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Positions and Dispositions in Israeli Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

M. Seliger
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Extract

ISRAEL IS MORE SUI GENERIS THAN OTHER POLITICAL SOCIETIES not so much in virtue of the nature of its political arrangements and postures as in virtue of what underlies them. To highlight some basic issues of Israeli politics from this point of view is to take one's cue from the most fundamental question of Jewish existence: To be like or unlike, any other nation? If Zionism prevents Israelis from distinguishing themselves in the manner in which other nations distinguish themselves from each other, a major reason is that Israel's neighbours deny her the right to realize within sovereign boundaries the resurgence of a Jewish state and nation.

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Articles
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Government and Opposition , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1968 , pp. 465 - 484
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1968

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References

1 E.g., Hourani, A., ‘Palestine and Israel’, The Observer, 3 09 1967.Google Scholar Marquand, D., MP, ‘Bitter Victory’, Encounter, 02 1968 Google Scholar and Douglas-Home, C., The Arabs and Israel, London, 1968 Google Scholar. To make the acceptance of Jews in the Arab world dependent on their assimilation to its standards is to hark back to the condition of Jewish emancipation in the French Revolution: To the Jews as French citizens everything; to the Jews as a nation – nothing. In the Middle East the alternative is largely rhetorical. Jews are either forbidden the country, or have never been emancipated, or their formal emancipation is such that the majority has left most of these countries.

2 Aron, R., ‘The General and the Jews’, Encounter, 06 1968.Google Scholar

3 Lane, R. E. and Sears, D. O., Public Opinion, Foundations of Political Science Series, Englewood Cliffs., sec. printing, 1965, pp. 13 ff.Google Scholar

4 In a radio interview published in Dawar (Hebrew Labour Daