
filling up with young manpower that was going through social and personal
crises, while at the fore was the question of food supply to the country. He
maintained that all these ends had to be joined by relocating immigrants to
agricultural settlements as soon as possible: ‘We must go forth confidently
on a campaign and struggle to forge out of the new immigrant, as he is
today, a builder of a working Jewish village’.13
And indeed, three years after the decision that it was possible and
necessary to settle the new immigrants, there were already 108,418 people
(15 per cent of the total number of immigrants during 1949–52) in rural
settlements, half of which were completely new, mostly moshavim and
partly work villages.14
The more important confrontation regarding the preference of a certain
type of settlement took place around the question, which of the two –
kibbutz or moshav – would fit the large scale allya as well as the country's
needs as a whole. This kind of confrontation between the moshav and
kibbutz movements had existed openly in the 1930s. Once the main battle
between the collective agricultural settlements and the private ones (that is,
the moshavot) was over, a struggle developed within the former, which at
that time had the upper hand, between supporters of a family co-operative
type of settlement and those that professed collectivism in all its varieties.
Thus in 1936, for example, there was the stormy argument over the ‘queue’
for settlement. At the 33rd council of the Histadrut, complaints were made
of discrimination against the ‘organizations’ (as the mosbav cells were then
called). It was argued that a year of waiting to receive a site of settlement
was equal to one seniority year for a ‘mosbav organization’ but counted for
two years for a ‘kibbutz cell’; hence a kibbutz amassed seniority at twice
the pace of the mosbav.15 Similarly, a quarrel broke out over settlement in
the Jordan Valley, the prestigious settlement enterprise in honour of the late
Haim Arlozoroff. Kvutzat Massada (Gordonia), a Ha-shomer Ha-tzair
kibbutz, and the Ephraim mosbav organization were both candidates for
receiving a land parcel in the area. The Ephraim organization was the more
veteran but was rejected because of a kibbutz claim for ‘territory
contiguity’. Their viewpoint was accepted in this case but when the
mosbavim made a similar claim for contiguity in the western Jezreel Valley,
in the Nahalal bloc, the members of the Vitkin organization were rejected in
favour of Kibbutz Gvat because at the time it was decided that there would
be no contiguity of this kind.
Events of this nature were repeated time and again, sometimes in the
form of public battle and sometimes within the ‘family’ or the party,
creating a constant sense of discrimination and inferiority within the
mosbav movement. This grievance was also based on the facts and figures
about the different kinds of settlement, and on the power gained by the
kibbutzim in the Histadrut, the party and the Agricultural Council.
Therefore, when the singular opportunity arose to restructure the centres of
power, each movement took a different stand: the kibbutzim believed that
the greater number of immigrants should be sent to them, be it through the
absorption of trainees or through the immigrants' own choice. The
mosbavim, on the other hand, understood that their finest hour could just
arrive if only they seized the initiative and convinced both immigrants and
institutions that the mosbav was the most appropriate type of settlement for
both the country's best interest and for individual needs. The kibbutzim
stood by and waited for the immigrants while the members of the mosbavim
campaigned amongst them and recruited them by the scores to help
establish more mosbavim. It thus turned out that the kibbutzim were waiting
in vain. While it was true that much of the pioneer reserves, which had been
trained and prepared before the war, were exterminated during the
Holocaust, kibbutz passivity was an added negative factor.
In discussions held by the Kibbutz Meuhad movement, it was
acknowledged that the ‘immigrants are not coming to the kibbutzim’, and
amazement was voiced at the fact that in the first year (July 1948 to July
1949) only 1,824 out of 200,000 immigrants joined the kibbutzim.16
Two principal positions were elaborated in these discussions. On the one
hand, a restrictive view advocated acceptance of those who chose the
kibbutz of their own free will, in the belief that the youth trainees arriving
from abroad and from youth movements would suffice to beef up numbers.
On the other hand, a more liberal approach claimed that ‘we must change
the character of our settlements, change them from closed settlements into
settlements that absorb families and children’.17
As a result, the system of ‘immigrant groups’ was developed: young
people were recruited in the transit camps, some of whom did join existing
kibbutzim. However, the kibbutz as a settlement type was not freely
favoured by the immigrants, and being mechanically and arbitrarily
relegated was, of course, not realistic. The internal difficulties of the
kibbutzim, the need to rehabilitate war victims, the loss of human reserves
in the Holocaust, and the kibbutz ideal itself, which requires voluntarism
and free choice: all these factors prevented the kibbutz from becoming a
large scale settlement pattern. The ideal remained the sole property of youth
group members within and outside the country, but did not spread among
the hundreds of thousands of immigrants. The kibbutz, therefore, found
itself at a historic crossroads where its prestige and political power no
longer sufficed to maintain the status it had acquired and the power it had
gained before the establishment of the state.
In contrast, the moshav movement prudently used the situation to its
advantage. At the first convention of camp inhabitants in Ramie, with the
participation of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol and
Knesset Speaker Yosef Sprinzak, moshavniks were already wending their
way through the immigrants, urging them to organize moshav settlement
cells. The entire movement was recruited for this purpose, just as the
kibbutzim were accustomed to doing, and enlisted the aid of hundreds of
teachers, agricultural instructors, social educators and auxiliaries. This
recruitment had a great effect on the immigrants, the new moshavim and,
especially, the institutions for settlement, which also saw the workers'
moshav as the most suitable type of settlement for the new aliya.18
But it was not only the recruitment of the moshavim and their persuasion
tactics that played a part in the making of this policy. There were also veiled
considerations and assumptions, bordering on the political and ideological,
that had something to do with it. Ideologically, the assumption had reigned
for a long time that the moshava as a private village should not and could
not be a type of large scale settlement, and certainly not for settling masses
of immigrants. Yet the kibbutz was ruled out for this purpose as well, with
the idea that there should be no referral to kibbutzim; that joining a kibbutz
was not a matter of referral. People join a kibbutz out of an ideological
awareness and initial motivation based on communal principles. The
immigrants, so they thought, would find it difficult to get used to the
kibbutz ideal, to the absolute collective, community responsibility and the
breaking down of the family structure; just as they would not be able to
bear the burden of establishing a private village under their own personal
responsibility. The preference for the moshav rested, therefore, mainly on
the thought that a choice had to be made between the two existing
settlement patterns rather than trying to form new types. The moshav was
picked from among the existing types because it seemed viable: it did not
include the uncompromising demand of the collective for communalism, as
in the kibbutz; and there was no need to deviate from the opposition to a
settlement as in the private village (moshava),19 The decision was not
preceded by any research or in-depth considerations about whether the
moshav was truly suitable to the national needs or to those of the
immigrants; it was made, like many other decisions during the period of
transition from Yishuv to state, under the heavy pressure of large scale
aliya, with no fresh thinking or planning.20
It appears that political factors also contributed to the preference of the
moshav. The moshava had already been politically disqualified many years
ago, because of both the earlier battle between the workers and the farmers,
and the image that had resulted of the farmers as supporters of the right and
enemies of the labour movement. At the same time, the relationship
between the kibbutzim, on the one hand, and Ben-Gurion and the ruling
party, on the other, was at its worst. Hever Ha-kvutzot and Ihud Ha-
kibbutzim, which had joined together for a while and were loyal to Ben-
Gurion and Mapai, were in the minority compared to Ha-kibbutz Ha-
meuhad and Ha-shomer Ha-tzair kibbutzim, which presented the main
opposition to Ben-Gurion during Israel's early years in the political and
security fields. They harassed the government for every failure and
abandonment of a moshav or turnover of its inhabitants, viewing these
episodes as proof of an ideologically warped settlement policy. Ben-Gurion
did not spare those kibbutzim his sharp tongue either: ‘What have they done
for the aliyal For the upbuilding of their home – yes; their farm- yes; their
kibbutz – yes. But what about the 300,000 [newly-arrived] Jews? It shames
me [to think] that there has never been a failure such as this!’.21
At the end of the struggle, and under great pressure from each side, the
extent of the change became clear: between 1949 and 1955, 179 immigrant
moshavim were established, while another 35 moshavim were formed by the
second generation of the moshavim and cells of released soldiers. This
tipped the scales dramatically in favour of the moshav as the preferred type
of settlement: 214 moshavim were added to the settlement map as opposed
to 94 kibbutzim and 16 collective moshavim, and not one moshava or
private village.22
 The geographic distribution of the various settlement types also
underwent a transformation: the kibbutz was not alone in bearing the brunt
of being a frontier settlement: in 1955 there were 64 kibbutzim in ‘border
district A areas’, as opposed to 97 moshavim, 83 of which were immigrant
moshavim.
In the final analysis, the transition years from Yishuv to state witnessed a
great change in the concept of settlement and in the matching of settlement
type to both the population and the national needs.23 The kibbutz was
pushed aside due to weighty objective and subjective factors, with the
workers' moshav taking its place. The principles of its ideological and
demographic structures and ideological background (or lack thereof),
seemed to be the most suitable to the character of the mass aliya, the
demands of the policy of population distribution, and the broadening of the
Israeli rural network. The moshav movement became the central settlement
factor, though its power was not rapidly translated into economic and
political influence.24
Only a few of moshav leaders understood at the time that its victory was
ideologically a Pyrrhic one, since they themselves had sown the seeds of
change that, some 45 years later, threaten the moshav's very existence as a
type of settlement with a defined ideology. The immigrants' lack of
preparation for moshav ideals took its toll shortly thereafter.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS AND PERSPECTIVES

Without delving into the internal and external processes undergone by the
settlement movement and the moshavim, it is arguable that, ideologically,
history has acted as a boomerang for the moshavim. Over the years it
transpired that the recruitment (exemplary as it was) of the moshavniks to
the assistance of the immigrant moshavim was not enough, nor was turning
the moshav into the dominant settlement type, whether in quantity or power.
The moshavim reaped the lack of preparation and training for moshav ideals
soon afterwards. Emissaries wrote that:
the new village is basically still far from the image of the moshav as an
organized community. We have not yet created in the new settlement one
single moshav that is socially and economically well organized. On the
contrary, the present process is leading in the opposite direction. The
 tendency exists among the settlers to search for their own direction
[emphasis added] in both the production and the marketing of their
products.25
Reports of this kind did not receive much attention. The certainty reigned
that an imposed co-operative – minimal as it might be – was the most
suitable settlement type for the immigrants.
After a number of years, this tendency had already become abundantly
clear: a decisive majority of the immigrant moshavim gradually abandoned
the principles of the moshav, and in a large portion of the veteran moshavim
values like Jewish labour and independent labour were also abandoned. But
they did, at least, preserve principles like control and equality in land and
water, agriculture (or a certain number of agriculturists) as the central
element of the moshav, mutual assistance and assurance, marketing
partnership, and so on. However, there were farms among the immigrant
moshavim that were abandoned or leased out. The number of wage earners
working outside the moshav grew, the number of agriculturists fell, power
struggles broke out between families. Crop growing was leased out to
Arabs, marketing was mostly private, and mutual assistance did not evolve.
The only thing that the common public unit enjoyed was control over water
and land, and the opportunity for increased consumption based on mutual
assurance.
The erosion of moshav ideals created a clear picture as early as the 1970s
and the 1980s, and there was a marked dichotomy apparent between the
veteran moshav (up to 1948) and the new.26 It became clear yet again that it
was impossible to impose an ideological consciousness. In reality, a
dangerous situation emerged: on the one hand, the existence of a co-
operative society and mutual responsibility; on the other, the dislocation
from all the practical implications of maintaining the principles of the
moshav. This settlement type remained an empty external shell simply
because it was legally impossible to break it up and change it. Today, an
attempt is being made to change this situation through the ‘moshav
Arrangement’, which will free the moshavim from the obligations of their
partnership. The moshav will, in effect, become a moshava, in which the
principle of partnership was also voluntary rather than obligatory.
 History, then, has come around full circle. One hundred years after the
beginning of the Zionist enterprise, the pioneering settlement pattern that
was disqualified along the way for various reasons, some of which fully
justified, has returned to become the dominant type of settlement. Yet it will
not be the same moshava, based on entirely private ownership of all means
of production, but a special variant somewhere between the moshava and
the workers' moshav. The moshav itself will not disappear since most of the
veteran moshavim will probably stick to the ideals inherited from their
predecessors, but it will return to a life-size framework. The new image of
the village will be based on a mixed population of several agriculturists,
united in a partnership over land, water and production quotas, and of non-
agriculturists whose interests will be quite varied. The character of this kind
of settlement will be closer to that of the moshava – in its limits on land
ownership – than to the workers' moshav. To paraphrase, one can say that
‘the moshava is dead and living in the moshav’.
And here, the unavoidable question presents itself, albeit with the benefit
of hindsight, whether it might have been possible to avoid the anguish of
this process had historical, ideological and sociological deliberation
preceded the speed of action. But as with other issues, this question remains
purely hypothetical since those who were involved in the process and
subjected to the economic and political predicaments of the time did not
have the tools or the perspective enjoyed by future generations.

NOTES
1. For general sources and surveys of the history of settlement see: A. Bein, The Return to the Soil,
Jerusalem, 1952; and H. Gvati, Meah Shnot Hityashvut, Vol.1, Tel Aviv, 1981.
2. About the ideological background and organizational methods of the main settlement types, see
D. Weintraub, M. Lissak and Y. Azmon, Moshava, Kibbutz and moshav: Patterns of Jewish
Rural Settlements and Development in Palestine, London, 1969.
3. About the moshava and its geographical characteristics, see Y. Ben-Artzi, Early Jewish
Settlement Patterns in Palestine 1882–1914, Jerusalem, 1997.
4. Yossi Ben-Artzi, ‘Moshav Ha-po'alim and its role in the history of settlement’, Zionism, Vol.20
(1996), pp.103–34 (in Hebrew).
5. Eliezer Jaffe, Le-yisudam shel moshavei-Ovdim, Jaffa, 1919.
6. The kibbutz and its formation gained a numerous of publications. For a most recent one, see H.
Near, The Kibbutz Movement, Oxford, 1992.
7. F. Oppenheimer, Cooperative Agriculture in Palestine, New York, 1910.
 A detailed study of that period was made by K. Nawratzki, Die Jüdische Kolonisation
8. Palästinas, München, 1914. For a full list of Jewish settlements by 1914, see M. Meirowitch,
Ha-moshavot Ha-ivriot Be-Eretz Israel ad Ha-milhama Ha-olamit, Cairo, 1918.
9. D. Gurewitz and A. Gretz, Ha-hityashvut Ha-haqlait Ha-ivrit Be-Eretz Israel, Jerusalem, 1938,
Tables section.
10. For recent research, see O. Shiran, ‘Mediniut Ha-hityashvut Nohah Milhemet Ha-azmaut Ve-
hakamat Ha-medina’, M.A. Thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1992.
11. Li-beaiot Ha-histyashvut Veha-hashka'ah Ba-medina, (Protocols of the Committee for
Settlement and Irrigation), December 1947 to January 1948, Tel Aviv, 1948.
12. Ha-merkaz Ha-haklai, Protocols of the 48th Council, Tel Aviv, 1949. See also A. Asaf,
Moshavei Ovdim Be-Israel, Tel Aviv, 1953, pp. 173–8.
13. L. Eshkol, Be-hevlei Hitnahalut, Tel Aviv, 1958, pp.223, 270–3.
14. For a comprehensive description of immigrant settlement, see A. Avneri, Ha-halutzim Ha-
Almonim, Tel Aviv, 1986.
15. Y. Ori, Bi-ntivei Moshav Ha-ovdim, Jerusalem, 1950, p.35.
16. Z. Zur, Ha-kibbutz Ha-me'uhad Be-yishuva shel Ha-aretz, Vol.2, Jerusalem, 1982, pp.334–7.
17. Ibid., p.333.
18. Asaf, Moshavei Ovdim, p.l77ff. The success of the moshav was described by M.L. Klayman,
The Moshav in Israel, New York, 1970.
19. Gvati, Meah Shenot Hityashvut, p.29.
20. First reasonable research based on socio-economic observation was published only in 1962: H.
Darin-Drabkin, Patterns of Cooperative Agricultural in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1962.
21. State of Israel, Government Annual Report, Jerusalem, 1955.
22. E. Labes, Handbook of the Moshav, Jerusalem, 1962; O. Shapira, Rural Settlements of New
Immigrants in Israel, Rehovot, 1971.
23. For a general view of this period from the settlement point of view, see Shalom Reichman,
‘Partition and Transfer: Crystallization of the settlement map of Israel following the War of
Independence, 1948–50’, in R. Kark (ed.), The Land that Became Israel, Jerusalem, 1989,
pp.320–30.
24. D. Hacohen, Olim Bi-se'ara, Jerusalem, 1944, pp. 129–45.
25. A report of a moshav in the organ of the moshavim, Tlamim, No. 169–70 (1952), p.80.
26. L. Appelbaum and H. Margolis, Moshav Ha-ovdim Be-mivhan Ha-zman, Rehovot, 1979, p.1.

______________
Yossi Ben-Artzi is Professor and Dean of the Humanities Faculty at the Univerity of Haifa.
 Mass Immigration and the
Demographic Revolution in Israel
DVORA HACOHEN

From its establishment, the State of Israel has expressed its deep connection
to immigration. Israel's Declaration of Independence states that, ‘The State
of Israel shall be open to Jewish immigration and to the ingathering of the
exiles’.1 This approach guided the state's immigration policy and was
legally sated in the Law of Return, which categorically declared that ‘every
Jew has the right to immigrate to Israel’.2
The mass migration in the first decade of its existence (about one million
people settled in this period3) doubled Israel's Jewish population, and had a
dramatic impact on the composition of the population.4 No aspect of the
new State of Israel was left untouched, and a unique socio-cultural mosaic
came into being. The policies established at that time had far-reaching
repercussions on the development of society over the following decades.
The relationship that developed then between immigrants and the veteran
population was to have long-range implications, leaving an indelible mark
on the new state's social and cultural makeup, as well as on its political
system. It was then that the rifts within Israeli society, which deepened
further over the years, were born: the ethnic rift between Jews of European
extraction and those from Islamic countries; the friction between religious
and secular Jews; and socio-economic polarization.
During the 1960s, immigrants continued to arrive from many different
countries, but not to the extent seen in the first decade.5 Particularly
prominent over the last 30 years has been the large number of immigrants
from the Soviet Union. About a million immigrants came, all told, in two
waves: the first wave of immigration began in the early 1970s and
continued intermittently for about twenty years; the second wave of
immigration came in the 1990s.6 While other immigrants also came to
Israel during this period, two immigrant groups were especially
conspicuous: those from the Soviet Union and those from Ethiopia – the
former because of their large number and the latter because of their cultural
distinctiveness.
Even before the establishment of the state, from the early twentieth
century onwards, immigration was a central feature in the rapid increase in
the Jewish population of Palestine. This was not a static population, made
of people living in the country over many generations, but rather a
constantly growing society of immigrants. In 1882, the Jewish population
of Palestine was estimated at 24,000. By the time Ottoman rule in Palestine
came to an end after World War I (1917–18), the number of Jews had
reached 56,000. During the thirty years of British rule in Palestine (1918–
48), the Jewish population of Palestine grew by a factor of eleven or more,
and when the state was established in May 1948, it comprised about
650,000 Jews.7 By 1998, 50 years after the establishment of the State of
Israel, its Jewish population was close to five million people.8
The demographic revolution that began upon the establishment of the
state is evident, not only in the large dimensions of immigration, but also in
its social and cultural composition. The change in the relative proportions
of Ashkenazim, who originated in Europe, and Mizrahim, who had come
from Islamic lands, was the clear result of this process. Mizrahim composed
about half the immigrants who arrived in Israel during the first decade,9
while the majority (about 81 per cent) of the immigrants who had arrived
during the 50 years preceding the establishment of the state had come from
Europe.
The percentage of immigrants born in Africa or Asia stood in 1948 at 9.6
per cent.10 This was also due to the fact that, during the nineteenth century,
some 80 per cent of the Jewish world lived in eastern Europe, which was
where the Zionist movement was conceived.11 The homogeneity of the
Jewish Yishuv in Palestine was also evident in terms of its socio-
demographic composition. Prior to the establishment of the state, the
majority of immigrants were young singles, or small young families. Most
had received secondary, and sometimes higher education. Even though the
foundations for economic, cultural and political differentiation were laid
during this period, the Yishuv society was far more homogeneous, socially,
culturally and economically, than were the waves of immigration during the
1950s.
The State of Israel, the apex of the achievements of the Zionist
movement in realizing its national political aims, sought to accomplish its
goals in the social and cultural arenas as well. In this respect, Israel differed
from other countries that absorbed immigrants and refugees. It saw itself as
being responsible for absorbing immigrants, a responsibility that went over
and beyond the physical plane. Israel planned to design its new, developing
society, and this was one of the sources of the tensions that accompanied
the absorption process, causing conflicts between the established
community, which wanted to continue developing the social structures of
the Yishuv, and the immigrant populations, which brought diverse social
and cultural traditions that they wished to retain.
The wide variety amongst immigrant groups, the differences in social and
cultural backgrounds and in expectations, exacerbated the gap between the
Yishuv and the new immigrants, especially those who came from a different
social and economic background to the European immigrants. Upon the
mass immigration that followed Israel's establishment, the question of
absorption became a central issue in its social and cultural design.
The two principal groups of immigrants during the first decade were the
remnants of European Jewry, upon whom the imprint of the Holocaust was
still visible – expelled from their homes and robbed of their assets, without
families and battered physically and mentally – and those who had come
from Islamic lands, their cultural background alien to that which had arisen
in Israel under the influence of European migration. The image of all of
these immigrants was low.
Negative stereotypes of immigrants who were Holocaust refugees and
those who had come from Islamic lands were widespread amongst the
established community. Their lifestyles, traditions and traits were criticized.
These negative images caused suspicions among the veterans that the socio-
cultural legacy that had been forged during the Yishuv period would be
damaged. The dominant elite that sought to prevent the subversion of
cultural and political stability and of the continuity that they had forged,
adopted, in the words of Moshe Lissak, a ‘strategy of patronage’.12
Absorption was characterized by the large-scale involvement of state
institutions, especially during the large immigration waves in the first
decade of Israel's existence.13 Immigrant absorption took place in a
bureaucratic, administrative context. Veterans of the Yishuv were involved
in immigration absorption as part of their role in local or central
government institutions, or in the Jewish Agency. This involvement had
many implications on the relationship that evolved between immigrants and
the veteran residents who manned the government institutions, as the
dependence of immigrants upon absorption institutions further emphasized
the distance between them and the established groups within society.
The structure of centralist government control in Israel, and the control of
absorption institutions, enabled policy-makers to execute their absorption
plans in several areas. As part of a population dispersal policy, immigrants
were sent to development towns and agricultural settlements far from the
centre of the country. During the first decade, dozens of development towns
and hundreds of immigrant villages sprung up around the country in
peripheral areas.14 In order to overcome high unemployment amongst
immigrants, a policy of public work projects was developed whereby public
funds were set aside by the government and such public bodies as the
Jewish National Fund for the employment of immigrants in road paving,
building and forestry.
This situation also emphasized the immigrants' dependence on the
establishment,15 and strengthened the image of immigrants as an economic
burden. In turn this had a detrimental affect on relations between veterans
and immigrants.16 Absorption policy greatly influenced the process of
absorption, and determined the actual placing of immigrants on the map of
social dispersal in Israel. Indeed the majority of the population in
development towns remains the descendants of immigrants from Islamic
countries who arrived in the 1950s.
Immigrants hoped to be given the opportunity to move closer to the
social and political centre. Hence, they perceived the plan to send them to
peripheral areas as unjust. A further characteristic of the absorption process
in Israel was the creation of socio-economic polarization and an overlap
between this polarization and the makeup of the population, whereby
groups at the bottom of the socio-economic scale were comprised mostly of
immigrants from Islamic lands. This situation increased the ethnic problem.
The claim was made that absorption policy was not fair and that it
discriminated between migrants from Europe and those from Islamic
countries. The subject of ethnic tension became one that was to agitate
Israeli society continuously.
Political scientists have pointed to the characteristics of immigrants as a
factor in the situation that developed in Israel. In their view, the social and
demographic composition of these waves of immigration weighed heavily
on the ease of their absorption. Amongst immigrants from Islamic
countries, there was a considerable increase in the average size of families.
The age of immigrants was also an influence – there was a majority of
babies, young children and old people. These factors had significant
consequences upon the scope of co-operation in the workforce, which in
turn was reflected in a reduction in the number of breadwinners and an
increase in the number of dependants. They also noted other components,
such as educational level and professional training, and the importance of
these in the economic and social mobility of immigrants.17
Apart from the composition of immigrant groups, the size of these groups
and the timing of their immigration also influenced their absorption. The
large streams of immigrants that arrived in Israel during the first years of
statehood, when Israel was suffering from an economic crisis, gave rise to
the formation of a significant delay between the arrival of immigrants and
their absorption in employment, housing and in the provision of other
services. The fact that during the first few years following their immigration
most immigrants were housed in transit camps placed them in a kind of
ecological and socio-cultural isolation in which contact with the veteran
population was very limited (and primarily centred on links to those
involved in the absorption process).
The character and process of absorption may also be seen in the order in
which immigrants arrived. Most of the immigrants who arrived during the
first year of the state's existence came from Europe. They succeeded in
integrating themselves into the central part of the country, mainly in cities
that had been abandoned by Arabs. Immigrants from Islamic lands started
to arrive in summer 1949 and continued coming until 1952. Most of these
were housed in transit camps. During this same period, immigrants
continued to arrive from Romania and Poland. The latter, however,
managed to leave the transit camps quickly because they had smaller
families and, thanks to the aid and support that they received from social
networks in the veteran Yishuv, were more easily absorbed in housing and
employment in the centre of the country.
Many immigrants from Iraq, who were well-educated and trained in
professions required in Israel, or who had capital, also succeeded in
integrating themselves rapidly into the veteran economy and society. On the
other hand, those immigrants who had no strong social networks or who
had large families to look after, together with those who suffered from
health problems and lack of employment opportunities, remained in the
transit camps for a long time and soon became destitute. Most members of
this group came from Islamic countries.
Sociologists have also noted the influence of the immigrants' cultural
background on the process of their absorption. They argue that the gap
between different groups of immigrants was affected not only by such
demographic considerations as family size, professional training and formal
education, but also by social attributes – cultural factors that are usually
linked with modernity: enterprise, resourcefulness and the ability to
postpone gratification. Other personal attributes, such as a common
language and similar style of behaviour, as well as personal contacts in
social networks based on one's country of origin, also facilitated
comfortable accessibility to the Israeli establishment.18
Critical sociologists have claimed that the development of rifts in Israeli
society was because of discriminatory policies. In their opinion, economic
and social gaps did not only result from the immigrants' own constraints.
Rather, they argue, the moving of immigrants to development areas
removed from the country's centre was the result of conscious ethnic
discrimination by Ashkenazic decision-makers, who wished to prevent the
immigrants from entering the employment market, thereby reducing the
potential competition from immigrants in employment and in the demand
for services.
These sociologists further claim that the veterans did not provide the
immigrants with equal opportunities and prevented them from accessing
social and political power centres, thereby sealing their fate economically as
well. They blamed the elite that had arisen in Palestine during the period of
the Yishuv, most of whom were born in Europe,19 with intentionally
preventing Oriental Jews from joining their institutions, leaving them on the
social and political periphery. They also criticized the incumbent
paternalism and the desire that these immigrants be assimilated into the
culture of the veteran Yishuv.20

IMMIGRATION FROM THE 1970S ONWARDS

The tension that arose as a result of the ‘melting pot’ policy enhanced the
feeling of discrimination among migrants from Islamic countries. This was
expressed in sporadic outbursts of violence. The ethnic tension that arose in
the 1950s did not dissipate for many years and resulted in the establishment
of a protest movement.21 The anger increased when the composition of
immigration to Israel changed. Throughout the 1960s, many immigrants
continued to pour in from North Africa,22 while only a relatively small
number of immigrants arrived from western Europe, and the number of
immigrants from the United States continued to be very low.23
However, towards the end of the 1960s this trend changed with the onset
of waves of immigration from European countries, in particular from the
Soviet Union. Immigration to Israel during the last three decades has not
been as varied as it had been in the past. Most immigrants (more than 80
per cent) came from European countries and the Americas. This turnaround
was the result of a decline in immigration from Asian and African countries
and the large rise in immigration from the Soviet Union.

IMMIGRATION FROM THE SOVIET UNION AND THE

COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES (CIS)
A substantial change occurred in the social makeup of Israel upon the
arrival of the large immigration wave from the USSR, beginning at the end
of 1989, reaching its peak in the years 1991–94, and continuing today.
During this wave, some 800,000 immigrants arrived in the country. The
change is most visible in the large proportion of skilled individuals among
those arriving. There were a large number of scientists (especially
physicists and chemists), doctors and engineers, as well as professionals
from a broad range of technological disciplines in general, together with
writers, journalists, intellectuals, artists, teachers, musicians and others.
Families were generally small, with few children, and there was a high
percentage of mixed marriages (Jews married to non-Jews).
Whilst immigrants who came to Israel from the USSR in the 1970s were
moved to do so mainly by Zionist ideological reasons, those who arrived in
the 1990s were motivated more by pragmatic reasons.24 Attitudes that
became apparent during the absorption of immigrants from the CIS
demonstrated that they were not interested in giving up their former identity
and culture. Although these immigrants made serious efforts to learn
Hebrew quickly, they tended not to assimilate into Israeli society.25 While
most of them do not isolate themselves from Israeli culture, they see
themselves as a sector of the public with an emphatic cultural identity.26
The character of absorption in Israel was determined in part by social
considerations. In absorbing immigrants from the CIS nations (there were
many single-parent families,27 and the socio-economic orientation was
influenced as much by the encounter with the West in the wake of
perestroika as by the communist past28), it was considered desirable to
prevent excessive interference by government authorities, and a policy of
‘direct absorption’ was adopted.
This was intended to do away with the need for transit camps, so that
immigrants could choose where to live and be able to find employment by
themselves immediately upon arriving in Israel, with the state granting each
immigrant an ‘absorption package’ – a sum of money to cover basic costs
during the first year of immigration. The aim was to transform the
centralized absorption system that had been in place since the establishment
of the state, so that instead of a single or dual centre of absorption (the
Government and the Jewish Agency), run by the dominant cultural and
political elite, immigrants would benefit from a decentralization of powers.
However, it seems that in the face of such a large immigration wave, the
success of this system was limited. The reduced dependence of immigrants
on absorption authorities did not necessarily lead to a free choice in their
manner of absorption. Even exposing them to the free market did not
contribute to their making social contacts with veterans or to the
advancement of integration. Institutionalized bureaucracy was not abolished
and, although it affected immigrants less on a daily basis, the consequences
were that they were in fact limited in almost every aspect of their lives.
The large demand for housing led to a scarcity in apartments, causing
prices to rise. As a result, immigrants were forced to turn to underprivileged
areas where housing was cheaper. There they were received with
reservation by their long-established neighbours as potential competitors for
housing and work. The readiness of immigrants with higher educations and
professional skills to take on non-professional work made the tensions
between them and their neighbours in the poorer areas even worse. It
became clear that the encounter with less well-off veterans created tensions
on a socio-cultural level, sharpening the rifts in Israeli society that were
believed to be dissipating.29
The second generation of immigrants, who had arrived in the 1950s,
began to feel the threat of competition from new immigrants in the
workplace, and social and political differences revived the tensions between
immigrants and veterans. Ironically, there was now a switch in the dynamic
between these groups. Some of the veterans, especially those who had
themselves arrived from Islamic countries in the 1950s, tried to marginalize
new immigrants from the European Soviet Union and foster a negative
image of their arrival.30

IMMIGRATION FROM ETHIOPIA

Other kinds of difficulties arose with the arrival of immigrants from
Ethiopia, the most obvious of which was the cultural uniqueness of these
people. These immigrants arrived in two waves – in 1984 and in 1991 – and
numbered approximately 25,000 people.31 This migration was completely
different from that from the former Soviet Union and presented special
problems for absorption authorities. Ethiopia was considered one of the
most backward countries in the world. The level of education of the
immigrants from Ethiopia in the first wave was generally low, and most of
them were in poor health. The majority of the Jews of Ethiopia had lived in
villages, where they had been shepherds, kept cattle, or engaged in
agriculture, living in extended families under a patriarchal system.32 Their
motivation for coming to Israel was, for the most part, religious.
 The demographics of these groups of immigrants gave rise to special
difficulties, as about one third of the immigrant families were single-parent
households.33 Many were in poor health, not helped by their dramatic
escape from Ethiopia and the time they spent in refugee camps before
flying to Israel.34 The circumstances of the secret and hasty organization of
their migration to Israel were for most of them a traumatic experience, and
they suffered difficulties in settling down in Israeli society. Difficulties also
arose due to their low level of education.35
Doubts about the method of absorbing the Ethiopians related to the
physical aspects of absorption, but the question of social and cultural
absorption was the most important. Absorption authorities wished to avoid
making the mistakes that had been made during the first years of the state,
yet they were also aware that the retention of this community's traditions
could condemn them to isolation.36
For years, there had been harsh criticism amongst absorption authorities
regarding mistakes and slip-ups that had been made in absorbing
immigrants who had arrived in the large waves following the establishment
of the state. From the 1970s onwards, the goal was to set up a pluralistic
cultural framework, bestowing legitimacy upon the unique traditions of all
groups of immigrants. The intention was not merely to accept the folklore,
as had been done in the past, but to encourage various forms of artistic
creativity as well as the educational treatment of the traditions. With the
immigration from Ethiopia – which in many ways presented an image
similar to some groups of immigrants who had arrived at the time of the
establishment of the state – absorption workers attempted to adopt a method
that would aim to find the balance between retention of the community's
identity, linking it to its past and to certain traditions, and modernization
and integration into Israeli society.37

POLITICAL ASPECTS
Throughout the years, the waves of immigration have held a central place in
public awareness as Israel's political culture has been characterized by a
high level of public involvement. The growth of Israeli society as a result of
immigration waves placed great importance on the process of the political
socialization of the immigrants.38 Therefore, during periods of rapid
change, whenever a large wave of immigrants arrived, tensions rose and the
struggle to win them over politically increased.
A unique situation developed in Israel owing to the fact that immigrants
were given a special status that had many implications on their political
importance. Pursuant to the Citizenship Law and the Residents Register
Ordinance, which are connected to the Law of Return, automatic citizenship
is granted to every immigrant immediately upon his or her arrival in
Israel.39 This includes the right to vote in municipal and central government
elections without any limitation whatsoever (including knowledge of
Hebrew or length of residence in Israel).
As a result, every large wave of immigrants has had a very strong
electoral potential to change the power relations between parties and
overturn the political system. Coalition parties that were worried about
letting immigrants participate freely in political life worked to regulate the
processes of the political integration of immigrants, with government
personnel simultaneously acting as agents for the parties. This situation led
to a struggle for control over those institutions that had influential power
over immigrants and their socialization processes. The political struggle did
not diminish at party level, but was also expressed in the economic
sphere.40
When immigrants began to be absorbed into the economy and their
dependence on bureaucracy lessened, the public atmosphere changed. As a
result, the parties that had been dominant in the first decades of the state
became weaker. In 1977, a political turnabout took place, in which the
Labour party, which had been in power for the first three decades, lost the
elections. This change in the political map increased the influence of
religious and ultra-religious parties.
This, in turn, strengthened the phenomenon of populism, assisted by
traditional ethnic symbols, which to this day exerts considerable influence
on Israeli political life. A situation arose whereby, despite its being a new
society, Israel once again needed to deal with the problems of tension
between modernization and tradition, with the traditionalist groups in
society working from the model of the political culture that had been
dominant in the Yishuv during the British Mandate and had influenced the
institutional structure of the state at its foundation.
 The waves of immigrants arriving from various social and cultural
backgrounds over the years created a pluralistic mosaic of ethnic groups in
Israel. The wide spectrum of heterogeneity that they created was expressed
in many social and cultural aspects. Some of these ethnic groups adapted
themselves over the years to the new social system that developed in Israel,
while in other groups the change occurred at a slower rate. The new waves
of immigrants that kept coming throughout the years helped to broaden the
dimensions of this heterogeneity. This dynamic, which created conflicts
between immigrant groups that arrived in different periods, and between
them and the older established population, has been continually operative
since the establishment of the state and this was the reason for attempts at
political organization on an ethnic basis.41

CONCLUSION
The waves of immigration to Israel gave rise to the development of a social
structure that is not so much the result of a continual historical process
covering many generations as it is the result of new, short-lived
developments whose source is to be found in the process of Jewish
settlement in Palestine. The modes of behaviour and value relations of each
of the groups that compose Israeli society did not develop organically from
cultural or social traditions, but were mostly imported from the immigrants'
country of origin. The various traditions were expressed in many different
aspects of life, in lifestyle and manner of behaviour, in Jewish religious
tradition and in the preservation of local rituals belonging to people coming
from various communities.42
The encounter between long-standing sets of values and those of the
immigrants who retained their links to traditional cultures did not take place
in conditions of equal power. The absorption authorities were dominant,
both politically and socially. Consequently, during the period of speedy
growth in Israeli society (in the 1950s and early 1960s) the particularistic
traditions of immigrants' countries of origin did not strongly affect the
development of Israeli society. However, this situation changed, and the
influence of particularistic traditions on the nature of public life in Israel
began to increase with the growing sense of self-assurance amongst
traditionalist groups in Israeli society.43
 These began to free themselves from their marginal position in society,
opting for a more central stance. Certain folkloric phenomena that were less
visible in the 1950s, such as folk medicine, experienced a revival in the
1970s, and ever since, folk medicine has operated in certain circles of
society parallel to, and in competition with, conventional medicine.44
Another striking feature is the rise of the cult surrounding the tombs of holy
men and sages, which have become cultural centres more than mere
pilgrimage sites.45
Recently, the phenomenon of belief in the mystical powers of Kabbalists
and amulets has grown, and use has been made of this to recruit support in
the political sphere as well.46 Sociologists have pointed to the fact that in
Israel, as in other countries, traditional ties negating Western-style
modernization are more vigorous than might have been expected during the
period when the institutional infrastructure was laid down.47 Groups that
had in the past experienced difficulties integrating into the dominant
modern culture are now living an independent existence.
The religious factor that burst onto the scene at the end of the 1960s,
accelerating after the Six Day War in 1967, also greatly assisted this
development. This factor is noticeable in the emergence of religious groups,
including those affiliated to the religious Zionist movement, which in
earlier years had been compliant and had adopted a centralist compromise
position.48
Their intense involvement in the political debate surrounding the Jewish-
Arab conflict, together with their political organization, strengthened their
social unity and increased their tendency to create symbols of a unique
religious cultural identity. The rise in the political strength of the ultra-
religious community increased and its involvement, and attempts to enforce
its standpoints in various areas in general public life, was part of the whole
process of replacing the central national Zionist ethos with a number of
other messages from groups claiming legitimacy for their religious and
cultural uniqueness.49
The criticism levelled against the centralist system that controlled Israel
during the first years of the state, and the public tendency for more
pluralism, caused the veteran elite to reduce their social and cultural
dictates. The strength of the secularist ideal disseminated in the past by the
political centre diminished, and there is now a greater tendency to
amalgamate it with religious-traditional components.50 The establishment
was no longer able to present a single ideology acceptable to everyone.
Prime ministers and politicians began kowtowing to the religious leaders of
various ethnic groups and cultural personalities who had been ignored
entirely in the past.
Although this was primarily the result of coalition considerations, the
phenomenon strengthened the legitimacy of the cultural particularism that
had begun to spread throughout Israeli society. The organization into
separate political units of immigrants from the CIS, and the dressing up of
their cultural heritage, is an expression of the general trend towards a
continually increasing societal split at the expense of the weakened politico-
cultural centre. There is no longer a single definition of identity in Israel
acceptable to a majority of the population. Similarly, no one national group
or political framework can impose its cultural authority on the whole of
society.
As a society of immigrants, Israel is afflicted with economic problems
and difficulties, with conflicting lines of policy, with rifts between the
expectations of immigrants and veterans, and with large cultural and social
divides. Israeli society has also been influenced by the dual goal of modern
Western societies that encourages pluralism while supporting individualism.
This has played an important role in loosening societal consolidation, and in
increasing cultural disintegration, and has resulted in a blurring of the
boundaries of collective identity in Israel.

NOTES
1. The Declaration of Independence was proclaimed in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948 (5 Iyyar, 5708).
2. The Law of Return 5710 (1950) was approved by the Knesset on 5 July 1950. Although the law
contained two caveats, intended to prevent the immigration of persons who acted against the
Jewish people and those who might endanger public health or the security of the state, there
have in fact been very few cases where a Jew has been refused permission to enter the country.
D.Hacohen, ‘The Law of Return as an Embodiment of the Link between Israel and the Jews of
the Diaspora’, The Journal of Israeli History, Vol.19, No.l (Spring 1998), pp.61–89.
3. The second wave of immigration to Israel arrived between 1955 and 1957. Israeli Statistical
Annual 1994, No.45, Jerusalem, 1994 (in Hebrew).
4. The first large wave of immigration arrived between 1948 and 1951. M. Sikron, Immigration to
Israel, Jerusalem, 1957 (in Hebrew).
 During the 1960s, approximately 340,000 immigrants came to Israel. Sikron, Immigration to
5.
Israel.
6. During the first wave of immigration from the Soviet Union, in the 1970s and 1980s, some
180,000 immigrants came to Israel; during the 1990s, about 800,000 immigrants arrived.
7. Sikron, Immigration to Israel, p. 17.
8. At the end of 1998, the population of Israel stood at 6,037,000, of who 4,783,000 were Jews (the
remainder belonging to other ethnic groupings – Moslems, Christians, Druze and others). Based
on figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics, Israeli Statistical Annual 1998, No.49,
Jerusalem, 1998.
9. Israeli Statistical Annual 1994.
10. The remaining immigrants were unidentified as to their country of origin. M. Lissak,
‘Immigration, Absorption and The Building of a Society in Palestine During the 1920s (1918–
1930)’, in M. Lissak (ed.), History of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine, from the First Aliya, Part
II: The British Mandate, Jerusalem, 1995, pp. 191–2 (in Hebrew).
11. Ibid.
12. M. Lissak, ‘The Image of Immigrants – Stereotypes and Labeling During the Period of Mass
Immigration’, Katedra, No.43 (March 1987), p.29 (in Hebrew).
13. Y. Aharoni, The Political Economy in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1991, pp.69–79 (in Hebrew).
14. A. Efrat, Development Towns in Israel: Past or Future?, Tel Aviv, 1987 (in Hebrew); Amiram
Gonen, ‘Dispersal of the Population in Israel During the Transition from Yishuv to State’, in V
Pilovsky (ed.), The Transition From Yishuv to State, 1947–1949: Continuity and Changes,
Haifa, 1990, pp. 157–72 (in Hebrew); D. Hacohen, ‘The Direct Absorption Plan for Immigrants
in the 1950s and its Results’, in Iyunim Bitkumat, Israel, Studies in Zionism, the Yishuv and the
State of Israel, Vol.1, Sde Boker, 1991, pp.359–78.
15. On the involvement of government institutions in the economic sector, see C. Barkai, The First
Days of the Israeli Economy, Jerusalem, 1990, pp.33–48 (in Hebrew); Aharoni, The Political
Economy in Israel, pp.87–142.
16. This image continued to exist for a long time, despite the fact that economists pointed to the
contributions made by various immigrant groups to an increase in employment and the
tremendous growth in the economy. Y. Ben-Porat (ed.), The Israeli Economy: Growing Pains,
Tel Aviv, 1989, p.9 (in Hebrew). Economists also emphasized the contribution of immigration
from the Soviet Union to the state's economy, see Z. Zusmann, ‘The Influence of Immigration
from the USSR on the Economic Situation of the Veteran Society’, in M. Sikron and E. Leshem
(eds.), A Portrait of Immigration: The Absorption Process of Immigrants from the Former
Soviet Union, 1990–1995, Jerusalem, 1998, p.182–206 (in Hebrew).
17. See M. Lissak, ‘The Social Demographic Revolution During the 1950s: Absorbing Mass
Immigration’, in A. Shapira (ed.), Independence: The First Fifty Years, Jerusalem, 1998 (in
Hebrew); Y. Ben-Porat, The Israeli Economy, pp. 162–8.
18. D. Horowitz and M. Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, Albany, 1989, pp.64–9.
19. On the composition of the elite, see M. Lissak, The Elite of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine
During the Mandate, Tel Aviv, 1981, pp.36–44 (in Hebrew).
20. S. Smooha, Israel: Pluralism and Conflict, London, 1978; S. Savirsky, Not Backward But
Forced Backward: Readings for Research and Criticism, Haifa, 1981 (in Hebrew); S. Smooha,
 ‘Critique of the Modern Institutional Version of the Cultural Approach in the Sociology of
Ethnic Relations in Israel’, Megamot, Vol.29 (February 1985), pp.73–92 (in Hebrew).
21. The violent demonstrations that took place in 1959 in Wadi Salib, a neighbourhood in Haifa, in
protest against ethnic discrimination, were widely publicized. Wadi Salib had been abandoned
by its former Arab residents and was subsequently populated by immigrants. Report of
Committee of Public Inquiry into the Events of July 9, 1959 at Wadi Salib, Haifa, 15 August
1959 (in Hebrew).
22. In the second decade of the state's existence, some 340,000 immigrants arrived in the country –
about one third of the number that arrived in the first decade. Between 1961 and 1964, many of
the immigrants, some 115,000, came from North Africa, while approximately 67,000 came from
Romania. Immigration from Argentina was the most distinguishable of the waves from other
countries. Data gleaned from publications of the Immigration and Absorption Department of the
Jewish Agency, Tel Aviv, September 1970; Israeli Statistical Annual 1994.
23. During the first twenty years following the establishment of the state, the total number of
immigrants from the US was only about 10,000. By the end of the 1960s, immigration from the
US had somewhat increased. In 1969–70, 12,000 immigrants arrived in Israel from the US. C.A.
Waxman, ‘Immigration from the USA: Religious, Cultural and Social Characteristics’, in D.
Hacohen (ed.), Ingathering of the Exiles, Merkaz Shazar, 1998, pp.343–62 (in Hebrew).
24. Sikron and Leshem (eds.), A Portrait of Immigration, pp. 182–206.
25. There are a large number of Russian language newspapers available to immigrants from the
CIS, as well as literary and poetic publications in Russian. They have their own theatre and
some of them send their children to courses in Russian language and culture as a supplement to
their studies in Israeli schools. G. Zilberg, A. Leshem and M. Lissak, The Community of
Emigrants from the Former Soviet Union Between Hints of Seclusion: Integration or
Assimilation, Jerusalem, 1995 (in Hebrew).
26. Z. Gitelman, Immigration and Identity, Los Angeles, 1995 (in Hebrew). See also A. Ulstein and
A. Ben-Raphael, Aspects of Identity and Language in Absorption, Jerusalem, 1994 (in Hebrew);
T. Horowitz, ‘Valued Inputs for the Immigration and Absorption Processes in the Wave of the
1990s’, in M. Lissak and B. Knei-Paz (eds.), Israel Towards the Year 2000: Society, Politics and
Culture, Jerusalem, 1996, pp.369–87 (in Hebrew).
27. M. Sikron, ‘Demography of Immigration’, in Sikron and Leshem (eds.), A Portrait of
Immigration, pp. 13–40.
28. Z. Gitelman, Immigration and Identity; T. Horowitz and A. Leshem, ‘Emigrants from the Soviet
Union in the Cultural Expanse in Israel’, in Sikron and Leshem (eds.), A Portrait of
Immigration, pp.291–333.
29. D. Hacohen, The ‘Direct Absorption’ System and its Consequences: Socio-Cultural Absorption
of Immigrants from the Commonwealth of Independent States (At the Beginning of the 1990s),
Discussion Paper No.28, Jerusalem Centre for Research into Israel, Jerusalem, 1994 (in
Hebrew).
30. Ibid.
31. In Operation Moses (November 1984), some 6,700 immigrants from Ethiopia were brought to
Israel during one and a half months, on flights via Sudan. In Operation Solomon (May 1991),
the larger group of Ethiopian Jews arrived – about 14,000 in one week. Both of these waves
were the climax of immigration from Ethiopia. In the year following the operation, a further
 4,500 immigrants arrived from Ethiopia. The Jewish Agency, Youth Aliya Report to Trustees,
Jerusalem, October 1995 (in Hebrew).
32. The extended family was augmented by people adopted into the family, besides relatives, such
as servants, or children of poor families who were sent to a wealthier family. Danny Bodovsky
et al., Ethiopian Jewry in Inter-Cultural Transit: The Family and the Circle of Life, Jerusalem,
1994, pp.13–14.
33. The Jewish Agency, Youth Aliya Report to Trustees; Bodovsky et al., Ethiopian Jewry in Inter-
Cultural Transit.
34. J. Nahmias et al., ‘Health Profile of Ethiopian Immigrants in Israel: An Overview’, Israel
Journal of Medical Science, Vol.29, No.6–7 (June–July 1993), pp.338–43.
35. The Jewish Agency, Youth Aliya Report to Trustees.
36. Gila Noam (ed.), Achievements and Challenges in the Absorption of Immigrants from Ethiopia:
Discussions of a National Conference, Jerusalem, 1994, pp.3–10 (in Hebrew).
37. Ibid.
38. D. Horowitz and M. Lissak, Origins of the Israeli Polity: Palestine under the Mandate,
Chicago, 1978, pp. 120–56.
39. D. Hacohen, ‘The Law of Return as an Embodiment of the Link between Israel and the Jews of
the Diaspora’.
40. Y. Aharoni, Political Economics in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1991, pp.87–142 (in Hebrew).
41. Parties that have been set up on ethnic grounds include the Black Panthers (1973), Tami (1977),
Shas (1984), and Yisrael Be-Aliya (1996). C. Herzog, Political Ethnicity: Image Versus Reality,
Yad Tabankin, 1986.
42. S. Deshen and M. Shokeid (eds.), Jews of the East: Anthropological Studies of Past and Present,
Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 1984 (in Hebrew).
43. Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, pp.8–9.
44. Y. Bilu, ‘Traditional Medicine Amongst Emigrants from Morocco’, in Deshen and Shokeid
(eds.), Jews of the East, pp.75–166 (in Hebrew).
45. Y Bilu and E. Ben-Ari, ‘saint Sanctions in Israeli Development Towns: On a Mechanism of
Urban Transformation’, Urban Anthropology, Vol.15, No.2 (1987), pp.243–72.
46. The Shas Party used Rabbi Ovadia Yosef in its election campaign in 1996, and distributed
amulets from the Kabbalist Rabbi Kadouri in order to woo potential voters.
47. Horowitz and Lissak, Trouble in Utopia, pp.8–9.
48. A. Rubinstein, From Herzl to Rabin: The Changing Image of Zionism, New York, 2000; Z.
Ra'anan, Gush Emunim, Tel Aviv, 1980 (in Hebrew).
49. M. Friedman, Ultra-Religious Society: Sources, Aims and Processes, Jerusalem 1991 (in
Hebrew).
50. B. Knei-Paz, ‘Israel Towards the Year 2000: A Changing World’, in M. Lissak and B. Knei-Paz,
Israel Towards the Year 2000, Jerusalem, 1996, pp.408–28.

______________
Dvora Hacohen is Professor in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies at Barllan
University
 The IDF and the Mass Immigration
of the Early 1950s: Aid to the
Immigrant Camps
MOSHE GAT

While the long war between Israel and its neighbours in 1948 ended in Arab
defeat, at a high human cost to both sides, it was not followed by a peace
treaty. The armies of the Arab states did not return to peacetime routine, but
rather remained on constant alert. The Arab states continued to seek to
annihilate that political entity which had declared its independence in 1948.
According to Thomas Hobbes, war comprises not only the battles and
war operations but also the preparation for war. So long as there is no
certainty of peace, a state of war prevails. This was the situation for Israel
after the 1948 war, the War of Independence in Israeli parlance. There was a
feeling of a state under siege, and the central concern of the state's leaders
was focused on security. All other issues were effectively subordinated to
this problem.
Under these circumstances, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) came to play
a central role in Israeli life, as a precondition for the survival of the state.
Samuel Finer's thesis that when a state is confronted with an outside threat,
its army plays an important political role,1 is applicable to the IDF during
this period. The IDF was effectively involved in all walks of life. However,
despite its emphasis on national security Israel was a far cry from a garrison
state.2
While the IDF wielded considerable influence, no attempt was made to
use this power to threaten the Israeli political order. The phenomenon of a
military coup, all-too-common during the 1950s and 1960s in various parts
of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America,3 never occurred in Israel.
 According to Samuel Huntington, the major reasons for military
intervention in political life are political in nature, reflecting not the
organizational and social characteristics of the military establishment but
rather the political and organizational structure of society. The reasons for
military intervention in politics are to be found not in the nature of the
group, but in the social structure.4 In seeking to explain the involvement of
the army in political life, Finer distinguishes between ‘mature’ and
‘immature’ societies. The level of maturity is defined by two criteria:

The existence of broad public consensus regarding the processes of

a change in government, based on the belief in the illegitimacy of
the use of force.
The extent to which the body politic is organized in voluntary
associations, such as trade unions, industrial and commercial
organizations, political parties, and so on.

Societies that are ‘immature’ or do not meet these two criteria are flawed
and vulnerable to military coups.5
An examination of the post-1948 Israeli society will easily reveal solid
majority acceptance of the sovereignty of the Knesset and the government,
and of the idea that any change of government needs to be carried out
through free and secret elections. This principle was anchored to a wide
range of well-established civil institutions, such as the General Federation
of Labour (Histadrut), the kibbutz associations, and political parties, as well
as the religious establishment. From the very outset, the State of Israel had a
profound civilian tradition, and, unlike most of the newly-independent
states of Asia and Africa, its political system did not evolve after
independence but had long preceded it. Hence, all components of a ‘mature’
nation had effectively existed in Israel prior to the establishment of the
state, and the status of military force had already been defined. The IDF
succeeded the defence forces (the Hagana, Irgun Zvai Leumi and Lehi) of
the pre-state period, all of which had fully accepted the supremacy of the
civilian authorities. After the War of Independence, the army continued this
same tradition. Largely composed of recruits in compulsory military service
and reserve forces, the IDF reflects all walks of Israeli society: religious,
security, Sephardi, Ashkenazi, workers, property-owners – and above all,
the entire political spectrum. It is, to use Finer's words, a group of ‘civilians
in uniform’, or a civilian institution.6
While fully accepting of the civilian authority, there was a genuine desire
in the army to expand its activities beyond its professional roles, a process
known in the literature as ‘role expansion’.7 Such expansion is not
necessarily directed towards the political sphere but rather to other civilian
areas such as economics, education and ideology. This was the process
which effectively took place in the early years of Israeli statehood, when the
influx of large waves of immigration into the newly-created state allowed
the army to expand its civilian role without challenging Israel's democratic
system in any way.

THE IMPORTANCE OF IMMIGRATION IN

DAVID BEN-GURION'S PHILOSOPHY
The mass return of Jews to their ancestral homeland has always been the
essence of the Zionist dream. Yet, in the late 1940s, as the decisive moment
in the resolution of the Palestine conflict drew closer, the Zionist leadership
became increasingly consumed with the issue of national self-defence. At
the end of 1946, David Ben-Gurion, Chairman of the Zionist Executive,
assumed the defence portfolio, and from this time onwards this subject took
the better part of his time and energies.8 In addressing various public and
private forums, Ben-Gurion repeatedly emphasized that the defence of the
Jewish community in the Land of Israel - in the purely military sense – ‘is
the central and most vital issue, both for the Jewish community and for
Zionism, for on this depends our future, both immediate and distant’.9
During the War of Independence, he constantly returned to this topic:
Everything now is for the sake of war. Nothing today is more important
than the needs of war, nothing exceeds its demands. Just as, today, I don't
understand the word 'state’, neither do I understand ‘immigration’,
‘;settlement’ or ‘culture’… As long as war continues, we shall not
engage in anything other than the needs of warfare…10
With the end of the War of Independence and the beginning of armistice
negotiations between Israel and the Arab states in January 1949, Ben-
Gurion returned to his old-new concern of Jewish immigration (aliya). As
Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, he did not of course disregard
security considerations. However, while security continued to play an
important role, its meaning underwent a change. Ben-Gurion now viewed
aliya, settlement and the expansion of industry as the most vital elements in
Israel's national security.11
‘Immigration is the chief element of national security’, he stated on the
first anniversary of Israel's independence.
Immigration is the vital need of the Jews of Israel, and a prerequisite for
the survival and security of the state. Without immigration, the state is
doomed to obliteration. Seven hundred thousand Jews cannot survive in
an Arab ocean – although this year these Jews withstood the armies of six
Arab states. The special circumstances of this year will not necessarily
recur, and cannot be expected to recur over the long run. The first
necessity for ensuring the state's security is mass immigration, at a rapid
pace and increasing scope.12
Mass immigration was needed to populate the various parts of the country
and to create a close-knit network of frontier settlements along the borders,
as well as in the Negev and around Jerusalem.
Ben-Gurion believed that no economic considerations should be allowed
to restrict or slow down the pace of immigration. Just as these
considerations were not taken into account during the War of Independence,
immigration was not to be measured by economic yardsticks. If rapid, mass
immigration was to impose tremendous hardships, these were not to be
feared.13 The proclamation of Israeli independence on 14 May 1948 was
followed by a tremendous wave of immigration, which one historian has
described as a ‘cloudburst’.14 In the course of 1949, some 240,000 Jews
arrived in Israel; another 170,000 arrived the following year, and a further
175,000 in 1951. Thus, within three and a half years, from May 1948 to the
end of 1951, nearly 700,000 immigrants arrived at Israel's shores – a larger
number than Israel's Jewish population at the time of independence.
Immigration of such magnitude and proportions was unprecedented in
Israel's history, or indeed in modern world history. Because of its vast size,
this wave became known simply as the ‘mass immigration’. It transformed
Israel from a tiny state into a small state.15
THE FORMATION OF THE IMMIGRANTS
But the problem of coping with the unprecedented immigration was not
only a matter of the large numbers involved. The immigrants came from
different countries and different cultures. Some were Holocaust survivors,
others came from Iraq, Iran, Yemen and many other places – a veritable
motley of people from different parts of the world. Ben-Gurion believed
that most, in terms of Jewish identity, still resembled a formless rabble –
without language, tradition, roots or any knowledge of how to live as a
nation. The role of the institutions of immigrant absorption was therefore to
heal the rifts created in the Diaspora, to bring together people who had
grown apart in time and place. In his words: ‘We must create a melting pot
from Diaspora communities that are very different in their cultures, and
recreate a united nation’. In his view, the future and security of the state
were dependent upon the building of a new society and the rebirth of the
Jewish nation.16
This task of binding the nation together yet again, of acting as the
melting pot, Ben-Gurion assigned to the Israel Defence Forces. The IDF,
which had fought to secure Israeli independence, would now serve as the
educational tool. The Prime Minister saw the IDF as different from other
armies in its functions and assignments. He rejected the premise that all
armies, by their very nature, fostered degradation and degeneration, the
legacy of backward countries. In his view, in a properly constituted society
the army should fulfil tasks beyond physical defence by serving as
‘educator and healer’. IDF officers, Ben-Gurion maintained, are not just
commanders but also teachers, and they have a decisive role to play in the
building of the nation.17
Why then was the IDF seen as such a focal factor in the shaping of the
new Israeli society? Unlike political parties, the IDF appeared to be free of
political controversy. It was surrounded by a kind of halo, representing a
myth of unity, an axis of national consensus, a body which guaranteed the
continued existence and survival of the state against its enemies.18
Moreover, the IDF was devoid of the particularistic structure which had
characterized the pre-state Jewish defence units. After the dissolution of the
autonomous military units – Irgun Zvai Leumi, Lehi and Palmah – the
government's control of the army was unquestioned.19 There were no
political considerations there and no opposition, and the Prime Minister of
Israel believed that the IDF could be used as a primary vehicle to carry out
the supreme mission – the rebirth of the nation.
However, there were those within the Israeli public, particularly in the
religious sector, who disagreed with Ben-Gurion's thesis. They disputed the
transformation of the IDF into the major tool for shaping the character of
Israeli society, viewing it as a governmental arm designed to serve the aims
of the ruling party of the time, and imbuing the newly-arrived immigrants
with a secular, socialist culture. The opposition of the religious parties was
part of the struggle over the education of the immigrants during the early
years of statehood, which was also a struggle for political power.20
From the beginning of 1949, the proportion of Jewish immigrants from
Islamic countries began to grow. They came from countries which were
underdeveloped economically and socially. Many of them were poorly
educated, and most were religiously observant. With no conception of
democratic procedure or ideological issues, they became the object of a
power struggle among political camps. Winning influence among the
immigrants meant increased party power, while failure meant the
impairment, even the breaking of political power; in other words, the loss of
influence in social and cultural life.21
Because of the conflict over the educational issue, the idea of the IDF
working among the civilian population was abandoned. But inside the army,
the IDF leadership acted in the spirit of Ben-Gurion's concept of educating
the new generation of immigrants entering its ranks as an important stage in
the building of the new society. Special classes were set up, and immigrants
were taken out of their units to attend special courses of study. On 31 March
1949, the general staff issued an order requiring all soldiers who did not
know Hebrew to learn the language.
According to Ben-Gurion, one of the IDF's functions was to teach the
young immigrant recruits, in both compulsory and reserve service, the
Hebrew language, Jewish history, order and discipline, hygiene, mutual
help and manners.22 But education and indoctrination within the IDF could
only partially realize Ben-Gurion's vision of the IDF's purpose. The
circumstances of the period, namely the wave of mass immigration,
provided the opportunity for the army to work among the new arrivals, who
were housed in temporary immigrant settlements.

CONDITIONS IN THE CAMPS

In January 1948, at the height of the War of Independence, the Immigrant
Absorption Department of the Jewish Agency discussed a plan for the
financial and practical absorption of a maximum of 150,000 immigrants per
year, on the assumption that the actual number would be between 75,000
and 100,000.23 This plan soon proved unrealistic. The large waves of
immigration placed tremendous pressures on the Department, the most
pressing being the problem of housing. By way of solving this problem, it
was decided to house the newcomers in immigrant camps. The immigrants
were expected to spend a brief period of several weeks at most in these
camps, during which they would undergo initial classification – registration,
documentation, medical examination and so on.24 The Jewish Agency,
however, proved unable to cope with the huge influx of immigrants. With
the best of intentions, housing was simply not available for all immigrants.
In effect, the immigrants remained in the camps for extended periods of
time, and tens of thousands remained there for months, or even years. By
the end of 1949, the camps had been filled to capacity, with over 100,000
immigrants instead of the 50,000 planned by the Jewish Agency. The
immigrants in the camps were living at the expense of the Jewish Agency
and remained unemployed.25 The Jewish Agency lacked sufficient funds to
continue to support the immigrants. An alternative was urgently needed to
solve the problem of the large number of immigrants living in these camps.
Giora Josephthal, head of the Absorption Department in the Jewish
Agency, described the plight of the immigrants in sombre terms. Their
situation, he felt, constituted a potential explosive charge for the entire state.
In April 1949, Histadrut Secretary-General Pinhas Lubianiker (Lavon)
expressed the concern that the rapidly increasing pace of immigration was
liable to lead to a counter-revolution in Israel. He saw in the immigrant
camps a concentration of ‘natural destructive’ forces, and predicted that
‘one fine day, 100,000 such people, concentrated in the camps with no way
out, together for a month's time, are liable to rise up … producing an
explosion that will sweep away the government and the Knesset …
together’.26
Towards the end of March 1950, Levi Eshkol, Treasurer of the Jewish
Agency and head of its Settlement Department, raised what he considered
to be a revolutionary idea, which matched the scope and needs of the waves
of immigration. He proposed the establishment of temporary immigrant
settlements, known as ma'abarot. The idea was to remove most of the
immigrants from the original transit camps and to disperse them among
various locations around the country where opportunities for employment
might be available, or alternatively to create jobs for them with the
resources previously used to support them. This notion of population
dispersal was in the spirit of Ben-Gurion's vision of settling the areas
captured in the War of Independence and creating frontier settlements along
the borders. These ma'abarot were in effect places of residence, whether
temporary or long-term, composed of tents, tin huts, sheds and canvas huts.
Those who moved to these new quarters were required find jobs to support
themselves. Eshkol made it clear that from the moment the immigrant
entered this new temporary settlement, he would be expected to support
himself by his own labour, efforts and initiative.27 At a later stage, those
remaining in the original immigrant camps also adopted this new lifestyle,
and these camps became part of the network of ma'abarot scattered
throughout the country.
The ma'abarot were established rapidly, in order to meet the needs of
immigrant absorption, and therefore lacked any real planning. The Jewish
Agency Settlement Department identified locations, and the immigrant
communities were immediately set up – often in disregard of topographical
conditions. By the end of 1951, seven months after the decision to establish
the ma'abarot was made, these had already numbered 62, and a year later
they grew to 127, with a population numbering close to 260,000. Most of
the residents of these communities were immigrants from Asia and
Africa.28 While the ma'abarot may have solved the painful and pressing
housing problem confronting the Jewish Agency,29 they created many other
problems, which such bodies as the IDF, among others, were called to
solve, if only in part.
 The situation prevailing in these immigrant communities can be defined
as chaotic: crowded conditions, lack of sanitation services, food shortages,
especially milk and vegetables, problems of water supply, and a shortage of
clothing and shoes. Because they were set up in haste, some lacked access
roads, telephone lines, and sometimes even public transportation. These
hardships led to the spread of disease. Moreover, some of the immigrants,
among them a considerable number of children, had arrived in Israel with
illnesses that required intensive medical treatment. The Israeli medical
system at the time was incapable of providing the necessary treatment, and
the medical situation in the immigrant settlements bordered on the
catastrophic. The Histadrut-run health fund (Kupat-Holim), the largest
medical institution in the country, was not equipped to deal with these
complex medical problems, and often not even with regular medical
problems. Medical services, when they existed in the ma'abarot, were
limited and non-professional. There was a shortage of medical manpower,
and the available doctors were not eager, to say the least, to participate in
the process of integration by providing the immigrants with medical
services. Hence not all of the ma'abarot had health clinics, or provided
medical services.30 In education, too, the situation could be described as
chaotic. Schools were only opened many months after the immigrants
arrived. Unqualified teachers, or those who had received only minimal
training, were employed in the schools there. The various political parties
took advantage of the situation, opening independent schools in order to
increase their political influence.31
The institutions responsible for immigrant absorption lacked the means to
supply the necessary services. In effect, the situation was one of utter
helplessness. Dozens of thousands of immigrants living in temporary
quarters required assistance in almost every area of life, help that the
various government institutions were unable to provide. The head of the
Absorption Department dreaded what the coming winter might bring. The
bitter experience of the winter of 1949–50, when dozens of structures
collapsed, camps were flooded and disease spread, was an indication of
what could be expected in the ma'abarot, where immigrants were living in
tents and canvas huts. Under these circumstances, he appealed to Ben-
Gurion with the request that, in the event of an emergency in these
communities, he, as Defence Minister, would order the army to extend
assistance to the residents. Director-General of the Health Ministry, Haim
Sheba, who had previously served as head of the army medical corps,
pleaded with Ben-Gurion, when the ma'abarot were first established, to
bring in the army, especially to provide medical assistance.32
The appeal to the Prime Minister to introduce the army into the
ma'abarot was not at all surprising during those early years of statehood.
The IDF of the early 1950s had the aura of an institution that had won its
stripes in battle. After the end of the war and the conclusion of armistice
agreements with the Arab states, the armed forces had relatively little to do,
and could therefore redirect appropriate personnel to help the ma'abarot at
that difficult time. Moreover, the IDF was perceived as a people's army. In
his speeches, Ben-Gurion repeatedly stressed its role in shaping the nation.
It was only natural that it should be asked to participate in the integration of
the immigrants.
At a meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, Josephthal related that
after Ben-Gurion and Chief of Staff Yigael Yadin visited one of the
ma'abarot in the Jerusalem corridor and saw with their own eyes the
difficult situation prevailing there, the Prime Minister decided to bring in
the army.33 While this story may or may not be true, Ben-Gurion's
perception of aid to the immigrant communities was not limited only to
their urgent physical and medical needs. The residents of the ma'abarot
were the remnants of tribes from which he sought to forge the new nation,
and he accorded the army a leading role in this daunting task. The
opposition of the religious elements had prevented army action in the
civilian sector. The entry of the IDF into the ma'abarot presented a golden
opportunity to implement that programme. In so doing, the army – albeit
through the backdoor and for a limited period of time – took part in shaping
the nation.
These efforts on the part of the army cannot be separated from political
activity and the desire to increase the power of the ruling Mapai Party. Ben-
Gurion was well aware of the army's potential influence and of the
possibility of harnessing this force to any election campaign.34 Thus he
agreed to the request by the head of the Jewish Agency's Absorption
Department and others to introduce the army into the ma'abarot. In early
November, he informed Chief of Staff Yadin that the government had
decided that the IDF should draw up plans for entry into the ma'abarot. The
target date for entry was set for 1 December 1950, and for departure four
months later, on 1 April 1951.

THE IDF IN THE CAMPS: STAGE I

On the basis of the government's directive, the IDF acted swiftly to
determine where it could be of assistance. On 5 November, the Deputy
Chief of Staff, Mordechai Makleff, appointed an IDF review committee,
composed of representatives of the Operations Branch, the Manpower
Branch and the Quartermaster Branch, which was to study the situation,
number and location of the ma'abarot and submit proposals as to where the
army could operate most effectively. After studying the difficult conditions
in the ma'abarot, the committee recommended, contrary to the opinion of
the Jewish Agency, that the IDF should make preparations to enter the
ma'abarot immediately. The committee felt that the conditions in the
ma'abarot constituted an emergency. On 16 November, the General Staff
decided that the heads of the various IDF commands should visit the
ma'abarot in order to formulate procedures for dealing with such problems
as housing, food, medical treatment, education and culture. Indeed, even
before 1 December, Chief of Staff Yadin announced that IDF soldiers were
present in all the ma'abarot defined as requiring assistance, and that field
commanders had already been appointed to each such site.35
On 17 November, at the height of IDF preparations, the Chief of Staff
issued an operations order, important in itself because of its substance. In
this order, Yadin expressed fears for the fate of the immigrants. Their state
of health, housing conditions and lack of adequate supplies aroused
concern, and fostered a sense of despair among the immigrants. All this
required immediate attention. He therefore appealed to the IDF soldiers:
We are called upon to prove once again that even after the end of the
battle, our role and our tasks are not completed. We shall not be deterred
from participating further in carrying out the paramount pioneering task,
which is also of the greatest security significance: immigrant absorption
… We are also called upon to demonstrate to the immigrants, who were
used to seeing the army as an enemy and oppressor in their countries of
origin, that the Israeli army serves as their refuge and support … The
 security aspect of this task is of paramount importance. The ma'abarot
are designed to play an important role in defending Israel's borders.36
Emphasis on the security aspect of assistance to the ma'abarot was
consistent with Ben-Gurion's perception of the importance of immigration
as a central factor in the security and survival of the Jewish state. This
served to allay fears on the part of the public in general and religious circles
in particular, for whom the issue of the education of the immigrants was so
important that it was not the task of the army to engage in education and
culture. In Yadin's view, the IDF was subject to the authority of the
government. Just as it had fulfilled a defence role in the War of
Independence, so it was now charged with a defence role of a different kind
– a pioneering role that was important for defence. The assistance to the
ma'abarot had another significance as well. It was designed to demonstrate
to the immigrants that the Israeli army was different from other armies, as
Ben-Gurion stated. It was not to be viewed as an enemy, but as an
institution which provided assistance and support.
It was decided that the IDF and the Jewish Agency should jointly draw
up a classification of the ma'abarot by living conditions, the nature of the
site, the state of manpower, and the degree of social integration. Not all the
ma'abarot were to receive IDF assistance. The 37 communities where low
social integration was found received the full attention of the army, and the
40 ma'abarot with average integration or above received partial assistance.
The IDF made use of the existing army commands and channels in this
effort, rather than creating new ones. Thus the assistance to the immigrants
was divided among the various regional commands, with each being
responsible for several communities. In addition, each army command was
required to set up a children's camp in its area. The air force, and to some
extent the navy and police force, also took part in this effort.37
The IDF assistance was rendered in a wide variety of areas: the
preparation of the immigrant settlements for winter – such as strengthening
the tents, digging drainage ditches and reinforcing buildings; organizational
assistance; medical aid, including sanitation and preventive medicine;
maintenance of the children's institutions set up in the ma'abarot; and
information, instruction and military training.
 The IDF also provided food for the children's camps, for the sick, and for
remote locations, and also ensured emergency supplies. The army provided
medical equipment as well as clothing and winter wear from its stores. In
addition, it took special responsibility for children with medical problems.38
Four camps were established for this purpose, for children between the ages
of 4 and 15, comprising about 800 children, who received both medical care
and schooling.
Special food was provided to improve their physical condition. The cost
of this undertaking, as estimated by the financial adviser to the Chief of
Staff at the end of December 1950, was 375,000 Israeli pounds.39 This cost
did not include the depreciation of personal and medical equipment or of
army vehicles. At this stage, expenses were covered by the IDF, except for
work materials provided by the Jewish Agency Absorption Department. It
was not clear who would reimburse the army. Josephthal noted at a meeting
of the Jewish Agency Executive that ‘they (the army) are spending a lot of
money and we are not paying’.40 The daily Ma'ariv quoted the directive of
the Minister of Defence, stating ‘don't think about the money. There isn't
any money, but you have to do the job’.41
The IDF did not limit its activities to medical assistance and the
preparation and maintenance of the ma'abarot during the winter months. It
also played a conscious role in the field of education and culture. Although
Yadin's operational order focused on the defence aspect, the IDF, both
within the ma'abarot and among the immigrants, took advantage of the
situation to educate the immigrants in the spirit of the worldview which it
considered most suitable to modern Israeli society. Such education was also
part of the melting pot idea of which Ben-Gurion had spoken. However, the
values that the IDF tried to inculcate were not always compatible with the
culture and traditions of the immigrants living in the ma'abarot.
At a 6 November meeting between Yadin and Labour Minister Golda
Meyerson (Meir) to co-ordinate the work of the army in the ma'abarot, the
Chief of Staff stated unequivocally that the army ‘would take upon itself the
management of the ma'abarot – medical, health and education …’.42 More
than two decades later, Yadin wrote that in order to bring the immigrants
and the IDF closer together, the IDF had become massively involved in the
absorption of the immigrants, especially in the areas of education and social
welfare.43
Ben-Gurion, too, left no doubt that the role of the IDF in the ma'abarot
was educational as well. In a long letter to Yadin on 27 November, he wrote
that the primary mission of the generation was the ingathering of the exiles,
and that all the state's efforts must be directed to this supreme task.
Speaking of the immigrants, he noted that two thousand years separated the
Jews of Yemenite origin from Israeli society. They lacked the fundamental,
basic concepts of civilization, and the attitude of the men towards their
wives and children was primitive. The abyss between men and women was
shocking. This abyss, Ben-Gurion said, had to be filled, and would require a
tremendous educational and organizational effort. We must, he maintained,
understand the feelings of the immigrants and treat their customs with
respect; but we must change these by gentle persuasion and by serving as
examples.44 In defining the role of the army to the Knesset Labour
Committee, an IDF representative spoke of both defence and education.45
The religious parties were concerned that the IDF would take advantage
of its presence in the ma'abarot to engage in educational and cultural
activity as well. At the height of the preparations for the IDF's entry into the
ma'abarot, Welfare Minister Rabbi Levin, leader of the ultra-Orthodox
Agudat Israel Party, asked Ben-Gurion to ensure that ‘the IDF operation in
the ma'abarot will not disappoint us in religious terms. I hope that you will
make all arrangements so that the operation will bring you only honour, and
take care that the religious beliefs of those who are faithful, in all
innocence, to the teachings of Israel shall not suffer harm’.46
This appeal by Rabbi Levin would seem to have gone unanswered.
Shortly after the army's entry into the ma'abarot, complaints began to be
heard about its activity in the fields of education and culture, including
complaints that residents of the ma'abarot were assembled to hear lectures
against unplanned parenthood, and on the necessity of desecrating the
Sabbath and cancelling prayers. There were also complaints about schools
that were set up by the army without the supervision of the Ministry of
Education.47
The religious parties viewed the activity of the army as a deliberate effort
to draw the immigrants into the secular camp, thus increasing its political
power. They viewed the army as an arm of the Histadrut, just as the
Histadrut-run stores took advantage of their presence in the ma'abarot to
further the aims of the ruling Labour party. One of the leaders of the
Orthodox Mizrahi party, David Zvi Pinkas, said in the Knesset that the
assistance to those in need was part of the attempt to steal the souls of the
children by imposing upon them a secular, heretical education. He viewed
IDF assistance to the immigrants as rotten to the core. On another occasion,
he asked Ben-Gurion how was it that the IDF had the funds to provide
assistance to so many immigrant settlements.48
By way of preventing a crisis over the issue of education, which was
already a source of tension at the time, a committee was established on 14
December to examine the religious issues and to investigate the claim of
anti-religious coercion in the IDF-run children's camps. Several days later,
Pinhas Rosen, acting chairman of the committee, submitted to Yadin the
committee's decision that the Ministry of Education should be responsible
for all educational matters in the ma'abarot.49
However, the removal of the children's camps from the hands of the IDF
did not prevent the army from continuing to work among the immigrants
living in the ma'abarot. Two months after the committee's recommendation,
the supervisor of the Mizrahi schools sent a letter to the 7th Brigade
commander, saying that education in the immigrant settlements had been
removed from IDF responsibility. He therefore requested that army officials
refrain from any involvement in education without the prior consent of the
Ministry of Education.50 It is clear from the letter that there was still a need
to supervise IDF educational activity. It is not surprising that complaints,
some justified and others the result of incitement and the settling of political
accounts,51 continued to be voiced against the army, which sought to teach
a way of life that was foreign to many. Some of the immigrants, especially
among the Yemenites, complained severely about the army's activities,
especially of attempts at forced secularization. The situation became such
that a Yemenite teacher noted at an immigrants’ meeting that the army was
an enemy which had to be fought. The role of the army in the ma'abarot
was to wean them away from their ancestral religious practices. The women
soldiers who took care of the children or served as social workers he called
prostitutes.52
 A solution, though, was not found. On the contrary, a political crisis
within the government developed early in February 1951 over the issue of
the education of immigrant children.53 Ben-Gurion, who was in favour of
abolishing the independent educational streams – general, labour and
religious – and establishing a single state school system, failed to win the
support of the Knesset. The Knesset was dissolved and new elections were
held in July the same year. Meanwhile, the IDF continued to work in the
ma'abarot, under the restrictions set by the committee in December, while
religious circles continued carefully to monitor this activity. The IDF did
not abandon its educational role so long as it continued to provide
assistance to the immigrants.
Notwithstanding the debate on the question of education, no one doubted
the contribution of the army to the immigrant settlements. Sheba noted that
the IDF activity in the ma'abarot had been a great success, comparable to
the IDF operation during the War of Independence.54 Josephthal spoke of
the good achieved by the entry of the IDF into the ma'abarot, and noted that
the medical assistance and the work of the women soldiers was a unique
contribution.55 Even the religious circles, opposed to what they saw as
negative phenomena or aberrations, welcomed the assistance of the army.56

THE IDF IN THE CAMPS: STAGE II

According to the original plan, the IDF was to have completed its work in
the ma'abarot on 1 April 1951. Ben-Gurion told Josephthal that the army's
role was to be temporary, for several months only, and should not become
routine.57 But it seems that none of the relevant authorities, including Ben-
Gurion himself, who were remotely aware of conditions in the ma'abarot,
even considered the possibility of taking the army out. Immigrants
continued to arrive, and additional immigrant settlements were being
established. In March of that year, the joint committee of the government
and the Jewish Agency decided to bring the 80,000 Jews waiting to leave
Iraq as soon as possible.58 Aside from the Iraqi Jewish community, 5,000
immigrants continued to arrive each month from Romania and other
countries. The state institutions were not yet prepared or able to cope with
these huge waves of immigration. The Histadrut's health fund, for example,
could provide only limited health services. In the face of continuing
immigration, the Jewish Agency's Absorption Department felt it would
again be necessary to rely on the help of the army.
It is hardly surprising therefore that, even before the end of the initial
operation in the ma'abarot, both the Labour Minister and the head of the
Absorption Department requested the Prime Minister to allow the army to
remain in the ma'abarot.
Representatives of the immigrants themselves conveyed similar appeals
to the Minister of Defence, noting the importance of continued army
assistance. The removal of the army, they felt, would throw the ma'abarot
into chaos.59 At the end of February 1951, Josephthal told the Chief of Staff
that were the medical corps to cease its activity in the ma'abarot, a medical
catastrophe would ensue. The Ministry of Health did not operate in these
settlements, and the health fund, which was already in a sorry state, would
have to take on 30 more ma'abarot. The assistance of the army was, in his
opinion, vital.60 Sheba reiterated the arguments for the importance of army
aid. He told Yadin that another 100,000 immigrants were expected during
the course of 1951, and that it was clear that neither the health fund nor the
Ministry of Health could meet their needs. Problems of sanitation, disease
and a shortage of doctors still remained. The IDF was still the organization
best equipped to deal with the situation in the field.61
On 25 February 1951, about a month before the IDF operation in the
ma'abarot was due to end, a general staff meeting was held to discuss the
question of whether to continue IDF assistance to the ma'abarot or to
transfer responsibility to the civilian authorities, as planned. Deputy Chief
of Staff Makleff and other officers were inclined to end the IDF's
involvement. Makleff felt that child care could serve as a substitute for
direct IDF involvement. The Chief of Staff, on the other hand, was inclined
to continue the assistance. He argued that the ma'abarot were not a private
matter, but rather the responsibility of the entire country and part of an
important process taking place. Given this situation, the army had a role to
play in these communities, which constituted an important security factor.
Were kibbutzim to be established at these frontier locations where the
ma'abarot were situated, the army would also have to invest tremendous
effort in fortification, instruction and training. Furthermore, the IDF's work
in the ma'abarot served as an educational tool for the soldiers, who were
made to feel that they were doing something important for the state.62
Yadin nevertheless raised with Josephthal the question of funding the
assistance. The army, he felt, could not continue to spend the appropriation
intended for other purposes on such assistance.63 But neither the Minister of
Labour nor the head of the Jewish Agency's absorption department had the
necessary funds. At most, Meyerson could inform the Deputy Chief of Staff
that Ben-Gurion had promised to obtain the budget required for the IDF
activity.64 Beyond this, nothing practical was done. The question of
providing the necessary funds continued to be a matter for discussion
between the army and the agencies involved in the ma'abarot, but without
any practical results.65 Ben-Gurion's precept that even though there was no
money, the army must function, remained valid. Although there was no
solution to the problem of funding, he acceded to the request of the Jewish
Agency, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Health that the IDF
continue to render assistance to the immigrant settlements, though not to the
same degree of intensity as in the winter of 1950–51.
The Head of Operations, Colonel Yitzhak Rabin, was in charge of IDF
operations in the ma'abarot. This effort, which continued from April 1951
until the end of the winter of 1951–52, can be divided into three stages.
During the first stage, after the conclusion of the initial operation, as
planned, on 1 April, the army restricted its assistance to eight communities,
where it provided medical assistance and maintained two camps for
immigrant children. The IDF also undertook to help those immigrant
settlements which, in terms of security, constituted an important link in the
regional defence chain. Ensuring the readiness of these immigrants and
their resistance capability constituted, from the army's point of view, a
prime defence task. Special emphasis was placed on training and organizing
these immigrants to defend their own settlements.66
With the growing influx of immigrants from Iraq (which within four
months reached 70,000), as well as from Iran, Romania and other countries,
additional problems developed, to which the Jewish Agency could not
provide suitable answers with the means at its disposal. The lack of social
integration, community life, discipline and internal organization were the
major problems. The population of the ma'abarot comprised of a mixture of
immigrants from different countries. This was the result of the perhaps
mistaken approach of the Jewish Agency, which had decided to establish
mixed settlements composed of immigrants from different countries of
origin in order to create a rational distribution of the immigrants throughout
the country and to accelerate the process of integration.67 As a result, the
sanitary conditions in the ma'abarot were poor, the immigrants felt deprived
and they suffered from a lack of proper education and public hygiene. This
led to constant friction among the residents, and between the immigrants
and the absorption institutions. It was clear that the hardships of the coming
winter would make conditions even worse.68
In July 1951 Deputy Chief of Staff Makleff appointed a review
committee, which, as well as the IDF representative who acted as chairman,
comprised of representatives of the Ministry of Labour and the Absorption
Department. In its report, submitted in September, the committee concluded
that an improvement in the social situation was the only solution to the
organizational problems. It recommended that the IDF take charge of
raising morale among the immigrants, as well as of education and medical
assistance, and set up special camps for 2,000 children.69 But even before
the completion of the committee's investigation, the IDF had already begun
its operation. In the first half of August, it was operating in 11 ma'abarot,
with emphasis at this second stage, at least until the onset of winter, on
education and culture. In a directive issued by the General Staff, the head of
the personnel branch noted that as of 15 August, the IDF's major task would
be to teach the new immigrants how to live in a modern society and
strengthen their ties to the land, and explain to them the basic problems
faced by the country. In addition, a daily newspaper was to be distributed,
adults would receive Hebrew lessons, and army units would hold discussion
evenings for the immigrants on social and cultural issues. Together with this
educational-cultural activity, the IDF continued to treat sick children and
provide welfare assistance.70
With the coming of winter, the third and last stage, the IDF yet again
broadened its assistance to 30 ma'abarot. This assistance included the
establishment of camps for 1,200 children, who would also receive medical
treatment, as well as medical assistance for the entire population of these
communities. The winter of 1951–52 operation came to an end on 31 March
1952.71 After this date, IDF activity in the ma'abarot effectively ceased, and
immigrants’ care passed entirely to the hands of the absorption institutions.
An important point, which deserves closer examination and discussion,
concerns the issue of funding. From the IDF's entry into the ma'abarot on 1
December 1950 to March 1952, the army expended over 800,000 Israeli
pounds (1 pound = $2.5), or about one per cent of its annual budget. This
sum does not take into account the depreciation of medical, mechanical and
winter equipment provided to the immigrants, or the cost of the regular
army personnel.72 The various institutions and agencies responsible for the
budget of the ma'abarot did not transfer the necessary funds to the IDF,
despite repeated pleas.73 There simply was no money available. The
assistance extended by the army was a lifebelt for all those engaged in
immigrant absorption, first and foremost the immigrants themselves, who
needed medical services and regular food supplies. The massive waves of
immigration, which continued for four years, placed a tremendous
economic burden on the state, which had just survived a war in which much
blood was shed. Israel's economic position did not allow it to meet even the
minimal needs of the immigrants arriving during these early years of
statehood. The government therefore introduced a policy of austerity and
rationing, entered into negotiations with Germany on the reparations
agreement, and implemented budgetary cuts. The IDF, too, was required to
cut its budget, particularly in personnel. While it is difficult to say that the
only reason for the IDF's budgetary cuts was the large wave of immigration,
there is little doubt that this was a significant factor in the decision. The
Chief of Staff strongly opposed the cutback, which he felt was liable to
harm the army's ability to withstand the growing Arab armies. He felt that
the IDF must always be ready for war.74
Ben-Gurion disagreed with this position. Yadin viewed the security issue
solely from the army's point of view. Ben-Gurion, however, pointed out to
Yadin that the security of Israel rested not only on the army, but also on the
economic and financial strength of the nation. The ‘real defence budget’, he
told Yadin, ‘is the absorption and development budget, in addition to the
army's budget. We must make a desperate effort to attain economic
independence. Otherwise, we will not survive and will not be able to
resume the task of ingathering of the exiles. This effort contributes to
security’.75 Ben-Gurion reiterated the same position he had formulated after
the end of fighting with the Arab states regarding the vital importance of
mass immigration. Chief of Staff Yadin remained unconvinced and resigned
his post over the issue of cutbacks in the IDF budget.

CONCLUSION
The tremendous impact of immigration in the early years of Israeli
statehood created unexpected difficulties with which the state institutions,
the Jewish Agency and the government ministries could not cope. The
government, or, to be more precise, David Ben-Gurion as Minister of
Defence, was forced to entrust the IDF with helping in immigrant
absorption. The IDF, which was to play a central role in implementing the
melting pot philosophy, was forced by circumstances to deal primarily in
improving the living conditions of the immigrants in the temporary
settlements, but knowingly extended into other areas as well.
The work carried out by the IDF almost without interruption for two
years, especially in the medical field, was impressive. It is no wonder that
the director-general of the Ministry of Health compared the medical help of
the IDF in the ma'abarot to its exploits in the War of Independence. The
IDF entered the immigrant settlements not because it was forced to do so,
but in the belief that the task of immigrant absorption was a national one, as
well as an important security factor. By lending assistance to the ma'abarot,
they were strengthening Israeli security. This view accorded with the
position espoused by Ben-Gurion, who viewed immigration and absorption
as vital elements in state security.
There were a number of causes for the expansion of IDF activity beyond
its usual military functions: the massive waves of immigration created
needs that could not be met by the absorption agencies, especially in the
area of public health. Furthermore, it was not in Ben-Gurion's nature to
ignore ideology. He therefore cultivated the army as a tool to implement
tasks of a purely civilian nature. He viewed the army as an educational
force to renew the youth and vitality of the nation, a melting pot for Jews
from different Diaspora communities. Additionally, the army itself saw
assistance to the immigrants as part of training these immigrants to fulfil
their obligations towards the national security of the state. The immigrant
settlements were thus viewed as a very important security asset which must
be developed.
Thus, as a result of the ideological circumstances and conditions
prevailing in Israel during the early years of statehood, the IDF was called
upon to extend its activity beyond its professional military functions - a
clear case of role expansion.

NOTES
1. Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback, Tel Aviv, 1982, p.21 (Hebrew edition).
2. Moshe Lissak, ‘Paradoxes of Israeli Civil Military Relations: An Introduction’, in M. Lissak
(ed.), Israeli Society and its Defence Establishment, London, 1984, p.1.
3. Moshe Lissak, ‘The Civil Components of Israel's Defence Philosophy’, lyunim Be-tkumat
Israel, Vol.1 (1991).
4. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, 1968, pp.194, 198.
5. Finer, The Man on Horseback, pp. 124–5.
6. Ibid., pp.27–8; D.C. Rapoport, ‘A Comparative Theory of Military and Political Types’, in
Samuel P. Huntington (ed.), Changing Patterns of Military Politics, Stanford, 1962, p.85.
7. Lissak, ‘Civil Components’, p. 193; Stuart Cohen, ‘The IDF and Israeli Society: Narrowing the
Role of the Army?’, in Moshe Lissak and Baruch Knei-Paz (eds.), Israel Towards the Year
2000: Society, Politics and Culture, Jerusalem, 1996, p.215 (in Hebrew).
8. David Ben-Gurion, Israel's Wars, Tel Aviv, 1975, p.36 (in Hebrew).
9. David Ben-Gurion, Uniqueness and Destiny, Jerusalem, 1971, p.15 (in Hebrew).
10. Ibid., pp.20–1.
11. Address to the Knesset, Ben-Gurion Archive [hereinafter BGA], 5 June 1950.
12. Ben-Gurion, Uniqueness and Destiny, p.56.
13. Divrei ha-Knesset, Vol.3 (9 November 1949), p.17; Dvora Hacohen, ‘The Absorption Policy of
the Mass Immigration to Israel, 1948–1953’, Ph.D. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, 1983, p.27
(in Hebrew).
14. Moshe Lissak, ‘The Immigration Policy of the 1950s - Some Organizational Aspects and their
Implications’, in Moshe Naor (ed.), Olim U-ma'abarot, 1948–1952, Jerusalem, 1987, p.9.
15. Mordechai Sikron, The Mass Immigration: Its Scope, Characteristics, and Influence on the
Israeli Population, Jerusalem, 1989, pp.5–6 (in Hebrew).
16. David Ben-Gurion, The State of Israel Reborn, Tel Aviv, 1971, p.391 (in Hebrew); Michael Bar-
Zohar, Ben Gurion, Tel Aviv, 1977, pp.875, 885 (in Hebrew); Eyal Kafkafi, ‘The Frumkin
Commission of Inquiry – A Tool to Discredit the Labour Movement’, Medina Mimshal Ve-
yahasim Beinleumiim, Vol.40 (1995), p.152.
17. Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots, Israeli Military in Politics, London, 1983, p.443;
Eliezer Don-Yehiya, ‘Political Religion in a New State: Ben-Gurion's Mamlachtiyut’, in Ilan
Troen and Noah Lucas (eds.), Israel in the First Decade, New York, 1995, p.181; Kafkafi,
 ‘Commission of Inquiry’, p. 154; Ben-Gurion to Yadin, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 27 November
1950; see also Ben-Gurion's criticism of Israel Galili and Yitzhak Ben-Aharon; Israel
Yeshayahu, Separate and Together, Tel Aviv, 1990, p.351 (in Hebrew).
18. Dvora Hacohen, Immigrants in Tempest: The Great Immigration and its Absorption in Israel
1943–1948, Jerusalem, 1994, p.158 (in Hebrew).
19. Peri, Between Ballots, pp.51–7; Nathan Yanai, Political Crises in Israel, Jerusalem, 1982, p.48
(in Hebrew); Zehava Ostfeld, An Army Is Born: Major Stages in the Building of the Army under
the Leadership of Ben-Gurion, Tel Aviv, 1994, p.760 (in Hebrew). In this context, see also Yigal
Allon, Shield of David: The Story of Israeli Armed Forces, London, 1970, pp.187–234.
20. Eliezer Don-Yehiya, ‘Co-operation and Conflict between Political Camps: The Religious Camp
and the Labour Movement, and the Education Crisis in Israel’, Ph.D. dissertation, Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, 1977, pp.509–18 (in Hebrew).
21. Ibid., pp.495–6.
22. Amos Perlmutter, Military and Politics in Israel; Nation Building and the Role Expansion,
London, 1969, pp.70–1; IDF Archive [hereinafter IDFA], 520/930/52, 31 March 1949;
Independence Day message, BGA, 7 April 1952; B.Z. Fishier, ‘Teaching Hebrew During the
Mass Immigration’, in Naor (ed.), Olim U-ma'abarot, p. 153.
23. Poalei Eretz Israel Party, Centre for Problems of Immigration and Absorption in the Early Years
of the State, Tel Aviv, 1948, p.2 (in Hebrew).
24. Lissak, ‘Immigration Policy’, p.4.
25. A. Brutzkes, ‘The Dreams that Became Cities: On the Efforts to Plan Areas for Immigrant
Settlement and Absorption in the Years 1948–1952’, in Naor (ed.), Olim U-ma'abarot, p. 131;
Dvora Hacohen, ‘Mass Immigration and the Israeli Political System, 1948–1953’, Studies in
Zionism, Vol.8 (Spring 1987), p.106.
26. Consultations on immigration, Labour Party Archive, section 24/49/2, 22 April 1949.
27. The Twenty-Third Zionist Congress, 14–30 August 1951, Stenographic Report, Jerusalem,
1952, pp.258–9 (in Hebrew); Tom Segev, 1949: The First Israelis, Tel Aviv, 1984, pp.138–9 (in
Hebrew).
28. M. Kachinsky, ‘The Ma'abarot’, in Naor (ed.), Olim U-ma'abarot, p.74.
29. Sheba to Ben-Gurion, Ma'abarot file, BGA, January 1951.
30. Divrei Ha-Knesset, Vol.7 (18 December 1950), p.490; Operations Branch, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 17
November 1950; Meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, Central Zionist Archives
[hereinafter CZA], 17 December 1950.
31. Meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, CZA, 17 December 1950.
32. Hacohen, Immigrants in Tempest, p.271.
33. Meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, CZA, 17 December 1950.
34. See Giora Goldberg, ‘Ben-Gurion and the People's Front’, Medina Mimshal Ve-yahasim
Beinleumiim, Vol.35 (1992), p.54.
35. Ma'ariv, 2 February 1950; Colonel Remez to Air Council, IDFA, 111/274/51, 16 November
1950; Makleff to Luria, IDFA, 76/188/53, 3 January 1950.
36. Yigael Yadin, Operation Ma'abarot, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 17 November 1950.
37. Order for Operation Ma'abarot, IDFA, 188/766/53, 17 November 1950; Ma'abarot file, Diary,
BGA, 21 December 1950.
38. Ma'abarot file, Diary, BGA, 21 December 1950; Summary report of Operation Ma'abarot, IDFA,
188/766/53, 4 March 1951; Deshe to Chief of Staff, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 17 January 1951.
39. Financial adviser to Chief of Staff, IDFA, 188/766/53, 26 December 1950.
40. Meeting of Jewish Agency Executive, CZA, 17 December 1950.
41. Ma'ariv, 22 November 1950.
42. Conversation between Golda Meyerson and Yadin, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 6 November 1950.
43. Y. Yadin, ‘Setting the Framework of the Israel Defence Forces’, in Y. Erez and I. Kfiz (eds.),
Zahal Be-heilo, Tel Aviv, 1983, p.74 (in Hebrew).
44. Ben-Gurion to Yadin, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 27 November 1950.
45. Deshe to Chief of Staff, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 17 January 1951.
46. Levin to Ben-Gurion, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 22 January 1950.
47. Warhaftig to Defence Minister, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 12 December 1950; Kisalon ma'abara to
Department of Youth and Pioneering, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 1 February 1950.
48. Divrei Ha-knesset, Vol.7, pp.482–3; Agudat Israel to Defence Minister, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 27
November 1950; Executive committee of Ha-poel Ha-mizrahi, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 4
December 1950; Memorandum of visit by Minister of Welfare, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 6
December 1950; Diary, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 21 February 1951; Commander of 7th Brigade to
Commander of the Southern Region, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 5 February 1951; Warhaftig to Defence
Minister, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 12 February 1951.
49. Rosen to Yadin, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 18 December 1950.
50. Supervisor of Mizrahi schools to Commander of 7th Brigade, Correspondence, BGA, 5
February 1951.
51. See, for example, Israel Yeshayahu, Report of Visit to Kisalon ma'abara, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 2
January 1951.
52. Meeting at Jasir ma'abara, IDFA, 60/1550/52, 8 February 1951.
53. On the education crisis, see Hacohen, Immigrants in Tempets, pp.220–34.
54. Sheba to Yadin, IDFA, 60/1559/52, January 1951.
55. Meeting of the General Staff, IDFA, 766/216/53, 25 February 1951.
56. Divrei Ha-knesset, Vol.7 (18 December 1950), pp.482–3.
57. Meeting of the Jewish Agency Executive, CZA, 17 December 1950.
58. Protocol of Meeting of the Co-ordinating Committee, CZA, S43/7, 22 March 1951. See also
Moshe Gat, Jewish Community in Crisis, Jerusalem, 1989, pp. 118–32 (in Hebrew).
59. Ministry of Defence to Chief of Staff, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 2 April 1951; Meyerson to Josephthal,
IDFA, 60/1559/52, 8 March 1951.
60. Meeting of the General Staff, IDFA, 766/213/53, 25 February 1951.
61. Sheba to Yadin, IDFA, 60/1559/52, 24 January 1951.
62. Meeting of the General Staff, IDFA, 766/213/53, 25 February 1951.
63. Ibid.
64. Meyerson to Makleff, IDFA, 60/1559/53, 21 March 1951.
65. See, for example, the letter from the Chief of Staff's financial adviser to the Chief of Staff,
October 1951, in which he noted that the Defence Ministry had appealed several times to the
Labour Ministry, asking that it cover the army's budget, but that this was not done. IDFA,
188/760/53.
66. Financial adviser to the Chief of Staff, IDFA, 188/760/53, 11 October 1951; Rabin to Chief
Medical Officer, IDFA, 188/760/53, 6 March 1951; Rabin to Defence Ministry, IDFA,
188/760/53, April 1951.
67. Dvora Hacohen, ‘The IDF and Immigrant Absorption’, in Naor (ed.), Olim U-ma'abarot, p.123;
Report of Review Committee, IDFA, 127/7/52, September 1951.
68. IDF Operations Branch, Ma'abarot file, BGA, 25 July 1951.
69. Deputy Chief of Staff to Luria, IDFA, 127/7/52, 4 July 1951; Luria to Deputy Chief of Staff,
IDFA, 127/7/52, 9 September 1951; Report of Review Committee, IDFA, 127/7/52, September
1951.
70. Care of the Immigrant Settlements, IDFA, 188/766/52, 15 August 1951.
71. Operation Ma'abarot 19515–2, IDFA, 188/766/52, 25 October 1951; Meeting of the General
Staff, IDFA, 188/766/52, 7 October 1951; Rabin, ‘Operation of the Army in Time of
Emergency’, IDFA, 188/766/52, December 1951; Central Regional Command, IDFA,
488/146/55, 17 March 1952. Despite this, the IDF remained in several ma'abarot where there
were problems of internal organization and integration. It should be noted that in the winter of
1952–53, a new Operation Ma'abarot was declared. This operation was limited in scope, as the
number of tent camps had been reduced and most immigrants had moved to permanent homes.
According to the operational order, ‘the IDF will provide help to the ma'abarot … only in the
event of flooding, and there will be no regular assistance as in the winter of 1951–52’,
Operations Branch to Commander of 11th Brigade, IDFA, 369/15/54, January 1953.
72. G.E. Rotenberg, The Anatomny of the Israeli Army, London, 1969, pp.80–7; Financial Adviser
to Head of Operations Branch, IDFA, 188/760/53, 8 November 1951; Financial Adviser to Chief
of Staff, IDFA, 188/766/53, 11 October 1951; Financial Adviser to Chief of Staff, IDFA,
188/766/53, 26 December 1951.
73. Financial Adviser to Head of Operations Branch, IDFA, 188/766/53, 18 April 1951; Financial
Adviser to Chief of Staff, IDFA, 188/766/53, 11 October 1951; Summary of Meeting at the
Defence Ministry, IDFA, 188/766/53, 4 December 1951.
74. Diary, BGA, 4 September 1952, 26 November 1952.
75. Ibid., 4 September 1952, 20 November 1952.

______________
Moshe Gat is Associate Professor of History at Bar-Ilan University. The author would like to thank
the Schnitzer Foundation for Research on the Israeli Economy and Society for its generous support
for this study.
 Public Service Broadcasting vs
Public Service Broadcasting: The
Crisis in the Service as the Outcome
of the Clash between State and Civil
Society – The Israeli–Lebanese War,
1982
MIRA MOSHE

‘Public broadcasting is in a state of near breakdown’ is a widely accepted

axiom in communications research today. Recognition of the actual gravity
of the crisis first dawned in the 1980s. At first, the blame was ascribed to
the dramatic technological developments that had recreated the mass media
and upset the traditional status of broadcasting. Later, blame was laid at the
door of the new political climate, economic factors, various interested
parties, and so on.1 At the same time, there was growing recognition of the
need for an open, independent public debate in order to widen the
involvement of the ‘public sphere’. The expectation was, of course, that
public service broadcasting would add depth to the debate, and contribute to
its shaping and dissemination, but it soon transpired that the moribund body
was unable to play this key role.
This essay concerns itself with an analysis of the crisis in public service
broadcasting, and how the structural fault arising from the constant conflict
between state and civil society makes the crisis impossible to overcome.

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING

From its inception up to the present day, public service broadcasting has
been defined as mixed programming on public channels, available to all.2
Programmes broadcast as a public service create a new form of public life;
in effect, they bring about media enfranchisement for all by interpreting and
relaying real world events.
The general perception is that public service broadcasting is better than
commercial broadcasting;3 chiefly because the guidelines of commercial
stations are those of standardized mass-production. They repeat known and
market-tested formulas in order to reach the largest possible audience.4
However, from the late 1980s and through the 1990s, public broadcasting –
indeed, the whole idea of a national media system in Europe – has been
subjected to outside pressures. The orientation which was supposed to
protect national language and culture, and unify the national interest, began
an accelerated process of commercialization.5
Furthermore, the market shows a preference for the hegemony of
commercial broadcasts, thereby forcing public service broadcasting to
choose between going under or becoming more commercial itself
(regardless of the fact that the continued existence of an independent public
broadcasting body affords economically and politically weaker groups a
potential voice and platform).6
These changes mean a complete restructuring of basic outlooks; old,
worn-out identity models are shattered, and weaker social groups are
threatened. The intervention of power-groups and the distribution of
political, social and economic resources are characteristic features of
communication access. Therefore it is clear that the new allocation of the
resources of power creates conflicts.7
A survey of how the crisis in broadcasting came about, as presented here,
emphasizes the importance of public service broadcasting as a construct of
reality, as a provider of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ battling political and
economic pressures. This is the accepted mainstream view of
communications in the academic world. At this point we must reformulate
what public broadcasting does, and what the crisis is about.

CIVIL SOCIETY VS THE STATE

Social scientists draw a distinction between ‘society’ and ‘state’, originating
in the modern concept of the political community, and in their perception of
these two ‘ideal types’. Over the years, a number of books and articles have
been written on the nature of the relationship between these two entities.8
With this in mind, it is noteworthy that academic research on the media
has, as stated, paid attention to its use as a tool and a social agent only
where regulated by the state, not when defined as an active participant in
two decidedly different fields.

The State
During the course of the twentieth century, there was an awakening
expectation that the state would become weaker and that its status would be
called into question. The growing development of a global economy and the
European Community, for instance, were supposed to change the form and
significance of the historical nation-state.9 And yet, since the beginning of
the 1980s, the state has been returning to centre stage in political science
studies. The development of the state-centred approach, which views the
state as an important and complex player,10 gives it a truly pivotal role.
Today, therefore, it is clear that the exercise of political authority in a
defined territory is still with us.
The principle of the state has scarcely changed since it was formulated.
The state exists by virtue of a supreme legal order, which embodies it in
law, and determines its rights and duties. Government forms the essence of
the state, and is the factor which distinguishes the state from other social
organizations.

The State and Public Service Broadcasting

Public service broadcasting's ethos is that it supplies a service which no
self-respecting government can be without.11 Politicians are certainly
convinced that television has enormous power – a conviction not always
born out by the findings.12 Hence, in most western European countries,
television began as a state monopoly, run in accordance with each country's
particular rules.
 The monopoly was kept in government hands for a very long time. In
Belgium, for instance, a state broadcasting monopoly prevailed for more
than fifty years. Not until the 1970s, after the Belgian government had
exploited the monopoly for its own uses, did the demand for transition to
commercial television and the end of the government monopoly begin to be
heard.13 West Germany maintained its policy of monopolistic public service
broadcasting from the end of World War II until the 1980s; not until 1984
did private broadcasting gain a foothold in Germany.14 In France, the
broadcasting monopoly began in 1945, but ended in 1982, when new
players entered the field.15
In Britain, the changeover was even slower and more gradual; geography,
population distribution and patterns of language use all supported the
creation of a centralized communications system. For years, public
broadcasting, and also commercial broadcasting, represented government
interests, acting as the cultural and symbolic adjunct of the state.
Furthermore, state regulation was perceived as the best kind of regulation
for public service broadcasting.16

Civil Society
From the nineteenth century onwards, the state has been perceived as
representing a central power ascendant over all other powers in its
particular territory by means of various agencies. However, mechanisms of
suppression and/or legal regulations do not ensure the citizen's support and
loyalty. Max Weber and others have stressed the fact that social structures
exist as long as people are in general agreement about behavioural codes.
The state entity can therefore exist only as long as it is given legitimacy for
its actions, and it requires the endorsement of its citizens for these.17
Increased legitimization of government by the citizens, or restriction of the
state's dominance and autonomy, have been treated by some political
scientists as indicators of the existence of a civil society.
Gabriel Almond has shown the connection between a culture and the
formation of political attitudes. Values and social norms allow a civic
culture of participation and involvement in government to come into being.
A culture of political participation through a civil society is better suited, of
course, to a liberal-democratic government.18 Civil society is a unique type
of society which values social diversity, and is able to limit the damaging
effects of political power. It consists of non-government institutions strong
enough to create a balance of power within the state, while not preventing
the state from fulfilling its function as keeper of the peace and arbiter of
conflicts between the different interest groups existing within it.19 There are
scholars who believe that civil society is a historical experiment no longer
relevant to our times.20 They interpret the renewed interest in civil society
as evidence of weariness with it, and lack of faith in it.21 Others stress the
great value in the formation of civic societies, even when artificially
promoted,22 particularly in despotic societies.

Civil Society and Public Broadcasting

In the eighteenth century, with the spread of literacy and the rise of a print-
based mass culture, independent social organizations began to be active. In
this period, too, civil society began to be perceived as an organic entity
generating new codes of behaviour. Under the aegis of the establishment,
public discourse critical of political authorities developed in prosperous
industrialized countries, everywhere in historical synchrony with the
development of bourgeois society. In a climate of unity and joint concern,
individuals developed a sense of responsibility, and began freely to express
and publish their opinions. In the public sphere, which mediates between
state and society, the public itself is the motivating force in the formation of
public opinion. Where the public is a wide one, this communication process
requires tools of a certain kind for the task of dissemination and influence.23
Today, newspapers, journals, radio and television are the public sphere's
means of communication.24 This is important, as viewed from the
perspective of civil society and the public sphere. The mass media,
particularly public service broadcasting, are immensely powerful social
tools, which enable the public to acquire information, form opinions and
exert influence. When governments view broadcasting as a tool to be
operated by the state, and when civil society discerns in those same
channels an essential condition of its existence, the seeds of structural
conflict are sown, and they yield a bitter fruit – the ‘crisis in public
broadcasting’.
ARGUMENT
Critics of public service broadcasting claim that the rationale for its
mandate no longer exists, since, at the close of the twentieth century, there
was no further need for media regulation by the political authorities of the
nation-state.25 According to these critics, modern information technology
has solved the problems of accessibility and the cost of supplying
information. Viewers, however, are not simply consumers; they are also
citizens. To apply the methods of the marketplace to the question of
broadcasting as a public service is to ignore its wider implications.
Nevertheless, in order to advance scientific discussion, one must abandon
earlier models of thinking, and interpret the world of social discourse in
new terms.26 One way of doing this would be to adopt an interdisciplinary
theoretical approach. Combining different paradigms and linking theories
can help us to a better understanding of the crisis in public service
broadcasting.
The structure and reality of a society are the outcome of the interaction
between all the participants involved within the definition of a ‘situation’.27
One must therefore aim for a clear definition of ‘situation’ which is agreed
upon by all the actors. For this purpose, I have turned to the work of
Alberto Melucci, John Hall and others.
The state, according to Melucci, is a historical and territorial entity; a
historical agent which defines the composition of society; a political agent
for a system of decision-making institutions; and a potential agent for
bureaucratic organizations.28
The political system is defined by Melucci as a channel of the social
structure by means of which norms are decided upon. These decisions fall
into three categories: (i) deciding on values and norms, and regulating their
dissemination among different social groups; (ii) adopting and
disseminating the laws which govern the decision-makers; and (iii) deciding
on the use of the various social resources, and reinforcing them.29
Civil society denotes, according to Hall, the existence of independent,
voluntary organizations of strong, autonomous groups, forming a
counterweight to the state, and capable of setting limits to political power.30
Thus the state, by means of rules and laws, sets the limits on the authority
of the political system – amongst other things, to supervise and inspect the
activities of civil society. Figure 1 represents the regulatory process
operated by the state with regard to civil society.
FIGURE 1
REGULATORY PROCESS OPERATED BY THE STATE WITH RESPECT TO CIVIL SOCIETY
The State
(Regulating the activities of the political system)
|
The Political System
(Regulating the activities of public service broadcasting)
|
Public Service Broadcasting
(Regulating the state/political socialization process)
|
Civil Society
(Thus the state ensures the process of regulation, supervision and checking on civil society)

Paradoxically, the state becomes a strong entity only when it houses an

active civil society.31 Thus civil society, when it effectively operates
regulatory agencies in the form of ‘associations’, ‘lobbies’, or ‘public
protest groups’, can supervise and control the activities of the state by
means of constant checks on the political system. As independent social
groups first appeared, the expectation was that the media would take a
leading role in civil society. According to this concept, public services
broadcasting, along with public protest, constitute voluntary civil regulatory
agents. The concept is not of institutional, bureaucratic or legal regulation,
with the formal power to act, but of regulation from below, on a voluntary
basis.
Figure 2 represents the regulatory process operated by civil society with
regard to the state.
FIGURE 2
THE REGULATORY PROCESS OPERATED BY CIVIL SOCIETY WITH REGARD TO THE
STATE
Civil Society
(Influences the character of public service broadcasting and sets guidelines for programme content)
|
Public Broadcasting
(Supervises and reviews the activities of the political system)
|
Political System
(Supervises and reviews the activities of the state through various social agencies)
 |
The State
(Thus civil society ensures the process of supervision and review with regard to the state)

The argument of this essay, then, is that the crisis in public service
broadcasting originates in its dual role: as a formal, bureaucratic state
regulatory agent on the one hand, and, simultaneously, as a voluntary
civil/social regulatory agent on the other.

METHODOLOGY
In order to demonstrate the argument, I analysed a unique situation in which
both the state and the political system demanded that public broadcasting
function as a regulatory agency on their behalf.
The Israeli Broadcasting Authority produced a documentary series called
Tkuma (Revival), spanning the fifty years of Israel's existence, produced as
part of the country's jubilee celebrations. The series is about the rebirth of
the State of Israel. Each episode surveys a different stage the country has
gone through since its foundation, and each deals with a specific topic –
‘The Zionist Vision’, ‘Immigrants’, ‘Israeli Arabs’, and so on. Although the
format of the series is didactic, academic and in the spirit of public
broadcasting as it was before the era of competitive, commercial television,
it stirred up waves of controversy in Israel.
This essay deals with a single episode in the series. Titled ‘A Crack in the
House’, it deals with the Israeli-Lebanese War of 1982. I have chosen to
focus on this particular episode to exemplify the problem inherent in public
broadcasting's dual loyalty and commitment, because, in this military
campaign, Israeli society was deeply split into two opposing camps.32 It
was also the first time that a war was shown live on television in Israel;
previous Israeli wars had all been fought in the pre-television era. Although
it was not continuous, on the spot, live reporting from the battlefield, it was
a first-time situation, and therefore unique.
During the period described in this episode, Israel had only one television
channel.33 The campaign began in 1982, and the series was shown in April
1998, nearly thirteen years after the official end of the campaign. In the
intervening years, there had been many changes in Israel's government,
society and television services, though the problem of duality in the role of
public broadcasting remains unsolved.

‘A CRACK IN THE HOUSE’

I have edited the episode in the form of a table, in order to highlight the
problematic functional structure of public service broadcasting in the course
of the regulatory process operated by the state with respect to civil society,
and vice versa.
The intention is to make it easier for the reader to keep the structure of
the film in sight, to demonstrate the dynamics of developing relations
between state and civil society, and the play of public broadcasting in the
space between the two. Table 1 shows the nature of the relationship
between state and civil society.
TABLE 1
THE STATE VS CIVIL SOCIETY
State of relations Sub-stages Supporting evidence from TV
betweeen state & civil within this script
society stage
1. Co-operation and Sub-stage no. 1 Ron Ben-Yishai, representative
harmony between state Public service of the Broadcasting Authority,
and civil society broadcasting military correspondent of
operates as state
Israel, announces the start of
regulatory the war. TV: ‘The time is
agency 10.53. An IDF armoured force
went in [to Lebanon] about 50
minutes ago, in effect
launching an operation whose
end is not yet clear’.
2. First cracks in the Sub-stage no. 1 The first criticism comes from
consensus Criticism Mordechai Tzipori,
characterizing the within the Communications Minister, at
political system government the time: ‘40 km was, in fact,
coalition the government's declared aim
… all the rest occurred because
 of a progression of events that
we could have prevented …’.
Sub-stage no. 2 Narrator: The Knesset
In spite of the defeated, by a large majority,
criticism, the the motion of no confidence …
state is backed in the war initiative. Menachem
by the political Begin: ‘I should like to express
system my thanks to the Maarach and
Tehia factions in the
opposition. This expression of
national unity constitutes one
of the finest hours in the
history of Israel’.
3. The first cracks in the Sub-stage no. 1 Naomi Ben-Tzur, ‘a soldier's
consensus among the Sub-groups mother’: ‘My son is a tank
various groups in civil begin to form driver; he drove for 40
society within civil consecutive hours, until the
society fuel and water ran out … Then
we understood the big
deception … this is a war with
no limits set in terms of time or
geography’.
Sub-stage no. Interviews with combat troops
234 during the war: ‘As a soldier, I
Correspondence personally hadn't expected a
sent by public war of this kind. You can't
service TV engage them. You don't see
report on them. Men with RPGs or
problems machine guns pop up at you
experienced by out of nowhere’ [As they
soldiers in the speak, shots begin to be heard,
war and an officer calls the soldiers
back into action].
4. Attempt to smooth Sub-stage no. 1 [Newspaper headlines shown
out differences between TV continues to on screen] ‘Relief in Nahariya
act as state – ‘We'll be as safe as Tel Aviv’;
different groups in civil regulatory ‘Kiryat Shmona cheerful:
society agent campaign justified’; ‘Public
supports government's action in
the north: we had to do it’.
Sub-stage no. 2 Narrator: ‘Parents who lost
The rift sons in previous battles
between confront the families of the
different groups Beaufort casualties: “Our loved
in civil society ones did not die in vain”’.
widens
Sub-stage no. 3 Authentic TV report from
Public Israel television's military
broadcasting correspondent: ‘The terrorists
starts to operate are returning fire, shooting at
as an the tanks and the soldiers
independent advancing toward them …’
agent Narrator: ‘The Lebanese War
touched the civilian population
more closely than any previous
war. The tanks and the troops
were in front of their eyes … it
was the first war to come into
Israeli living rooms via TV It
was like a surrealist play.
Civilian crowds in the teeming
cafes watched soldiers
advancing in battle formation’.
Sub-stage no. 4 Narrator: ‘A month after the
Protest of beginning of the war,
citizen group thousands attended an anti-war
calling for rally organized by the “Peace
withdrawal Now” movement. At the fringe
from Lebanon of the rally, tempers got heated
increases and fists were raised. There
was an outbreak of harsh
language’.
5. Dissention among the Sub-stage no. 1 Narrator: ‘Begin had a tiny
different civil society For the first majority, but he simply didn't
groups groww even time, public care about the members who
wider35 service voted against him. It was Begin
broadcasting who gave voice to the
adopts the role distinction between the good
of civil guys and the bad guys, the
regulatory faithful and the traitors’.
agent
Sub-stage no. 2 Back to Ron Ben-Yishai: ‘And
Final step in theat six o'clock next morning I
role reversal of was already in Shatilla. I saw
public the latest action: the
broadcasting; it Phalangists were dragging
switches totally women and children out to be
to the role of slaughtered, I was really – I
social agent couldn't keep a professional
distance any more, and then I
really went through a radical
change’. Narrator, with
Lebanese wounded in the
background: ‘Ron Ben-Yishai,
deeply perturbed, wrote to the
Prime Minister: “It seems to
me that if those in authority
had wanted it, at least part of
the slaughter could have been
avoided”’.36
6. Groups within civil Sub-stage no. 1 Demonstrations, shouts of
society succeed in Protest against ‘Begin the murderer’, ‘Peace
forcing the state to stop the war, and the Now’ placards. Narrator:
the war and withdraw slaughter in ‘Hundreds came out to protest
the IDP from Beirut Lebanon, swells in and the slaughter in front of
the Prime Minister's house. The
demonstration was illegal, and
it was dispersed with tear gas.
 [Shots of the demonstration,
people shouting “Begin and
Sharon carried out the
pogrom”.] The tension rose’.
Sub-stage no. 2 Knesset Member Shimon
Serious cracks Peres, Maarach (Alignment):
in the ‘What were you doing, Mr
consensus Prime Minister and Mr
within the Defence Minister, when you
political publicly took responsibility for
system, what was likely to happen in
opposition to Beirut… this is an appalling
the misjudgment’. Mordechai
government's Tzipori, Communications
policy from Minister (1981–84): ‘I said at
within and the [cabinet] meeting the day
without after Rosh Ha-shana, “Mr
Prime Minister, it makes no
difference what we say. When
we went into West Beirut, there
was a press announcement
from this room saying that we
were going in to prevent
bloodshed. And the
responsibility will be laid at our
door”’.
Sub-stage no. 3 Ariel Sharon, in a speech to the
The Knesset: ‘Not a single soldier,
government not a single officer of the IDF
rejects took part in this atrocity. Our
accusation army's hands are clean … it is
against it you (pointing an accusing
finger) who have done it on
every available platform, in the
hearing of the whole world,
you who have added fuel to the
flames’.
 Sub-stage no. 4 Narrator: ‘400,000 people
The rift assembled in a huge protest
between the rally in Tel Aviv, and forced the
different groupsgovernment to agree to a State
in civil societyCommittee of Inquiry, to
reaches a investigate the slaughter in
violent climax, Sabra and Shatilla. The
ending in Committee recommended
murder deposing the Defence Minister,
but the agovernment was loath
to accept the recommendation.
There were stormy scenes
outside the Prime Minister's
office … The end was
bloodshed and murder. A
grenade was thrown at Peace
Now demonstrators, and Emil
Grinzweig lay murdered’.
[Footage from the scene],
Sub-stage no. 5 Narrator: ‘A few days after the
The IDF massacre in the refugee camps,
withdraws from the IDF evacuated its men from
Beirut Beirut, and withdrew …’.
At the end of August 1982, Menachem Begin resigned his post. After the
1984 elections, a national unity government was formed, with Shimon
Peres as Prime Minister and Yitzhak Rabin as Minister of Defence, and
Israel withdrew its forces to the ‘security zone’.

DISCUSSION
In order to examine ‘A Crack in the House’ as a case study in our analysis
of the crisis in public service broadcasting, we must first examine the place
of public broadcasting in the mutual regulatory process carried out between
the state and civil society.
The Place of Public Service Broadcasting in the Regulatory
Process Operated by the State with Respect to Civil Society (stages
1–4)
The state defends the underpinnings of its political system by means of a
structure of rules and laws designed for the purpose. These rules and laws
establish the boundaries within which negotiations are carried out. They
also transmit a message to the public concerning basic cultural values.37
These are, in fact, the principles on which public broadcasting operates. The
status and operational methods of television broadcasting is determined in
Israel by the Broadcasting Authority Law (1965), by means of which the
political system regulated the action of television broadcasting in Israel.
Public communication, as defined in it, protects the social order. This
perception fits Inglis's concept of public media as guardians of the order
and can be applied to the levels of significance, power and output.38
Furthermore, political leaders are often perceived as a news source by
nature of their position. Governments have the advantages of a high level of
organization and multiple sources of information, which enable them to
become a ‘supplier’ of events to the media, forming a very complex web of
connections with the public.39 Yet media news reports shy away from
confrontation with government.40 They also get their information about
current events from military and civilian leaders.41 That is why I espoused
Wolfsfeld's suggestion to examine the dependence of the media on
government over a period of time, covering a chain of events.
In the case under discussion here, news reports on the first days of the
war were broadcast in full co-operation with, if not completely dependent
on, the government.42
Knowingly or unwittingly, they have acted as an agent of the state vis-à-
vis its citizens. So it is not surprising that, in the first days of the Peace for
Galilee campaign, the media reflected the familiar view of the situation,
satisfied with a purely routine description of the fighting, and support for
the government.

The Place of Public Service Broadcasting in the Regulatory

Process Operated by Civil Society with Respect to the State (stages
5–9)
Militarism is an integral part of modern societies. It came to be connected
with the rise of capitalism, but is deeply imprinted in all societies. However,
social conditioning to life in a community living a ‘natural social life’
cannot be reconciled with a potential recourse to warfare. War as a natural
means of guarding a state's independence is in contradiction to the social
experience.43 In war situations, the press is caught in a dilemma: it must
strike a balance between supplying information to the people and protecting
the nation's security and integrity. In democracies, there is a natural tension
between these two aims. Hence, the media have a responsibility not only to
pinpoint key topics, but also to analyse the factors in their formation.44
Yet television is also an extremely powerful implement of war. The 1991
Gulf War, for instance, utterly changed the style of television's historical
reportage of war.45 In Israel, during the Peace for Galilee campaign,
television news programmes brought the war right into people's homes for
the first time. Up to that time, the Israeli public believed that, in a defence
crisis, the security of the state required all public criticism to be silent or
muffled. According to Barzilai, the media were trapped in the web of the
‘values of consensus’.46
In the opinion of this author, the media were tangled in the web of their
operational structure. Barzilai notes that state supervision was practiced
mainly on television. This was true up to the time of Sabra and Shatilla.
From stage 5 onwards, broadcasting rebelled against its role as state
regulator, and began to take on the role of social/civil regulator. The civilian
television journalist, shocked by his personal experiences, came to side with
civil society against the rulers. It must be noted that the catalytic events in
Sabra and Shatilla were accompanied by strong extra-parliamentary action,
and the involvement of servicemen in anti-war protests. It must also be
stressed that the public's support for government actions received a serious
blow when reports began to arrive from the front, chiefly from family
members and friends serving in the army.47

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

One of the most difficult issues in a democracy is maintaining an
equilibrium between government power and government responsibility.
When war looms too large, it can often tip the balance, giving excessive
weight to the power of the ruling authorities, to the point were the existence
of democratic life is threatened. The state can penetrate civil society and
implement political, logistic decisions that belong to the sphere of civil
society, bringing about a situation where the state intrudes into daily life
more than at any time in social history.
In Israel, the situation is even more complex. Civil society is subjected to
a battery of additional pressures mainly because defeat in war would mean
its annihilation. Since a constant state of war is a prominent characteristic of
life in Israel, public service broadcasting has served as the state's
mouthpiece, often voluntarily. The media have criticized the government –
and still do – on social, political, economic and other issues. Media
criticism on military and defence issues, on the other hand, has almost
always given prior consideration to the needs of the state. The wishes and
needs of different groups in civil society have come second.
A notable feature of the Peace for Galilee operation was that groups in
civil society protested and took action against decisions of the state while
war was actually being waged. This is likewise the first time that journalists
and media people identified with public service broadcasting were called
upon to define their position, to take an unambiguous stand. The
unexpected outcome, even if not immediately felt, was the erosion of public
service broadcasting's status and immunity. After the campaign, the Israeli
public was exposed to Christian missionary television broadcasts from
Lebanon; the video library industry developed and flourished; and finally,
pirate cable television stations appeared on the scene.48 These
developments, amongst others, finally led to the creation of a multichannel
era.
Ironically, it was the attempt by public service broadcasting not to take a
consistent and unequivocal stand in the conflict between civil society and
the state that brought about the lessening of its importance and the blurring
of its identity.

NOTES
 George Wedell and Andre Lange, ‘Regulatory and Financial Issues in Transfrontier Television
1.
in Europe’, in J.G. Blumler and T.J. Nossiter (eds.), Broadcasting Finance in Transition, New
York, 1991, pp.382–404; Roland Cayrol, ‘Problems of Structure, Finance and Programme
Quality in the French Audio-Visual System’, in ibid., pp. 188–213; Denis McQuail,
‘Broadcasting Structure and Finance: The Netherlands’, in ibid., pp. 144–57; T.J. Nossiter,
‘British Television: A Mixed Economy’, in ibid., pp.95–143; Steven Barnett and David
Docherty, ‘Purity or Pragmatism: Principles and Practice of Public-Service Broadcasting’, in
ibid., pp.23–40; Karen Siune, Denis McQuail and Wolfgang Truetzschler, ‘From Structure to
Dynamics’, in K. Siune and W Truetzschler (eds.), Dynamics of Media Politics, London, 1992,
pp. 1–7; Peter Goyvaerts, ‘Content Analysis of Political Coverage in the Belgian Public
Television News During the Period 1982–1991’, Res-Publica, Vol.35, No.2 (1993), pp. 167–82;
Edward S. Herman, ‘The Deepening Market in the West: Commercial Broadcasting on the
March’, Communication Information, Vol.16, No.l (1995), pp. 137–48; Lewis A. Friedland,
‘Public Television as Public Sphere: the Case of Wisconsin Collaborative Project’, Journal of
Broadcasting and Electronic Media, Vol.39, No.2 (1995), pp. 114–77; Wolfgang Hoffman-Rien,
‘New Challenges for European Multimedia Policy: A German Perspective’, European Journal
of Communication, Vol.11, No.3 (1996), pp.327–46.
2. Paddy Scannell, ‘Public Service Broadcasting and Modern Public Life’, Media, Culture &
Society, Vol.11, No.2 (1989), pp. 135–66.
3. Jean-Claude Burgelman, ‘Political Parties and their Impact on Public Service Broadcasting in
Belgium: Elements from a Political-Sociological Approach’, Media Culture & Society, Vol.11,
No.2 (1989), pp.167–97.
4. Ester Barzel, ‘Defining the Principle of Free Access to the Media’, in T.Gordon (ed.), Mass
Media, Bat-Yam, 1988, pp.64–72 (in Hebrew).
5. Siune, McQuail and Truetzschler, ‘From Structure to Dynamics’.
6. Herman, ‘The Deepening Market in the West’; Lewis A. Friedland, ‘Public Television and the
Crisis of Democracy: a Review Essay’, Communication Review, Vol.1, No.l (1995), pp.111–28.
7. Richard Kletter, Larry Hirschhorn and Heather Huddson, ‘Access and the Social Environment in
the United States of America’, in F.J. Berrigan (ed.), Access: Some Western Models of
Community Media, Paris, 1997, pp.27–83.
8. Thomas M. Nichols, ‘Russian Democracy and Social Capital’, Social Science Information,
Vol.35, No.4 (1996), pp.629–42; Victor Perez-Diaz, ‘The Possibility of Civil Society: Tradition,
Character and Challenges’, in J.A. Hall (ed.), Civil Society, Cambridge, 1995, pp.80–109; Ernest
Gellner, ‘The Importance of Being Modular’, in ibid., pp.32–55; Salvador Giner, ‘Civil Society
and Its Future’, in ibid., pp.301–25; John A. Hall, ‘In Search of Civic Society’, in ibid., pp. 1–
31; Roger King, The State in Modern Society, London, 1986.
9. Robert B. Reich, ‘Who is “Us”?’, in J.A. Hall (ed.), The State: Critical Concepts, London, 1984,
pp.553–63; M. Rainer Lepsius, ‘Beyond the Nation-State: The Multinational State as the Model
for the European Community’, in ibid., pp.564–79.
10. Andrew Vincent, ‘Conceptions of the State’, in M. Hawkesworth and M. Kogan (eds.),
Encyclopedia of Government and Politics, London, 1996, pp.43–55.
11. Barnett and Docherty, ‘Purity or Pragmatism’.
12. Nossiter, ‘British Television’.
13. Burgelman, ‘Political Parties and their Impact on Public Service Broadcasting in Belgium’.
14. Christina Holtz-Bacha, ‘From Public Monopoly to a dual Broadcasting System in Germany’,
European Journal of Communication, Vol.6, No.2 (1991), pp.135–54.
15. Michael Plamer and Claude Sorbets, ‘France’, in B.S. Ostergaard (ed.), The Media in Western
Europe, London, 1992, pp 57–74.
16. Jeremy Tunstall, ‘The United Kingdom’, in ibid., pp.238–55; Paddy Scannell, ‘Britain: Public
Service Broadcasting, from National Culture to Multiculturalism’, in M. Raboy (ed.), Public
Broadcasting for the 21st Century, London, 1996, pp.23–41.
17. King, ‘The State in Modern Society’.
18. Gabriel A. Almond and Sindey Verba, The Civic Culture, New Jersey, 1963.
19. Hall, ‘In Search of Civic Society’; Gellner, ‘The Importance of Being Modular’.
20. Giner, ‘Civil Society and its Future’.
21. Perez-Diaz, ‘The Possibility of Civil Society’.
22. Terhi Rantanen, ‘What is to be done? Media in Postsocialist Countries’, Journal of
Communication, Vol.46, No.4 (1996), pp.171–6.
23. Hall, ‘In Search of Civic Society’; Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere, Cambridge, 1989; Chandra Mukerji and Mukeandra Schudson (eds.), Rethinking
Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies, Berkeley, 1991.
24. Jurgen Habermas, ‘The Public Sphere’, in Mukerji and Schudson, Rethinking Popular Culture,
pp.398–404.
25. Scannell, ‘Public Service Broadcasting and Modern Public Life’.
26. Gita Tulea and Ernst Krausz, ‘Changing Approaches in Postmodern Sociological Thought’,
International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Vol.34, No.2 (1993), pp.210–21.
27. Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method, New Jersey, 1996.
28. Alberto Melucci, Challenging Codes, Cambridge, 1996.
29. Ibid.
30. Hall, ‘In Search of Civic Society’.
31. Ibid.
32. In Israeli academic circles, the existence of a local civil society is a matter of controversy. Some
see Israeli society as a ‘community’, Charles S. Liebman, ‘Conceptions of the “State of Israel”
in Israeli Society’, State, Government and International Relations, Vol.30 (1989), pp.51–60 (in
Hebrew); while others hold that the distinction between society and state in Israel is blurred, Uri
Ben-Eliezer, ‘The Elusive Distinction Between State and Society: The Genealogy of the Israeli
Pioneer’, Megamot, Vol. 37, No.3 (1996), pp.207–28 (in Hebrew). Another school of thought
holds that there is a civil society in Israel, albeit a very weak one, Baruch Kimmerling, The
Interrupted System: Israeli Civilian in War and Routine Times, New Jersey, 1985; Yonathan
Shapira, Politicians as an Hegemonic Class, Tel Aviv, 1996 (in Hebrew). Amongst other things,
this weakness is attributed to the fact that Israeli society is conditioned by the constant threat of
armed hostilities to being on the defensive, Gad Barzilai, A Democracy in Wartime: Conflict and
Consensus in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1992 (in Hebrew). However, all agree that the action of extra-
parliamentary groups during the Lebanon War was in line with the theoretical concept of a civil
society. This essay does not attempt to establish whether such a society exists in Israel, or gauge
 its strength; it aims at demonstrating the inherent problems in operating an independent, active
public broadcasting service.
33. The Israel Broadcasting Authority operates under the Broadcasting Authority Law (1965). It is
defined in law as an authority that broadcasts programmes as a national service. However, the
Authority's formal and informal status underwent a change over time, and it began to act more
and more as a public service. Attempts to introduce a bill defining the broadcast as a public
service were rejected, but the demands of the Prime Minister and the Minister of
Communications to privatize the Broadcasting Authority only served to establish its status as a
public service. The series discussed here was produced in a period when the state, the political
system and civil society all viewed the Broadcasting Authority's programmes as public service
broadcasting.
34. This is actually the first occasion on which public broadcasting begins to act as a dual regulator.
35. A radical change in attitudes was caused by the battle for Beirut: public protest by soldiers
(acting as civil/social regulatory agents); the PLO's surrender and evacuation from Beirut; but,
above all, the Sabra and Shatilla massacres.
36. Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, Tel Aviv, 1984 (in Hebrew), describes in
detail how Ron Ben-Yishai, Radio Kol Israel's correspondent, reacted to the Sabra and Shatilla
massacre.
37. Melluci, Challenging Codes; Jan M. Broekman, ‘Communicating Law’, in D. Nelken (ed.), Law
as Communication, New York, 1996, pp.45–62.
38. Fred Inglis, Media Theory, Oxford, 1990.
39. Gadi Wolfsfeld, ‘Fair Weather Friends: The Varying Role of the News Media in the Arab-Israeli
Peace Process’, Political Communication, Vol.14, No.l (1997), pp.29–48.
40. David M. Rubin, ‘The News Media as Forces in Shaping Cultural Norms Relating to War and
the Environment’, in A.H. Westing (ed.), Cultural Norms, War and the Environment, Oxford,
1988, pp.102–20.
41. Donald L. Shaw and Shanon E. Martin, ‘The Natural and Inevitable Phases of War Reporting:
Historical Shadows, New Communication, in the Persian Gulf’, in R.E. Denton, Jr. (ed.), The
Media and the Persian Gulf War, London, 1993, pp.43–70.
42. Wolfsfeld found that the purveyors of media news were also completely dependent on the
government in everything concerning the peace process between Israel and Jordan, a decade and
a half later.
43. John A. Hall, ‘Raymond Aron's Sociology of States, or the Non-Relative Autonomy of Inter-
State Behaviour’, in M. Shaw (ed.), War, State and Society, London, 1984, pp.71–94; Michael
Mann, ‘Capitalism and Militarism’, in ibid., pp.25–47.
44. R.E. Denton, ‘Television as an Instrument of War’, in Denton (ed.), The Media and the Persian
Gulf War, pp.27–42; Jack M. McLeod, Gerald. M. Kosicki and Douglas M. McLeod, ‘The
Expanding Boundaries of Political Communication Effects’, in J. Bryant and D. Zillmann (eds.),
Media Effects, New Jersey, 1994, pp.123–63.
45. Perry M. Smith, How CNN Fought the War, New York, 1991.
46. Barzilai, A Democracy in Wartime.
47. This is comparable to the public support model suggested by Martin Shaw, ‘Introduction: War
and Social Theory’, in M. Shaw (ed.), War, State and Society, pp. 1–25.
 Mira Moshe, ‘Multichannel Television Broadcasting in Israel: Institutional Aspects’, Ph.D.
48. dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, 1998 (in Hebrew).

______________
Mira Moshe is Lecturer in Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University. The author would like to thank
Charles Liebman and Yaacov Vadgar for their helpful comments.
 The Bank-Shares Regulation Affair
and Illegality in Israeli Society: A
Theoretical Perspective of Unethical
Managerial Behaviour
DAVID DE VRIES AND YOAV VARDI

Deviant managerial behaviour, involving senior members of the

administration, society and the economy is a universal phenomenon. In
Israeli society it has recurred several times, gradually becoming more
common since the establishment of the state some fifty years ago. The
Bank-Shares Regulation Affair, which came to light when the stock market
collapsed in October 1983, is regarded as one of the gravest cases to date in
terms of its consequences and implications for Israel's economy. Its
investigation by a national commission of inquiry, headed by Judge Moshe
Bejsky, exposed not only the flawed structure of norms and values that
became entrenched in major parts of the Israeli governmental system, but
also the deep economic implications of government involvement in the
capital market.
The regulation process, which took place in the late 1970s and early
1980s and reflects a significant phenomenon in Israel's macro-economic,
social, political and cultural space, poses two questions: first, what led
senior managers of Israel's financial elite to violate conventions of
behaviour, norms, procedures and laws? And secondly, what were the
mechanisms in the environmental and organizational contexts in which the
bankers operated that constructed the legitimacy and motivations for this
deviant behaviour?
 The aim of this paper is to discuss these questions through a historical
and theoretical analysis of the bank managers' behaviour in the regulation
affair, focusing in particular on the environmental and organizational
contexts in which they acted. For this purpose we used social science
theoretical models, specifically those relating to factors, processes and
mechanisms that influence decision-making and organizational behaviour.
The empirical material for our research is based on the 1986 findings of the
National Commission of Inquiry headed by Judge Bejsky, and those
exposed in Verdict 524/90 by the Jerusalem District Court in 1994. In
addition, we analysed interviews in the daily press with the bankers and
other personalities connected with the affair during and after the regulation.
The argument of this paper is that deciphering the processes and
mechanisms in the organizational environment is necessary in order to
isolate the factors that encourage managers to employ deviant behaviour,
and to develop an approach that can identify and limit the recurrence of
such behaviours and malpractice in the future.1

A THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
The term ‘deviant behaviour’ denotes behaviour that the members of a
society consider dangerous, embarrassing or annoying to the extent of
placing sanctions on the deviants.2 A deviant is someone who has been
effectively labelled as one.3 The only way that an outside observer can
determine whether behaviour is deviant is to learn about the criteria used by
the society as it reacts to such behaviour. That is to say, this is a term with
social and political contents that also reflects the social power to label
others' behaviour. This kind of labelling serves to identify deviants, mark
them and single them out.4 It is done in order to guard the boundaries of
society, have its members restrict themselves to a certain circle of activity,
and regard any behaviour that deviates from it as improper or immoral. In
this way the community maintains its cultural identity.5
On the other hand, a differential association approach would suggest
looking at this phenomenon from a socialization perspective. It suggests
that delinquent behaviour is learned or acquired through interaction and
communication with other people, and that the main part of the learning
process takes place in intimate groups (the top bankers in the case under
discussion). When delinquent behaviour is learned, it includes techniques
for committing criminal acts, as well as motives, pressures, rationalizations
and attitudes.6 In this sense, a person has to learn not only the technique of
committing crimes but also how to internalize the ‘proper’ attitudes towards
them. Moreover, individuals cannot systematically and consistently do
things that are in conflict with their principles and values without finding
some suitable justification. As they are not entirely dissociated from the
norms of society, they need ‘neutralization’ techniques, namely forms of
thinking and rhetoric that both enable them to accept that they are
performing illegal acts, and to neutralize feelings of guilt that arise from
their practice.7
Furthermore, the direction of the pressures and motives that act on a
person to keep the law or break it is influenced by socialized positive or
hostile conceptions of the various laws. In some societies the individual is
surrounded by people who see the law as an imperative, while in other
societies individuals are influenced by groups that favour and legitimize
law breaking.8 Thus, with regard to the shares regulation affair it was
essential to examine societal values and norms in order to determine how
far groups in Israeli society lent support to law-breaking, which groups the
bankers interacted with, what they learnt and acquired, and how they
neutralized their misbehaviour.
Analysis of the phenomenon is further facilitated by an integrative model
developed by Vardi and Wiener for the identification of deviant behaviour
in organizations, known as ‘Organizational MisBehaviour’ (OMB). The
concept refers to ‘any intentional action by members of organizations that
violates core organizational and/or societal norms’.9 Their model
distinguishes between different types of deviant behaviour in organizations
according to the main intention behind it. One of these is deviant behaviour
intended for the good of the organization (OBM type O), which is more
prevalent among managers at the strategic level (for example, concealing
information from an external party or scheming to cheat the authorities).
Normally, actions designed for the good of the organization are based on
such strongly held attitudes as identification and involvement with the
organization. The model suggests that unethical or deviant managerial
behaviour might be a result of such attitudes, though it also ascribes
importance to other contributing factors, such as organizational goals,
cultural cohesiveness and opportunity structure.
No less telling is the examination by Hosmer10 of the decision-making
processes of managers in situations of ethical dilemma, focusing on three
groups of antecedent factors. First, the economic factors, which reflect the
typical answers of business managers, such as the desire for efficient use of
resources and the maximization of profit in the context of market pressures
and lack of resources. Secondly, the social factors, which are associated
with the question of the application and acceptance of social norms and
laws. Finally, ethical considerations, which refer to ethical norms. These
factors may serve in an analysis of managers facing an ethical dilemma.
Focusing on managers, Izraeli developed a model of ‘Stakeholders
Circles', which situates the manager in five circles of environmental factors:
social, business, professional, intra-organizational and personal. The first
four circles include factors of the organization itself, while the fifth circle is
indirectly affected through the managers’ interaction with their personal
environments. Each circle contains various types of stakeholders, who
influence the organization and are influenced by it. Thus, Izraeli's model
assumes that the behaviour of senior managers, who are present in every
one of these circles, is influenced (owing to the fact that they represent the
organization and liaise between it and the environment) by the social,
cultural and political constraints of their environment, and the value system
and cultural norms derived from it, as well as by the economic constraints
(the state of the market, the competitors and the company's financial
balance) which are, in fact, the sources of legitimization and motivation for
their ethical/unethical behaviour. At the same time, they are influenced by
the specific characteristics of their organizational environment: the role
structure that gives them broad autonomy in decision-making, and the
ability to influence many ‘stakeholders’ in their organization and in the
immediate environment.11
These theoretical perspectives facilitate a system-level analysis of the
bankers' managerial behaviour, namely, the examination and identification
of the characteristics of the socio-cultural, economic, political and
organizational environment, while focusing on the interactions of the
bankers as a group with each of these components or circles in the system.
Our main assumption is that the group of bankers involved in the
regulation, and the way in which they operated, were the product of these
reciprocal interactions, of institutionalized partnership relations, which
constructed regulatory mechanisms and arrangements between the bankers
and the Israeli state. These relationships influenced the deviant behaviour,
and led to the settlements, which resolved the bank-shares crisis. First in
order, therefore, is the discussion of the relationships in the environmental
and organizational context that influenced the bankers, and constructed the
legitimization and motivation for their deviant behaviour.
The use of this analytical framework, rather than focusing on the
personal characteristics of the figures involved in the regulation affair,
raises the question as to whether it is possible to understand and explain
managerial behaviour in general, and deviant managerial behaviour in
particular, through examination of the social, cultural and economic
contexts that embody the norms, values and customs of the environment in
which the bankers operated. Thus, to what extent can the mechanisms in the
socio-cultural environment help explain the ‘normative ecology’ in which
the bankers functioned, and the orientations of the public and the political
elite towards the legal system? Can characterization of the economic
environment that made the regulation possible assist in comprehending their
perceptions of their actions? Furthermore, to what degree is managerial
policy, its goals and methods in particular, the result of environmental-
situational constraints on the organization? And are the sources which
motivated and legitimized the bankers to embark on share regulation to be
found in the social, cultural and organizational environments?
Accordingly, we begin with a description of the affair and a presentation
of our research method. In the second part, the affair is analysed at a
systems level, namely, the socio-cultural and economic environment. The
third part focuses on the organizational level: the organizational culture and
its influence on the bank employees, the opportunity structure of the senior
managers, and the mutual impact of managerial colleagues on behaviour.

THE BANK-SHARES REGULATION AFFAIR

For six years, from 1977 to 1983, the highest echelons of Israel's banking
system behaved fraudulently in order to draw in as many investors as
possible, while exploiting their power in the economy in general and its
institutions in particular. The aim of the scheme was to maintain bank
profitability and stability, threatened by rising inflation and by competition
with government-issued bonds.12
The ‘regulation affair’ involved bank intervention in the prices of their
shares. Through regulation the banks sought to mobilize capital from the
public so as to enable them to issue shares independently of supply and
demand and the shares' real financial value.13 The bank managers used
various techniques to effect a change in the working of the free market, a
market in which supply and demand determined the shares' value.
Throughout the regulation period the banks were able to ‘grant’ their
shareholders real positive returns at a higher rate than the capital market's
financial instruments (the Local Resident Foreign Currency Account and
the Government Loan Stocks). The regulated share became a unique
financial good, a share that rose constantly regardless of the state of the
market.
Apart from the need of the banks to find sources there was also a legal
difficulty. Clause 139a of Israel's Company Ordinance states that a
company will not directly or indirectly give any person financial assistance
– in the form of a loan, bond or guarantee, or in any other way – for the
purpose of purchasing its shares, or in connection with such purchase that
has been made or is about to be made.14 As a company that acquires its own
shares in fact reduces its capital, and as reduction of capital is permitted
only by a special court order, the bank managers overcame this difficulty by
ensuring that shares would not be acquired directly. They therefore set up
straw companies in countries where business was exempt from taxes, and
used seemingly external companies, which were engaged in manipulating
bank-stocks and other shares associated with it.15
These companies were, in fact, connected with the banks, acting
according to their instructions and serving as the main organs for acquiring
the bank-shares during the regulation period. In this way the banks' direct
involvement was concealed. The assumption was that if the demands for
shares were scattered among many companies, it would be easier to hide
them from the state's supervisory authorities. The straw companies were
thus the pipelines through which the money was channelled. However, they
succeeded in swaying the trends and level of the shares by systematically
exploiting the stock market trading method, the ‘leader’ system, in which
orders for the purchase or sale of the various shares were given before trade
had opened. This was done in breach of clause 54a (2) of Israel's Securities
Act, which determines that anyone who fraudulently influences fluctuations
in rates of securities contravenes the law.16
Technically, the regulation was achieved by introducing fictitious
demands in the leader, which is the daily sum of all the purchase and sale
orders that reach the offices of a member of the stock exchange up to a set
hour before the beginning of trade. Since the leaders of the large banks
constituted a large part of the stock market activity, they provided an
indication as to what was expected in trading in the various shares that day.
Therefore, the leader allowed for the hiding of the real situation of the stock
market. The banks acted simultaneously as a leader that pooled together
demand and supply, as a financial institution with (ostensibly unlimited)
means, and as a member of the stock exchange that could give instructions
to buy and sell during the trading. This duality allowed the banks to channel
demand or supply to the leader as easily as they wished, and thus turned
into a gross violation of the aforementioned Securities Act.
By using leaders, scattering demands through separate bodies under their
control, and making a significant proportion of their transactions outside the
stock exchange, the banks were able to hide the share regulation from the
public and the supervisory authorities. The prospectuses published by the
banks up to mid-1979 contained no mention of the regulatory actions taken.
However, at the end of 1980, in view of the many findings on the scope of
their intervention in stock regulation, the banks were compelled to publish
their activities in the prospectuses, but the bank managers asked the
authorities to exempt them from giving information during this prospectus
season.17 As the process continued, the bankers did not hesitate to ignore
the regulations, issuing incomplete reports and failing to report on ways of
financing the purchase of shares or on the real quantity of shares in the
regulating companies, provident funds and trust funds.18 The bankers thus
knowingly violated Israel's Securities Act, clause 20 (which requires those
issuing shares to include in the projection all the information that is
important to the investor, and to describe truly all that is presented in the
prospectuses). The purpose of this transgression was to reinforce and
enhance the banks' status. Ultimately it put their stability in jeopardy.
Furthermore, the banks made every effort to present to the public only the
advantages and opportunities of the regulated bank-shares, while
deliberately hiding the risk involved in holding them. For this purpose they
presented a misleading display of the shares' characteristics, using the
banks' consultation system. Employees, consultants and managers were
recruited for aggressive share sales campaigns, creating expectations that
this was a secure share that bore a positive long-term yield.19 Their status as
a professional authority gave them broad scope for manipulating and
exploiting the trust placed in them by their clients.
The bank-shares crisis began in September 1983. Following rumours of
imminent devaluation, many shareholders preferred to acquire foreign
currency and sell their shares. Facing this excess of supply the banks began
unprecedented purchases of their own shares, and had no choice but to
request further credit from the Bank of Israel in order to finance share
purchases. The bankers' urgent attempts to find a solution that would
extricate them from the crisis proved futile. On 6 September, the banking
system was actually on the verge of collapse. The banks, as described by
the Bejsky Commission, had on that day reached the end of their tether.20 It
was clear to both bankers and the authorities that without immediate help
from the Bank of Israel they would not be able to continue absorbing the
supply of shares from the public. The liquidity problems that developed
threatened their existence, and Israel's banking stability in general.
Consequently, the government decided to take the bank-shares under its
wings and both protect and compensate the shareholders. This ‘Bank-
Shares Settlement’ eventually cost the state coffers seven billion dollars.21
The bank managers' behaviour had far-reaching implications. In the short
term, it led to the financial collapse of firms, bodies and individuals who
had invested in their shares. In the long term, it caused a loss of public faith
in the banking system, injured the image of Israeli banking in the world,
and placed a heavy burden on the state budget, due to the financial
commitments undertaken by the government. The process that was
expected to expand the banks' capital basis and their financial power, in fact
caused them to suffer huge losses, placed them in danger of collapse, and
finally turned them into government-controlled public corporations.
THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT
To what extent did the mechanisms and processes in the cultural, political
and economic environment, in which the bankers operated, influence their
decision to embark on and persist with manipulative regulation? Most
organizational behaviour studies that deal with deviance focus primarily on
the attitudes and behaviour of individuals, and less on the processes and
mechanisms operating in the social environment.22 However, senior
managers are extensively exposed to the influence of the environment
through their role as representatives of the organization and as a liaison
between it and the environment.23 In this sense, management patterns are
contingent on the environmental constraints in which the organization
operates.24
A discussion of the characteristics of this environment may thus identify
the sources of legitimization and motivation, and the latter's influence on
their managerial behaviour. It is worth reiterating that those placed at the
head of the financial system usually serve as a model for their staff. They
significantly mould organizational norms and orient the shaping of
organizational culture according to their own interests. Furthermore, the
impact of the social and cultural environment is transmitted through social
processes. These can be explained by social learning theory, which
describes how people acquire forms of behaviour and knowledge in a social
framework. It clarifies how socialization takes place, and how society
impacts on the learning of behaviour through identification, imitation and
internalization. Accordingly, the individual's moral behaviour may reflect a
process of receiving and absorbing (that is, learning) a normative codex and
rules from a variety of social sources and peers. In the case under
discussion, managers' norms and values were significantly derived from the
cultural and social norms of their environment.25
In the Israeli context, learned behaviour is closely associated with
illegality, which plays an important role in the normative environment of
the country's politics and society at large. In a nutshell, it denotes an
orientation that does not see respect for the law as a basic value, but as a
certain type of behaviour that can be practised according to considerations
of worth.26 A system thus oriented is characterized by an instrumental
approach to the law. The law will be obeyed when it is worthwhile to do so,
or when there is clear danger of effective sanctions – but it will be
disregarded whenever possible.27 The view of illegality as an overall
cultural perception that deviates from the conventional approach –
obedience to the rule of law on the part of the legislative and executive
ranks – has its source in the concepts of ‘political culture’ or ‘civic culture’.
These concepts refer to the orientations of the public and of the political
elite towards the legal system, their behaviour patterns and way of
internalizing the system. In Israeli society, increasing sections of the public
have come to disdain the normative system according to which they are
supposed to function. They do this openly out of a strong sense of justice
based on ideological grounds on the one hand, and on legitimacy that feeds
on the government's permissiveness with regard to these actions, on the
other.28
Cultural legal-disobedience (or disregard of legal norms) in Israeli
society largely originated in the Diaspora and local (pre-state) sub-cultures.
These generated behavioural patterns of ‘getting around’ the law, and
reaching compromises that promise the maximum benefit.29 In fact, what
developed in pre-state society was an instrumental orientation towards the
law of a foreign ruler, in which bribery, lobbying and promising favours
became accepted methods. Well experienced in the Diaspora ghetto culture,
on coming to Palestine many Jewish immigrants before the 1920s perceived
the foreign Ottoman regime as ‘corrupt’, a confirmation of their situation in
the Diaspora. Accordingly they could easily reproduce Diaspora behaviour
patterns in order to cope with the regime, particularly in terms of getting
around the law and making compromises with it.
Moreover, under British rule the elite of the Jewish community between
the 1920s and 1940s – particularly the labour movement which largely
dominated this community's politics – were influenced in many ways by the
organization of the regime in Russia after the 1917 Revolution.30 This
regime served as a model of a centralist ideology, which regarded
government as the most suitable organ to direct manpower and the means of
production, and to achieve stability, security and economic growth.
Bureaucratic centralization came to characterize many facets of the
institutional makeup of the labour movement, expressing as it did the
subordination of economic activity to the aspirations of the politicians and
the planned state. The emergence of this style of political culture was
further related to the economic conditions that existed in Palestine at that
time, conditions that encouraged a collectivist-organizational dynamic.31
The inferiority of Jewish workers in the labour market, and their inability
to force Jewish employers to prefer them to Arab labourers, gave impetus
(even before the British conquest of Palestine) to the collectivist
organization of Jewish labour and the establishment of the historical
alliance between the nascent labour movement and the World Zionist
Movement.32 This collectivist structure perceived the individual as subject
to society as a whole and de-legitimized the idea of a division of power.
Among the increasingly dominant labour leaders, it led the construction of
what can be termed as bureaucratic idealism, namely a mixture of
ideological-based and power-interest-based pursuit of political
domination.33 Consequently, the gap between the normative expectations
for the functioning of the system, and the actual level of its performance
(due to the low level of bureaucratic efficiency and its resources), laid the
ground for the development of many informal mechanisms for solving
problems that the official system was not capable of handling.34 These are
the kind of mechanisms that create a unique orientation of instrumental
preferences and expediency. As a result, in an organizational culture of this
type, the level of legalism is unsurprisingly very low.35
The control by Mapai (Israel's long-dominant Workers Party) of the
national institutions and the Histadrut (the trade union federation) helped to
blur the boundaries between politics and economics.36 The leaders of the
party, who came from eastern Europe (where the ghetto and shtetl sub-
cultures dominated), established organizational patterns that were reflected
in the organizational culture in the Histadrut, where politics and economics
were inextricably intertwined. Gradually it turned into a bureaucratic body
characterized by a high level of politicization and rigid institutionalism. The
symbiosis between the political and bureaucratic elite provided many
benefits to the heads of the system. In fact, Mapai's position at the
intersection of institutions through which people and capital flowed to
Israel was vital for its rule.37
After the establishment of the state, Mapai used this position to establish
one-party control, promote rapid economic growth and solidify the ‘state in
the making’. The national imperative was the fulfilment of the pioneering
and Zionist ideology by settling the land and building the nation, a mission
that had to take precedence over all the economic, and sometimes also
moral, criteria.38 Thus during the British Mandate, illegal patterns of action
were consolidated and became internalized in the Israeli culture, in
particular the instrumental orientation towards the rule of law.39
This pattern, whereby politics dominated the economy, and the good of
the state-building oriented labour movement took precedence over
considerations of profitability and proper management, persisted for a long
period. Although the functions of state-building now passed from the labour
movement and the Histadrut to the state, hardly any efforts were made to
create new organizational and institutional patterns. During the first decade
of the newly established state, when the bureaucratic political machinery
had yet to establish proper criteria, corruption was perceived, especially
among public-sector white collar workers, as a kind of force majeure, which
could not be avoided in circumstances of accelerated economic
development. The source of this perception lay in the absence of clear
norms that would distinguish between personal or party interest and public
interest.40
The 1960s witnessed intensive economic growth in Israel. Concurrently
distorted ways of dealing with the economy and public resources
developed, nicknamed the ‘Sapir Method’ (after Pinchas Sapir, the leading
figure in Israel's economic development), which perpetuated pragmatism
and instrumentalism.41 This orientation largely disregarded universal
criteria of legalism, identified the state totally with the good of the ruling
Labour Party, and generally operated on the basis of personal preference,
which refrained from a respect for public law and order.42
Consequently, sectarian preferential practices, personal elitism and
corruption ensued, providing fertile ground for the growth of financial,
cultural and political illegality. The latter surfaced during the 1970s in many
cases of bank and company corruption, all involving high-ranking members
of the financial and political elite. In an effort to legitimize their acts, those
involved persistently claimed that they were part of a ‘system’ that had
been secretly evolving and was born out of the long experience of pre-state
and post-1950s illegal practices.
 The bureaucratic economic and organizational pattern that was based on
the members' loyalty to party ideology, both before and after the
establishment of the state, served to relieve managers and public officials of
personal responsibility for ethical principles and moral imperatives in
favour of achieving the organization's aims and ensuring its survival. From
a historical perspective, most of those involved claimed that they acted out
of idealistic motives, believing that losing their positions of power in the
political and economic structures would threaten the Zionist enterprise
altogether. Against the background of the entrenchment of illegality in
Israeli culture, particularly among the political elite, it is understandable
how almost the entire banking sector saw itself entitled to act in
contravention of the law. No wonder that the bank managers' behaviour in
the shares regulation affair was explained in terms of ideological
rationalization.43
Social values, originating in a previous historical period, seemed to have
been assimilated by the financial elite, allowing them both to adopt easily a
deviant managerial behaviour and to justify it. In terms of differential
association theory, the pressures and motives operating on the bankers
created a suitable environment for breaking the law. The justification they
found for neutralizing their guilty-feelings lay in a legitimate action for
bank profits, no less than in their willingness to take risks for the
development of Israel's economy. Indeed, when the public discussion
erupted after the bank-shares crashed in 1983, and when the bankers were
harshly criticized for their responsibility for the crisis, Ernst Yaphet, the
powerful manager of Bank Leumi, maintained that, ‘They are trying to
make us scapegoats for all the mistakes’.44 Furthermore, in the summing-up
for the defence of the bankers before the Bejsky Commission, it was
claimed that the shares regulation was a social phenomenon made possible
by particular circumstances. The commission was not investigating ordinary
criminals, but bodies that were perceived as fulfilling nationally vital
roles.45 In fact, the ideological rationalization for the deviant behaviour of
the bankers repeated the patterns of earlier periods; the bank-shares
regulation cannot be considered a transgression because it was an action
performed for the good of the country and the general public. In this
respect, the symbiotic relationship that developed between the capitalist
class and the political elite in Israel was translated into self-licensing for
deviant behaviour. The bankers were part of an elite that evolved in this
discursive environment.46
The Shimron Commission of Inquiry, which was established in 1978 to
examine various aspects of crime in Israel, determined that the impact of
the law on behaviour depends on the law's moral status being accepted by
the various social forces and frameworks. The law is kept to the extent that
its tenets match the values and rules of behaviour of the people in the
various groups.47 Thus, illegality does not develop in a vacuum. An
atmosphere must be created in which deviation from the instructions of the
law will not be seen as an option, said the Bejsky Report, not just for fear of
the watching eye of the legal authorities, but also in normative terms.48
The Shimron Commission's report concluded that there was no
commitment among political leaders and senior officials to keep the law
and impose it, thus contributing to the serious failure that has developed in
this area. The members of the commission claimed that the patterns of
financial supervision that had existed since the state's establishment had
created fertile ground for dubious contacts between the representatives of
the government and the actors and entrepreneurs in the economy.49
Contacts of this kind had increased from the beginning of the 1950s, a
period when the Minister of the Treasury granted the banks rights to issue
many shares as a reward for activity that the government wanted to
encourage.50 Moreover, it used the banking institutions as agents for
granting loans for various purposes, or for collecting loans that were
granted directly by government ministries.51 In this way, the government
could use the professional machinery of the banking institutions, while the
latter gained considerable revenue through interest differentials.52 An
unhealthy symbiosis emerged, whereby the banks served the government
and the government took care of the banks.53 Michael Bruno, former
president of the Bank of Israel, confirmed the above arguments: ‘There was
an unwritten alliance and a kind of deal between the banks and the
government, whereby the banks would mobilize capital for the government
and the government would turn a blind eye to the stock regulation’.54 In this
way, the banks and the government struck an informal ‘treaty’, as ‘the
banks were not left alone in the battle: no matter what they did, the treasury
would come to their rescue’.55 Whatever happened, the government would
help to find a solution that would prevent the system from collapsing.56
This relationship legitimized and motivated the bankers not to accept
responsibility for resolving the crisis. ‘The banks … were too big to fall,
and their heads knew it very well … The thinking was, “we won't stop the
snowball now, when its dangers are clear to us, but let it keep rolling. In the
end a solution of some kind will be found, because the country needs the
banks’”.57
In terms of a neo-corporatist approach, an institutionalized partnership
was contrived between the banks and the government. It created
arrangements that were based on the common understanding of the need to
build further regulation mechanisms that would allow the banks and the
government to impose their interests on society at large. Thus, the political
and financial leaderships' adoption of illegality as a way of life stemmed
from lack of interest on the part of the authority responsible for enforcing
the law. This provided legitimization for the bankers' behaviour and
contributed significantly to the process. Regulation of the bank-shares,
contended the Bejsky Report, could not have reached the proportions it did
if the Bank of Israel and the supervisory authorities had not stood aside and
allowed the banks to act as they had.58
Throughout the entire period, these bodies took no real action to stop the
matter, neither by using the powers invested in them by law nor by
exercising effective supervision.59 Some may argue that it was not in their
interest to do so, or that it shows a tacit understanding between the
government and the banks.60 This can be substantiated by the fact that after
the enormous damage the stock regulation had done to the national
economy became known (in October 1983), the heads of the financial
system continued to function as if nothing had happened. Only at the end of
1986, under pressure from the Bejsky Commission, did the bank managers
resign their positions. Not surprisingly, their resignation was accompanied
by a heated public debate, though the bankers' statements in this debate
merely reflected the depth of the illegality in Israel's normative context.61

THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT

The specific characteristics of the economic environment in which the
bankers functioned affected their behaviour patterns in the stock regulation
affair. One of these characteristics was the centralization of the Israeli
financial market. The Bejsky Commission noted that without the banks'
control of many branches of the capital market, the stock regulation, and
hence the crisis, could not have reached such grand proportions. It was bank
control of the credit market, the issuing of shares, foreign currency and
stock market trading, that ensured such a massive flow of capital to the
bank-shares.62 Centralization increased in the early 1960s, when the major
banks, Bank Leumi, Bank Ha-Poalim and Bank Discount, concentrated in
their hands almost two-thirds of all the bank transactions, and reached its
peak during the regulation, when they handled 97 per cent of all the
transactions in the financial markets.63 This structure was made possible by
the absence of legal limitations on the areas of activity permissible to banks,
and because of the absence of independent institutions capable of recruiting
capital or supplying credit and financial services.
Despite the power and control of the capital-market system by the
banking institutions, their actual freedom of action in recruiting and using
capital was restricted because of government involvement. In fact, the
government policy of cost-of-living indexation completely neutralized the
banking institutions as independent actors in the public assets markets. The
representative of the Bank of Israel told the Bejsky Commission that this
involvement went beyond anything known in the free world, and reflected
the government's growing need to cover its deficits.64 The involvement was
expressed in the fact that most of the money accumulated in the banks'
various medium- and long-term savings schemes, including savings
accounts, provident funds, pension funds and insurance schemes, was
channelled to the government budget through a legal ordinance which
dictated them to hold 75 per cent of these assets in government bonds.65
In addition, the banks were not allowed to collect higher interest than that
set by the Interest Law. Under these conditions, the banks became largely
dependent on the government. Dependence was so great that the Treasury
Minister could force a bank to lower its interest rates by holding the issue of
securities for ostensibly technical reasons.66 Government involvement
turned the banking institutions into brokers, channelling money from the
private to the public sector and back. In contrast to what is common
practice in the West, where banks channel savings from private households
to companies, the banks in Israel funded the government's budget deficits
through the financial transactions they conducted until they started the
regulation process and later. In many respects, the banks became agents of
the government in mobilizing money and granting credit.67
The incompatibility between control of the capital market and their
inability to develop the business of the banking system led the bankers to
seek opportunities to expand their capital and profits. Expansion of the
issuing market during 1977–80 provided the bankers with an excellent
opportunity to exercise their power in the system and recruit from the
public capital free of government supervision and supervision.68 The
absence of rules in the stock market that distinguished between regulation
designed purely to stabilize random fluctuations in rates (which is permitted
by the authority) and regulation designed to manipulate prices,69 made it
easier for the bankers to start regulating shares in order to expand their
capital. This combination, of extreme centralization in the capital market on
the one hand, and deep government involvement on the other, gave rise to
unique financial problems with which the bank managers had to contend.
They also provided legitimization and motivation for their deviant
behaviour. Combining business strategy and unethical practice, in the
context of political and financial structures, this removed the regulation
affair from the area of narrow private interest, of some infringement or
other, and turned it into a matter of much broader financial and social
meaning.
Another factor that may affect managers' behaviour in business firms is
the perception of the firm's financial balance. Usually there is a positive
relationship between a firm's profitability and its managers' unethical
behaviour. In situations where there is a shortage of resources, the odds of
discovering unethical behaviour increase. Furthermore, when a firm's
financial balance in a competitive atmosphere indicates losses, and its
managers are worried about its competitive ability, financial considerations
will overcome moral principles.70 In the wake of increasing inflation in the
second half of the 1970s, the financial balance and profitability of the banks
was seriously threatened. During this period, the index rose from an annual
rate of 30 per cent to 131 per cent, the burden of taxes doubled, and profits
significantly declined. The bank managers preferred, therefore, to shirk
their commitment to ethical values, and chose stock regulation as a strategy
for dealing with the problems. It is hard to know whether they felt any
ambivalence over choosing this strategy, because at the end of the affair
some of them still continued to justify it. As the Bejsky Report noted, the
regulation was necessary for the bankers to be able to fulfil their roles in the
economic arena.71
In fact, a discrepancy was widening between ends and means. Senior
managers are usually subject to pressure from shareholders to focus on
reaching financial profit with whatever means they can employ, and this
pressure is conducive to searching for illegal solutions.72 Organizational
deviations are sometimes a functional need, permitting an organization to
achieve its aims while struggling with scant means. Our argument is that the
inflation and the heavy taxation that eroded the banks' profits made the aims
of the organization and the means at its disposal incompatible; the latter
consequently triggered the bankers to increase their capital base and led
them to embark on the regulation.73
Another issue relevant to ethical considerations in business management
is that of competition in a free market economy.74 The government's deep
involvement in the capital market, and the banks' almost total control of the
securities market, set them face to face as rivals competing for the same
capital market reserve. In this historical competition, contended the Bejsky
Commission, could be found the source and the explanation for many
phenomena in Israel's capital market in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a
period when the banks increased their involvement in the trading of their
shares.75 With the escalation of inflation and the consequent increase in
government deficits, the competition between the banks and the
government intensified. The Treasury Bonds that were linked 100 per cent
to the Local Resident Foreign Currency Account and the Government Loan
Stock, assured the investors of protection against inflation, while giving
them a fixed yield for their investment. In this situation, the bank managers
saw themselves bound to make sure that the value of their shares should rise
at least as much as did the government bonds and the interest-yielding
deposits, so that they could go on recruiting capital from the public. Thus,
the perception of competition influenced managerial behaviour.
Consequently, the bankers reached the conclusion that, in the conditions of
the Israeli capital market, only systematic intervention in the trading of their
shares would assure their victory in the struggle with the government over
the capital market reserve.76

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND EMPLOYEE

BEHAVIOUR
As was suggested above, the impact of the social, cultural and financial
systems on managerial behaviour was crucial as a source of legitimization
and motivation for the bankers' deviant behaviour. However, organizational
factors and processes were no less influential. The behaviour of employees
is influenced by elements in the organizational environment, among them
the organizational culture, the senior manager's opportunity structure, and
the influence of colleagues on the manager's behaviour. In this sense, the
shaping of the organizational culture in the ‘right direction’ and its
assimilation by the members of the organization (staff and management)
affected the entire bank-shares regulation process.
Organizational culture can be defined as a set of assumptions, beliefs,
values and aims that are shared by the members of a given group and
distinguish them from the members of other groups. Culture influences
employees' behaviour in that it also represents the ‘shared ethical values’ of
the organization.77 Corporate ethical values are those common to the
members of a group or corporation, and dictate the ethical norms according
to what is appropriate or forbidden in the framework of the organization and
on its behalf. Since leadership norms are expressed in determining the goals
and priorities of the organization, senior managers in the organization have
a strong influence over individuals' ethical decisions. Hence, the
organization's ethical conduct clearly depends on the values of its leaders.
Moreover, in a strong organizational culture, characterized by conformity to
norms set by the top echelon of the organization, the management can use
its power to engender unethical behaviour in the entire system.
In such an organizational culture, the management shapes the norms of
what is considered appropriate behaviour. The employees' and junior
managers' commitment to fulfil the expectations of the top management,
and the latter's power to label even deviant behaviour as acceptable,
motivates employees to co-operate. In addition, the individual's behaviour is
influenced by the values and beliefs of his or her social reference group,
sometimes referred to as ‘significant others’ or ‘referent others’.78
Managers and colleagues in work environments are, in fact, agents who
influence the employees' moral decisions and behaviours. When the top
management, which serves as ‘significant others’, behaves according to a
certain norm, the entire body of employees can be influenced to conform to
the same norm. Thus, through social learning and moulding, it is possible to
transmit to employees unethical norms of functioning.79
In light of these research findings, which stress the influence of
organizational norms set by the manager on the employees' behaviour, it
can be gauged to what extent the bank managers' ‘declared philosophy’
became not just a guide for employee behaviour, but an exclusive criterion
for determining the acceptable and moral organizational culture. This
philosophy was expressed in the setting of priorities for the organization,
namely the massive sale of shares to the public. The bank managers
personally contacted clerks and instructed them to raise the issue of
purchasing shares while working with the clients. ‘Promoting the rates of
shares will continue to be our central interest’, it was claimed in the Bejsky
hearings. ‘It is our duty to aim for every client of the bank to acquire shares,
not just those who possess securities’. Circulars distributed to branch
managers said, ‘Distribution of our bank's shares is our primary interest …
we attach great importance to the number of orders processed by each
branch’.80
The bank managers created a feeling among their employees that they
were partners in achieving an important moral aim, and thus guided their
behaviour. The following citation emphasizes the method by which
managers influenced employee misbehaviour:
We are happy to note that a considerable number of branches have
attained good results, but on the other hand, in many other branches there
is a significant decline in stock holdings. We are sure that those branches
that did not manage to increase the distribution of the bank-shares during
this period will make every effort to succeed in the future.81
Furthermore, when top management and staff behave according to the same
code, this intensified the assumption that it is the right and proper way to
behave even if it contradicts the wishes of some individuals. The emphasis
on the commitment of the personnel to meet management's expectations
was translated into quantitative measures, which made it easier for the bank
managers to see which employees and managers contributed and saw
themselves as committed in practice. Sales targets were set for the branches
and translated into daily quotas. The branch managers were required to
initiate telephone contacts with various clients in order to fill the quotas
required of them. The managers aroused a feeling among their employees
that they were in a constant race to achieve a very important aim for top
management. Monthly charts were sent to the branch managers to help
them estimate their own part in distributing bank-shares. Branches that
excelled in selling shares won perks, and their managers moved nearer to
potential promotion.82 Managers ensured that branch managers would adopt
the organizational norms they set, and that each and every employee would
feel that top management evaluated his or her behaviour. Client consultation
became a tool – a method to exploit the naivety of small investors to
persuade them to act according to the interest of the bank. In fact, the
consultants were directed, both verbally and in writing, to deliver certain
messages in order to catch as many investors as possible.83
In sum, the aim became common to all ranks, leading to the feeling that
these actions were normative and acceptable. A situation developed
whereby non-normative actions, such as cheating clients, coincided with
normative organizational actions, such as the evaluation and reward of
personnel. Through this tactic they reinforced neutralization and the
blurring between proper and improper behaviour. Thus, the socialization
process that takes place in an organization acquaints employees not only
with standard norms of performance, but also with unethical behavioural
norms. It thus becomes clear how the shaping and development of the
organizational culture virtually gives managers control over their
employees.84 Such control is liable to lead many of them to misbehaviour,
as is shown here. In organization-cultural terms, the planning,
implementation and maintenance of the stock regulation mechanisms in the
banking system may be seen as a kind of socializing experience, shared by
all parties: top officials, clerks and customers.

THE SENIOR MANAGER'S OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURE

The opportunity structure of the senior management is an essential factor
for facilitating easy access to unethical behaviour without punishment. The
higher the level of managers in the organization hierarchy, the more they
are exposed to a structure of opportunities convenient for deviation. This is
due to the amount of information at their disposal, the extensive contacts
they establish, the absence of supervision and control of their activities, and
the degree of autonomy in their role.85
In the Vardi and Wiener model,86 the opportunity structure that is built
into the organizational system is one of the causes of OMB type O that is
generally characteristic of deliberate deviation from conventional
organizational and/or social norms by top management for the benefit of
their organization. Such opportunities are factors at the level of the
organization that create convenient conditions for unethical behaviour.
These conditions may result from the lack of a corporate policy defining
clearly what is allowed and what is forbidden, and from a defective
punishment system that gives rise to a normative code whereby those who
deviate receive backing if their action was for the benefit of the
organization. Indeed, managers tend to behave unethically when the
potential results of their behaviour are moderate, and the risk of punishment
is small compared with the chance of increasing the profits of the
organization. Managers' unethical behaviour can thus originate in an
implicit assumption that they will not be caught, and that if they are caught
they will not be sanctioned.87 Corporate policy that does not define clearly
what is allowed, and what is not, provides a convenient opportunity for
deviation. Theoretically it may be argued, therefore, that the bank managers'
unquestioned control of their organizations, their power and their status in
the economy created a convenient opportunity structure for deviation. The
absence at the time of rules in the stock exchange distinguishing between
permissible regulation (limited to stabilizing random fluctuations in rates)
and manipulation (also called regulation) made it easy for the bankers to
present their actions as legitimate, and served as an excuse for the stock
market itself and other authorities not to intervene in the bankers' actions. In
fact, the subject matter was not dealt with in any practical way until
October 1983, following the outbreak of the stock crisis.88 In this situation,
where the field was wide open in terms of rules and laws, the risk of
punishment was negligible compared with the prospect of increasing the
profits of the organization.
The lack of commitment of the political leaders and the senior civil
servants to keep the law and enforce it was another element in the
opportunity structure, and a basis for the bank managers' assumption that
even if their deviant behaviour was discovered they would not be punished.
Indeed, the exposure of the regulation did not stop them nor did it impose
any sanctions on their activities. The bankers' status as a ruling elite in the
financial system, their unchallenged control of their organizations and their
broad autonomy in initiating actions without supervision or control,
coalesced to form a convenient opportunity structure for deviation that was
built into the organizational system. This control gave them the means
necessary to carry out the shares regulation: they were the ones who
decided exclusively and surreptitiously on the regulation, and they were
also the ones who approved the decisions as chairpersons of their boards of
directors.89 The boards implemented the regulation without the directors
having any real knowledge of its scope, character, funding or form.90
It was only in 1981 that the directors learned of the regulation, when it
became obligatory to publish it in the banks' prospectuses.91 Even the
auditors of the major banks testified that the term ‘regulation’ did not
appear in the books or minutes, and that their information about it came
from the press.92 Though positioned as inspectors of the banking system,
they were not able to perform their role satisfactorily in the face of the
bankers' power; they therefore appealed to the banks' supervisor to use its
authority and force the bankers to reveal matters openly in their
prospectuses.93 Thus, the mechanisms that were in place during the period
of the regulation did not work properly. Nor did those involved in the work
think that it was part of their job to criticize or question the actions of the
most senior staff in the banks. The result was that the management ruled
absolutely, and were freed of any accountability and any form of internal
inspection.94 This explains how the bank managers' deviant behaviour in
the regulation affair occurred so easily.

COLLEAGUE INFLUENCE ON MANAGERIAL BEHAVIOUR

In the course of social interaction, individuals tend to adopt the beliefs and
behaviour patterns of people with whom they come into regular contact.
Differential attachment may change in frequency, duration and intensity,
and it depends very much on the ‘significant others’, the people one
perceives as important. These include one's associates, who as ‘significant
others’ are a key to understanding the influence of the social environment
on moral behaviour.95 Justice Naor's verdict refers to that social influence:
‘The fact that all the large banks in the country were in the same catch
strengthened the hands of the accused. This was not just a single bank
manager who found himself in trouble because of his actions, but most of
the bankers in Israel’.96 In fact, the decision of all the managers of the
major banks to enter into the regulation process was made at the same point
in time – the end of 1977 (when they had to decide whether they wanted to
go on issuing stock, regardless of the fluctuations of supply and demand in
the capital market, in order to expand their capital base). ‘All the banks',
maintained the Bejsky committee, ‘unanimously decided on an identical
share-issuing policy that would be independent of the state of the market.
And the evidence shows that in the second half of 1978 the three main
banks issued more shares than they had issued between 1971 and 1976’.97
As the values of the social reference group become a guide to their
colleagues’ behaviour, it is no wonder that even if a certain bank manager
was hesitant at first about embarking on this process, in the end he adopted
the behaviour approved by his peers. This was the case with Bank Mizrahi,
which began the regulation policy in 1979, following the large banks, when
its managers adapted to the behaviour of their colleagues.98
Anything that was done in one of the banks immediately influenced the
others.99 In early 1979, for example, when Bank Leumi stopped intervening
in the prices of its shares (with the intention of moderating the regulation,
not stopping it), the other banks asked it to return to its previous policy.
Similarly, as the bankers prepared to implement the regulation they found
sources of funding by an identical solution: establishing straw companies
abroad through which the demands were channelled. This was also the case
with regard to the methods of persuasion they chose – the use of a leader,
and exploiting the bank's consultation system for the purposes of the
regulation.100 Imitation and mutual adoption of methods of operating thus
became a matter of routine. In early September 1978, Bank Ha-Poalim
launched a share sales campaign based on what was called a ‘triangular
deal’: the bank offered its clients a loan on easy terms, the sum of the loan
was used to purchase bank-shares, while the shares were mortgaged as a
collateral for the loan. Within a short time, Bank Leumi ‘learned’ from
Bank Ha-Poalim and adopted the same method, and it appears that Bank
Mizrahi also conducted transactions of the same kind.101
The bankers formed a ‘social network’, whose members helped each
other to hide the manipulations entailed by the regulation. On the eve of
announcing the financial balance reports, for example, the bank managers
conducted one-sided deals – the selling of shares by one bank to another
and the repurchasing of these shares after publishing the balance – all in
order to avoid showing any decrease of capital. In these cases, Bank Leumi
passed its shares from ‘Leumi Cayman’ to Bank Discount, and purchased
them back after the date of the balance.102 The same kinds of deals were
done with regard to securities, which were at the disposal of the banks'
provident funds and trust funds.103
The banks' approach to solving the crisis which they themselves created
was also identical. In meetings with the government authorities (the
chairman of the stock exchange, the bank supervisor, the top echelons of the
treasury and the Bank of Israel), the bankers presented a united front,
opposing any real restriction on the regulation.104 The fact that it was not a
matter of one single bank manager, but the overwhelming majority of all the
bankers in Israel, strengthened the hand of the bankers.105 The sense of
togetherness and the influence of their ‘significant others’ guided their
managerial behaviour and their functioning in the regulation affair. As
Asher Yadlin, a well-known Israeli white collar operator remarked when
convicted in his own (unrelated to the bankers') trial, ‘What an individual
person would never allow himself to do, a group will often allow itself with
the excuse of the good of the company to which it belongs’.106
The bankers' deviant behaviour was therefore a learning process through
interaction and communication with other people, particularly with their
intimate group – their fellow bankers. This learning included both the
criminal techniques (the regulation, setting up the straw companies, and so
on), and the motives, pressures, rationalizations and attitudes. The latter
meant particularly the perception of their action as legitimate and normative
in the situation of the firm and the state of the market, and in the light of
their relationships with the legal authorities.107 In these terms, the case
under discussion here underlines the need to identify the ‘significant others’
who constitute the managers' cultural reference group in their
organizational-professional environment, in order to explain managerial
behaviour in general and deviant behaviour in particular.

CONCLUSIONS
This article has attempted to explain, from an historical and theoretical
perspective, the behaviour of the bank managers in the share regulation
affair, and in doing so to focus on the social and organizational environment
in which they operated. The regulation was a unique phenomenon: for six
years top bankers in Israel operated deceitfully, trapping in their net as
many investors as possible, while exploiting their strength and power in the
economy in general and its organizations in particular.108 It was argued that
the identification and characterization of contextual processes and
mechanisms could assist in deciphering this behaviour. At the system level,
the social, cultural, political and economic environment in which the
bankers operated was analysed. This environment, following various
models, included the value system, the laws and the cultural and social
norms that influenced the behaviour of individuals through social learning
processes. This level of analysis also included situational factors related to
the economic and financial characteristics of the environment in which the
banks operated.
It was also observed that the lack of commitment on the part of political
leaders and senior civil servants towards keeping and enforcing the law
contributed to the development of a serious managerial distortion. Out of a
strong sense of justice and legitimacy they permitted public organs to flout
the normative legal system, with the rationalization that action taken for the
benefit of the public or the national economy could not be considered
illegal and/or immoral. This rationalization illustrated those illegal aspects
of Israel's political culture, expressed as it was in behaviour guided by
instrumental considerations rather than out of respect for the law. The
shares regulation became possible not because of legal lacunae, but because
of the bankers' infringement of existing laws and a lack of enforcement by
the authorities responsible.109
The motivation for the bankers' misbehaviour was no less related to
financial and political environmental constraints in which they functioned.
The business market was characterized by deep government involvement
that frustrated the bankers' ability to act freely and develop their businesses.
The shares regulation was, in their view, a possible avenue for solving their
problem. Another source of deviant behaviour in a competitive financial
environment was found to lie in the extent to which the banks were
endangered by financial loss. In such conditions, senior managers tended
towards deviant behaviour to increase their profits, while compromising
their basic values of justice, honesty and loyalty. Managers could even
explain this behaviour as a functional need that allowed them to accomplish
the goals of the organization. Indeed, as inflation escalated and government
deficits increased, competition between the banks and the government over
investors in the capital market intensified. Thus, facing the guarantees given
to investors in government bonds, the bankers had to find a suitable and
attractive answer, which focused on ideological (national and economic)
justifications for competitive and interest-oriented behaviour.110
The socio-cultural system was found to be crucial for understanding
deviant managerial behaviour since the managers embodied the norms,
values and behavioural codes that influenced the characteristics of conduct.
Analysis of these mechanisms helped explain the normative environment in
which the bankers operated, and the orientation of the political elite towards
the legal system. Furthermore, managerial policy and its aims, and ways of
achieving them, were derived from the environmental and situational
factors, in particular the financial characteristics of the environment in
which the banks functioned. Their identification provided a framework that
showed how the banks perceived their ways of operation, and the sources of
legitimization that motivated them to regulate their stocks.
One of the salient organizational characteristics was the bank managers'
power and ability to shape the organizational culture and determine its
priorities. Using their power and professional authority, bankers made their
deviant behaviour normative by virtue of the fact that they were the
‘significant others’ to their staff, and were able to label deviant behaviour as
acceptable. This allowed them to induce their employees to collaborate. The
more senior that managers were in the hierarchy, the more they were
exposed to situations that provided a convenient opportunity for deviation,
owing to control of the information, the autonomy and the extensive
contacts with government bodies. Hence the ease with which the bank
managers deviated from the laws and rules and bent the government system
to their needs.
The influence of colleagues, as a dominant factor in managers' behaviour,
also proved to be significant. The fact that it was not a question of an
isolated bank manager who found himself in trouble because of his acts, but
rather that the affair involved the majority of banks in Israel, strengthened
the hand of the bankers – as did their sense of togetherness and of being
part of a macro-social phenomenon.111 Evidence of this was found in the
models of operation chosen by the bankers. Indeed, throughout the
regulation period they learned, imitated and helped their colleagues to
deviate from the norms, laws and rules of behaviour. Above all, the bankers'
evasion of their social obligation to choose the best alternative for the good
of all concerned harmed the functioning of the organization they headed
and the trust of their clients. In the end this collusion had a tremendous
effect at the societal level, mainly because of the government's undertaking
in the framework of the settlement reached to solve the crisis (seven billion
dollars), which cast a heavy burden on the state budget for years to come.
This discussion chose to deal exclusively with the level of the system and
the organization. However, factors at the individual level that influenced
behaviour were also of great importance and should not be ignored: values,
moral judgements, commitment, knowledge, needs, subjective norms and
so forth. These were not addressed both because managers actually acted in
the same fraudulent ways as a group, and because of an inability to expose
additional personal evidence at this stage because of the principle of sub
judice. Still, the identification of the managers' sub-culture and its unique
value profile may explain the motivation in that group during the affair and
in similar ‘scandals’ which took place a decade later. Such issues certainly
require further scholarly treatment.112 Likewise, another limitation stems
from an approach to illegality and deviation as a static normative
phenomenon, in the course of which there is a constant process of labelling
‘deviants’ in order to guard the boundaries of society.113 In fact, the affair
was a dynamic social phenomenon – a process in which a struggle between
different social groups was waged. However, this conflict may have
actually led to changing the society rather than guarding it, as the
proponents of the social conflict approach would argue. From this point of
view there is a need for further research that will anchor deviant behaviour
in Israeli society in its social and political history, and in a comparative
history with other nation-building societies.
Because of their power, the bankers succeeded in shaping a strong culture
characterized by conformity to norms and priorities set by them, even if
these were illegal and unethical. The top management's absolute control
neutralized the operation of the internal and external control mechanisms
that were supposed to locate any fault or deviation from the law and proper
management. Nor were warnings, in the form of citizen complaints and
reports from observers from the stock-market authority, heard.
Thus, the proper functioning of control bodies is a direct interest of
society at large, because every deviation may have wider social
repercussions, especially in countries where the social and financial systems
are so closely intertwined. It follows that any analysis of the behaviour of
managers and organizations should relate to the broad aspect of supervision
and control over senior managers in public institutions. Furthermore,
education for business ethics in the various educational frameworks should
be further stressed as part of the socialization process. This is particularly
true for those frameworks that train senior managers, such as schools of
business administration. In those frameworks it is necessary to focus not
only on financial skills, but also on the future managers' abilities to cope
with a wide range of dilemmas, while remaining committed to the principle
of social responsibility.

NOTES
1. See Report of the Inquest Committee on the Regulation of Bank Shares, headed by Moshe
Bejsky, Jerusalem, 1986 (in Hebrew, hereafter Bejsky Report), p.56. Selected excerpts were
published in Rivo'n Le-Banka'ut, Vol.25, No.99 (1987), pp.6–21 (in Hebrew). See also Tz.
Gushpantz, ‘The Bank Shares Regulation Affair, 1977–1983: Environmental and Organizational
Factors in the Management Behaviour of the Heads of the Financial System’, M.A. Thesis, Tel
Aviv University, 1996; The Bankers Verdict, 524/90, District Court of Law, Jerusalem, 1994,
p.65 (in Hebrew).
2. K.J. Erikson, ‘Notes on the Sociology of Deviance’, in H.S. Becker (ed.), The Other Side, New
York, 1967, pp.9–21.
3. Becker (ed.), The Other Side.
4. K.J. Erikson, ‘Notes on the Sociology of Deviance’; A. Koren, The Coverage of Yom Ha-Adama
(1967) in the Israeli Press, Ramt-Gan, 1987 (in Hebrew).
5. K.J. Erikson, ‘Notes on the Sociology of Deviance’.
6. S. Shoham, Introduction to Criminology, Tel Aviv, 1974 (in Hebrew).
7. S. Shoham, Introduction to Criminology; R. Hollinger, ‘Neutralizing the Workplace: An
Empirical Analysis of Property Theft and Production Deviance’, Deviant Behavior, Vol.12, No.l
(1991), pp.169–202.
8. S. Shoham, Introduction to Criminology.
9. Y. Vardi, and Y. Wiener, ‘Misbehaviour in Organizations: A Motivational Framework’,
Organization Science, Vol.7, No.2 (1996), pp. 151–65.
10. L.T. Hosmer, ‘Ethical Analysis and Human Resource Management’, Human Resource
Management, Vol.26, No.3 (1987), pp.313–30.
11. D. Izraeli, ‘Introduction to Social Responsibility in Management’, in D. Izraeli (ed.), Social
Responsibility in Management – Readings, Tel Aviv, 1988 (in Hebrew).
12. Bejsky Report.
13. Ibid., p.16.
14. A. Levin, The Bankers, Tel Aviv, 1988, p.110 (in Hebrew).
15. Ibid., pp.26–7.
16. Bejsky Report, p. 112.
17. Ibid., p.119.
18. The Bankers Verdict, p.65.
19. Ibid., p.9.
20. Bejsky Report, p.225.
21. Ibid., p.226; see also A.A. Blass and R.S. Grossman, ‘A Harmful Guarantee? The 1983 Israel
Bank Shares Crisis Revisited’, Discussion Paper No.96.07, Bank of Israel Research Department,
Jerusalem, 1996, pp.3–12.
22. O. Goldman, ‘Deviant Behaviour in Work Organizations: Dimensions in Concept Definition and
Factors Influencing Individual Involvement in Deviation’, M.A. Thesis, Tel Aviv University,
1991.
23. H. Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work, New York, 1973.
24. M. Haire, E. Ghiselli and C.W. Porter, Managerial Thinking: An International Study, New York,
1966.
25. O.C. Ferrell and J. Fraedrich, Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases, Boston,
1989; A. Levin, The Bankers; Y. Shapiro, The Democracy in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1977 (in Hebrew);
T. Parsons, E. Shils, D.K. Naegele and J.R. Pitts (eds.), Theories of Society, New York, 1961;
Haire et ah, Managerial Thinking; E. Sutherland and D.R. Cressey, Principles of Criminology,
8th edn., Chicago, 1978.
26. E. Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever is Right in His Own Eyes -Illegality in Israeli Society, Tel
Aviv, 1986 (in Hebrew).
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.; see also G.A. Almond and S.A. Verba, The Civic Culture, Boston, 1965.
29. T.D. Weinshall, ‘How to Change the Governmental Administration in Israel’, Organization and
Administration, Vol.33 (1975), pp. 131–2 (in Hebrew).
30. Y. Aharoni, The Political Economy in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1991 (in Hebrew); Y. Shapiro, The
Organization of Power, Tel Aviv, 1975 (in Hebrew).
31. M. Shalev, ‘Labour, State and Crisis: An Israeli Case Study’, Industrial Relations, Vol.23, No.3
(1984), pp.362–86.
32. G. Shafir, Land, Labour and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: 1914–1982,
Cambridge, 1989.
33. E. Etzioni Halevy, The Elite Connection and Democracy in Israel, Tel Aviv, 1993; see also D.
De Vries, ‘The Workers of Haifa during the 1923 Crisis: The Tension between the Leadership
and Rank-and-File, and the Moulding Bureaucratic Idealism in the Labour Movement’, Ha-
Tsionut, Vol.17 (1993), pp.117–53.
34. Z. Sternhell, The Pounding Myths of Israel: Nationalism, Socialism and the Making of the
Jewish State, Princeton, NJ, 1998; E. Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever is Right in His Own
Eyes.
35. B. Danet, Roads to Redress: A Study of Israel's Hybrid Organizational Culture, Unpublished
2nd Draft, ch.2.
36. Y. Shapiro, The Organization of Power.
37. M. Shalev, ‘Labour, State and Crisis’.
38. E. Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever is Right in His Own Eyes.
39. Ibid.
40. D. De Vries, ‘Productive Clerks: White-Collar Productivism and State-Building in Palestine 's
Jewish Community 1920–1950’, International Review of Social History, Vol.42 (1997), pp.
187–218; R. Kahane (ed.), Patterns of Corruption and Deviance, Jerusalem, 1989 (in Hebrew).
41. Y. Shapiro and L. Grinberg, The Full Employment Crisis 1957–1965: A Chapter on Israel
Political Economy, Tel Aviv, 1988; S. Weiss, The Upheaval, May 1977 – November 1978, Tel
Aviv, 1979 (in Hebrew); A. Naor, The Emergence of a Leader – Pinhas Sapir 1930–1949, Tel
Aviv, 1978 (in Hebrew).
42. Weiss, The Upheaval; Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever is Right in His Own Eyes.
43. Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever is Right in His Own Eyes; A. Yadlin, Testimony, Jerusalem,
1980 (in Hebrew); Bejsky Report; Y. Elizur, The Bankers: History of an Adventure, Jerusalem,
1984.
44. Ha'aretz, 17 January 1985 (in Hebrew).
45. Ha'aretz, 20 January 1986 (in Hebrew).
46. M. Frenkel, Y. Shenhav and H. Herzog, ‘The Political Embeddedness of Managerial Ideologies
in Pre-State Israel: The Case of PPL 1920–1948’, Journal of Management History, Vol.3, No.2
(1997), pp.120–44; for example see N.T. Gross and Y. Greenberg, Ha-Poalim Bank: The First
Fifty Years 1921–1971, Tel Aviv, 1994 (in Hebrew).
47. Shimron Committee Report, The Committee for Clarifying the Crime in Israel, Jerusalem, 1978,
p.2.
48. Bejsky Report, p.349.
49. Shimron Committee Report, p.2; E. Sprinzak, Every Man Whatsoever is Right in His Own Eyes.
50. Y. Aharoni, The Political Economy in Israel.
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid.
53. Yedioth Aharonoth, 15 April 1995.
54. Ma'ariv, 15 April 1995.
55. Bejsky Report, p.223.
56. The Bankers Verdict, p.26.
57. Ibid., p.434.
58. Bejsky Report, p.228.
59. Ibid., p.226.
60. PC. Schmitter, Private Interest Government, London, 1985.
61. Ibid, p.285.
62. Bejsky Report, p.227.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.
65. Ibid., p.56.
66. Ibid., p.41.
67. M. Heth, Banking in Israel, Jerusalem, 1989 (in Hebrew).
68. Ibid.
69. Bejsky Report, p.26.
70. E.W Stead, D.L. Worrell, and J.G. Sead, An Integrative Model for Understanding and Managing
Ethical Behaving in Business Organizations', Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.9, No.l (1990),
pp.232–42; R. Touche, Ethics in American Business: An Opinion Survey, New York, 1988; R.D.
Rosenberg, ‘Managerial Morality and Behaviour: The Questionable Payment Issue’, Journal of
Business Ethics, Vol.6, No.l (1987), pp.22–36; WC. Starr, ‘Codes of Ethics – Towards a Rule-
Utilitarian Justification’, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.2, No.2 (1983), pp.99–106.
71. M. Heth, Banking in Israel; Bejsky, p.28.
72. M.B. Clinard and R.F. Meier, Sociology of Deviant Behavior, 11th edn, New York, 2001;
Goldman, ‘Deviant Behaviour in Work Organizations’; J. Bensman, and I. Gerver, ‘Crime and
Punishment in the Factory: Function of Deviancy in Maintaining the Social System’, American
Sociological Review, Vol.28, No.4 (1963), pp.588–98.
73. B.M. Staw, and E. Szwajkowski, ‘The Scarcity-Munificence Component of Organizational
Environments and Commission of Illegal Acts’, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol.20, No.3
(1975), pp.345–54; E. Szwajkowski, ‘Organizational Illegality: Theoretical Integration and
Illustrative Application’, Academy of Management Review, Vol.10 (1985), pp.558–65.
74. B.M. Stead et al., An Integrative Model for Understanding and Managing Ethical Behaving in
Business Organizations'.
75. Bejsky Report, p.59.
76. Ibid., p.28.
77. E. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, San Francisco, 1992; WG. Ouchi, Theory Z,
Reading, 1981.
78. M.K. Zay-Farrell and O.C. Ferrell, ‘Role-Set Long-Figuration and Opportunities as Predictors
of Unethical Behaviour in Organizations’, Human Relations, Vol.35, No.7 (1982), pp.587–604;
J.G. Longenecker, ‘Management Priorities and Management Ethics’, Journal of Business Ethics,
Vol.4, No.l (1985), pp.65–70; J. Ditton, ‘Perks, Pilferage and the Fiddle: The Historical
Structure of Invisible Wages’, Theory and Society, Vol.4 (1977), pp.39–71; O.C. Ferrell and
L.G. Gresham, ‘A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making in
Marketing’, Journal of Macro-Marketing, Vol.92 (1985), pp.55–64; L.K. Trevino, Managing
Business Ethics, New York, 1986.
79. D.H. Merriam, ‘Employee Theft’, Criminal Justice Abstracts, Vol.9 (1977), pp.380–86; K.M.
Weaver and O.C. Ferrell, The Impact of Corporate Policy and Reported Ethical Beliefs and
Behaviour of Marketing Practitioners', American Marketing Association Proceeding, Vol.41
(1977), pp.477–81; S.L. Robinson and A.M. O'Leary-Kelly, ‘Monkey See, Monkey Do: The
Influence of Work Groups on the Antisocial Behaviour of Employees’, Academy of
Management Journal (1998), pp.658–72.
80. Bejsky Report, p.143.
81. Ibid., p. 173.
82. Ibid., pp.143–5.
83. The Bankers Verdict, p.559; see also M. Bejsky, ‘Trust Relations Between the Bank and the
Client’, in A. Barak and E. Mazuz (eds.), Moshe Landau: A Festschrift, Vol.III, Tel Aviv, 1995,
pp.1095–1109.
84. J. Van Maanen and G. Kunda, ‘Real Feelings’, Research in Organizational Behavior, Vol.2
(1989), pp.43–103.
85. C.D. Bryant (ed.), Deviant Behavior: Occupational and Organizational Bases, Chicago, 1977;
G. Ritzer, Men and His Work, New York, 1972; G. Mars, ‘Dock Pilferage: A Case Study in
Occupational Theft’, in P. Rock and M. Mcintosh (eds.), Deviance and Social Control, London,
pp.20–54.
86. Vardi and Wiener, ‘Misbehaviour in Organizations’.
87. Ferrell and Gresham, ‘A Contingency Framework for Understanding Ethical Decision Making
in Marketing’; D.J. Fritzsche and H. Becker, ‘Ethical Behaviour of Marketing Managers’,
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.2, No.4 (1983), pp.291–9; S.W Gellerman, ‘Why “Good”
Managers Make Bad Ethical Choices’, Harvard Business Review, Vol.64, No.4 (July-August
1986), pp.85–90; D. Izraeli, ‘Ethical Beliefs and Behaviour Among Managers: A Cross Cultural
Perspective’, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol.7, No.2 (1988), pp.263–71; R.C. Hollinger and J.P.
Clark, ‘Employee Deviance: A Response to the Perceived Quality of the Work Experience’,
Work and Occupations, Vol.9 (1982), pp.97–114.
88. Bejsky Report, p.28.
89. Levin, The Bankers.
90. Bejsky Report, p. 18 8
91. Levin, The Bankers.
92. Ibid., p.191.
93. Ibid., pp.152–3.
94. Ibid., p.200.
95. Sutherland and Cressey, Principles of Criminology; O.C. Ferrell and J. Freadich, A Descriptive
Approach of Understanding Ethical Behaviour', Winter Conference of the American Marketing
Association, San Diego, 1988; F. Luthans and R. Kreitner, Organizational Behavior
Modification and Beyond: An Operant and Social Learning Approach, Glenview, 1985.
96. The Bankers Verdict, p.26.
97. Bejsky Report, p. 19.
98. Ibid., p.20.
99. Ibid., p.24.
100. The Bankers Verdict, p.54.
101. Bejsky Report, p.20.
102. Ibid., p.173.
103. Ibid., p.164.
104. Levin, The Bankers.
105. The Bankers Verdict, p.26.
106. Yadlin, Testimony.
107. Sutherland and Cressey, Principles of Criminology.
108. The Bankers Verdict, p.44.
109. Bejsky Report, p.349.
110. Levin, The Bankers; Ha'aretz, 6 January 1985.
111. The Bankers Verdict, p.26
112. E. Krau, ‘The Crystallization of Work Values in Adolescence: A Socio-Cultural Approach to
Socialization’, in D.A. Goslin (ed.), Handbook of Socialization Theory and Research, Chicago,
1987.
113. Erikson, ‘Notes on the Sociology of Deviance’.

_______________
David De Vries and Yoav Vardi are Senior Lecturers in Labour Studies at Tel Aviv University. The
authors wish to thank Tzipi Gushpantz for assistance in collecting and analysing data and Danial
Tzabbar for editorial assistance.
 Abstracts

Israel 1948–98: Purpose and Predicament in History

Mordechai Nisan
One hundred years after the birth of Zionism, and fifty after the creation of
the State of Israel, this article examines the domestic and external position
of Israeli society. It argues that despite huge obstacles, which continue even
to this very day, Israel in its first half century has been a major success
story. It analyses where these successes have occurred and examines the
pressures and strains Israeli society has faced as it has matured. It argues
that the major challenge to Israel is not from within but from long-time
regional foes in the Arab and Muslim world. However, while
acknowledging the benefits accrued to Israel from its relationship with the
West, and the United States in particular, it argues that Israel has also had to
deal with a spiritual and psychological offensive emanating from Western
civilization, which is symbolised by appeasement of the Arab world and
which threatens the State of Israel.

The Fracturing of the Jewish Self-image: Then End of ‘We Are

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Judith Elizur
This article examines the changes in Jewish self-perception in the years
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image both in the Diaspora and in Israel itself. It shows how in the wake of
victory Israel reverberated with a new confidence and optimism in the
future, while in the Diaspora community the dominant feeling was one of
pride in Israel and an increased sense of the importance in working to
support the Jewish state. The author shows how television and the
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major break from the traditional Jewish self-image of victimhood. The
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Shifting the Centre from Nation to Individual and Universe:

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Oz Almog
This article examines the growth of a new ‘democratic faith’ that has
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Zionism in the Israeli Theatre

Dan Urian
This article assesses the centrality of Zionism to the Israeli theatre. It begins
with an examination of the role of theatre in the evolution of Zionism from
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promoting the idea of Zionist settlement in Palestine. Moreover, it also
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To Fantasy and Back: David Ben-Gurion's First Resignation,

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Yechiam Weitz
This article provides a detailed account of the resignation of David Ben-
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Likud and the Search for Eretz Israel: From the Bible to the
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Avraham Stern, founder of the Lehi, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir,
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State-Religion Relations in Israel: The Subtle Issue Underlying

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Referenda in a Post-Consociational Democracy: The Case of

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Kibbutz or Moshav? Priority Changes of Settlement Types in

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Yossi Ben-Artzi
This article examines the role, and importance, of rural settlements
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kibbutz or moshav in the years immediately following the War of
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both of these settlement types will take.

Mass Immigration and the Demographic Revolution in Israel

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The massive immigration to Israel during the fifty years of its existence
constitutes the most remarkable aspect of Israeli society. This article
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from Arab lands, Ethiopian Jews and Jews from the former Soviet Union –
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Moshe Gat
This article examines the role of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the
immediate aftermath of victory in the War of Independence, when Prime
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immigration from diverse parts of the world was raising. It discusses the
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Ben-Gurion's outlook in particular. It then examines in detail the central
role played by the Israeli military in dealing with the crises in conditions in
temporary settlement camps for immigrants – its preparation for
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Israel over the military role in such an important civilian issue, and the
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Public Service Broadcasting vs Public Service Broadcasting:

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State and Civil Society – The Israeli-Lebanese War, 1982
Mira Moshe
This article examines the crisis in public broadcasting in Israel in the
context of the more general conflict that exists between the state and civil
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against continued state support for public broadcasting. It then provides a
detailed analysis of an episode of a documentary produced by the Israeli
Broadcasting Authority about the Israeli-Lebanese War to highlight the
problems inherent in public broadcasting.

The Bank-Shares Regulation Affair and Illegality in Israeli

Society: A Theoretical Perspective of Unethical Managerial
Behaviour
David De Vries and Yoav Vardi
The Bank-Shares Regulation Affair, which came to light in the early 1980s,
is one of the most important financial and economic scandals in Israel's
relatively short financial life. This article tells the story of the scandal in
detail. More ambitiously, it places the affair in its theoretical and historical
context. In doing so it examines the organizational, environmental, moral
and economic factors behind the scandal. In particular it argues that a socio-
cultural environment that demanded ever increasing profits was a dominant
factor that enabled the scheme to begin and continue throughout Israel's
banking sector on such a large-scale for such a long time.
 Index

Abdallah Ibn Hussein, 98

Abu-Mazen-Beilin plan, 108
Agranat Commission, 36
Ahdut Ha-avoda, 74, 80–4, 104
Ahimeir, Abba, 73, 86, 87
Aloni, Nissim, 48
Altermann, Natan, 61, 72–3
Amir, Yigal, 131, 140, 141, 143
Aqaba, 96
Arab anti-Semitism, 6
Arab-Israeli peace, 6–9, 31
Arab world, 4, 6
Arafat, Yasser, 9, 12, 114
Aran, Zalman, 63–4, 67
Arens, Moshe, 92, 109
Argentina, 26
Arlozoroff, Haim, 170
Austria, 25, 26, 122, 147

Baghdad Pact, 10
Balfour declaration, 98, 100, 101
Bar-Giora, 69–70
Bar-Lev, Haim, 15, 111
Barak, Aharon, 34, 35–6
Barak, Ehud, 113, 114, 153
Beersheba, 94, 97
Begin, Benny, 92
Begin, Menachem, 10, 25, 26, 74, 79, 92, 93, 101–6, 111, 112, 113, 218–20
Beilin, Yossi, 108
Belgium, 26, 98, 147
Ben-Aharon, Yitzhak, 63, 73
Ben-Gurion, David, 15, 18, 59–78, 79, 80, 85, 87, 88, 101, 103, 106, 108,
110–11, 112, 115, 122, 129, 148, 149–50, 171, 172, 193–208
Ben-Yosef, Shlomo, 99
Brenner, Yosef Chaim, 44
Britain, 84, 92, 97–100, 105, 120–1, 167

Cairo Conference, 98
Camp David Accords (1978), 8–9, 10, 104, 105–6
Camp David II (2000), 114
Clinton, Bill, 10
Churchill, Winston, 21
Crossman, Richard, 23
Curzon, George Nathaniel, 97–8

Damascus, 97
Darawshe, Abdul Wahab, 6
Dayan, Moshe, 21, 62, 104, 106, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113
Dayan, Shmuel, 169
de Gaulle, Charles, 21, 149, 158
Denmark, 156
Deri, Aryeh, 35
Druze, 97, 121

Eban, Abba, 23
Egypt, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 23, 74, 93, 94, 95, 96, 105, 111, 146, 150
Eilat, 8
Eitan, Rafael, 104
Eldad, Israel, 100–1, 104, 106
Eshkol, Levi, 23, 60, 62, 67, 73, 79, 169, 171, 196–7
Ethiopia, 177, 184–5
European Union, 9, 122, 156, 157

France, 21, 26, 97, 122, 156, 158

Galilee, 7, 8, 68
Gaza, 8, 10, 15, 17,91, 104, 114
Germany, 26, 74, 122, 146
Golan Heights, 7, 113, 153
Greenberg, Uri Zvi, 86, 87, 93, 100, 105
Gulf War, 31, 221
Gumayel, Bashir, 25
Gush Emunin, 93, 105

Hagan, 192
Haifa, 60, 63, 72, 84
Hamas, 7, 113
Ha-poel Ha-tzair, 63, 80–4
Harel, Isser, 74–5
Ha-shomer, 69–70
Hebron Agreement, 92, 113, 143
Hertzfeld, Avaraham, 169
Herut, see Likud
Herzl, Theodor, 14, 43
Hess, Moshe, 93
Histadrut, 72, 74, 86–8, 170, 192, 196, 197, 204
Hizballah, 7
Holocaust, 11, 14, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 47, 146, 179
Hussein, King of Jordan, 104

India, 158
intifada, 16, 31, 128–9, 159
Iran, 6, 7, 205
Iraq, 7, 11, 93, 181, 203, 205
Irgun Zvai Leumi, 79, 109, 192, 195
Israel; and the diaspora, 14–29, 167, 194, 208; and the east, 6–9; and the
west, 3–4, 9–11; army, 19, 22–5, 35, 59, 62, 65–6, 68, 71–2, 128, 191–
210; art, 39–41; banking system, 226–49; collective identity, 3–12, 31–
42; education, 41–2; economy, 5; immigration, 31, 68–9, 71–2, 168–
 208; internal divisions, 24; political system, 118–34, 146–59; settlement
patterns, 163–75; state-religion relations, 139–44; theatre, 43–54; war of
independence, 17, 68, 167–8, 191–3, 196–7, 203, 207; war of attrition,
23, 49
Italy, 122

Jabotinsky, Zeev, 79–89, 93, 98–100, 101, 102–3, 106, 109–10, 115
Jaffee, Eliezer, 166
Japan, 155, 158
Jerusalem, 5, 8, 15, 17, 103, 113–15, 193
Jordan, 5, 8, 31, 93, 97, 108, 112, 113, 146
Jordan River, 10, 94, 96, 101, 170
Joseph, Dov, 67
Josephthal, Giroa, 196, 203, 204
Judea and Samaria (see also West Bank), 4, 8, 9, 91–2, 103, 104, 112, 113,
131, 140–1, 143

Kahan Commission, 36
Kahane, Meir, 50, 125–8, 130–2, 152
Kaplan, Eliezer, 67, 81
Katznelson, Berl, 67
Khatami, Mohammed, 6, 7
kibbutz, 163–75
Kolek, Teddy, 18
Kook, Zvi Yehuda, 103, 105, 112

Labour Party (see also Mapai), 22, 26, 79–90, 102, 104, 105, 107, 109, 111,
129–30, 139, 152, 159
Landau, Uzi, 92
Lavon, Pinhas, 62–3, 67, 74, 196
Lebanon, 5, 7, 11, 93, 217–23
Lebanon War, 11, 25, 31, 35, 50, 104, 105, 106, 125, 159
Lehi, 70, 100–1, 102, 106, 192, 195
Libya, 7
Likud Party, 25–6, 74, 79–115, 130, 139, 141, 143
Litani, 96
Lloyd George, David, 97–8

ma'abarot, 196–208
Madrid Conference, 7, 106–7
Makleff, Mordechai, 199, 204
Mapai (see also Labour Party), 59–62, 65, 67, 74, 79–80, 110–11, 129, 168,
172, 199
Megged, Aharon, 46, 47–8
Meir, Golda, 23, 62, 66, 67, 74, 79, 201, 205
Meretz, 115
Meridor, Dan, 92
Moledet, 128
moshav, 163–75
Mossad, 25
Mossinsohn, Yigal, 46, 47

Nasser, Gamal Abdul, 17

NATO, 9
Negev, 5, 59, 61, 71, 76, 193
Netanyahu, Binyamin, 6, 7, 26, 91, 92, 107–10, 113, 114, 141, 153
Netherlands, 147, 158
Norway, 156

Olmert, Ehud, 109

Oslo peace process, 7, 10–11, 31, 93, 107–15, 121, 153
Ottomans, 167

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 7, 10, 11,31, 108, 113, 146

Palestinian Authority, 5, 9, 12, 108–9
Palestinians, 6, 10, 16, 22–3, 25, 28, 45–6, 50–1, 91, 92, 104–10, 113–15,
121–2, 132, 153, 159
Palamah, 195
Peel Commission, 88
Peres, Shimon, 10, 62, 108, 111, 115, 219
Pinkas, David Zvi, 202
Poland, 181

Qibya, 65–6, 110

Rabin, Yitzhak, 6, 15, 31, 91, 107, 108, 131, 139–44, 153, 155, 205
Rafi, 111, 112, 115
Reagan, Ronald, 10
Remez, David, 67
Rokah, Israel, 64
Romania, 181, 204, 205
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 21
Rosen, Pinhas, 202
Russia (see also Soviet Union), 26

Sabra, 14
Sadat, Anwar, 8, 10
Samuel, Herbert, 82
Sapir, Pinhas, 169
Sde Boker, 59–61, 64, 70–3, 75–6
Shabtai, Yaacov, 49
Shacham, Natan, 46, 47
Shamgar Commission, 36
Shamir, Moshe, 46, 47
Shamir, Yitzhak, 6, 26, 106–7, 109
Sharansky, Natan, 91
Sharett, Moshe, 62, 65–6, 67, 110–11
Sharon, Ariel, 25, 70, 104, 110–15, 218–20
Sheba, Haim, 198, 204
Shiites, 7, 97
Sinai, 10, 106, 146
Sinai Campaign, 10, 17
Six Day War, 10, 14, 15–19, 24, 28, 48, 49, 101, 103, 105, 111, 112, 127,
128, 139
Soviet Union, 21, 24, 31, 91, 152, 177, 182–4
Sprinzak, Yosef, 67, 81, 171
Stern, Avaraham, 70, 93, 100–1, 106
Sudan, 7, 11
Suez Canal, 23
Syria, 5, 6, 7, 11, 23

Tabenkin, Yitzhak, 67, 79, 104, 105

Tehran, 6
Tel Aviv, 5, 63, 68, 104, 218
Terrorism, 7, 10, 25, 131–2
Thiya, 105–7
Tiberias, 63
Truman, Harry, 106
Tzipori, Mordechai, 218–20

United Nations, 17, 66, 101; partition resolution, 8, 168

United States, 4, 9, 10–11, 12, 120–1, 158; Jewry, 14–29
Ussishkin, Menachem, 97

Versailles Conference, 92–3, 96–8, 100

Weitz, Yosef, 169

Weizmann, Chaim, 80–6, 88
Weizmann, Ezer, 106
West Bank (see also Judea and Samaria), 16, 106, 108, 109–10, 114, 115
Wye Agreement, 91, 92

Yadin, Yigael, 198–9, 201, 202, 204–5, 207

Yellin-Mor, Natan, 101, 106
Yemen, 201, 203
Yishuv, 14, 43–6, 71, 79–89, 148, 163–8, 173, 178, 179, 181, 185, 232–4
Yom Kippur War, 11, 23–5, 34, 139

Ze'evi, Rehavam, 128

Zionism, 3–12, 43–54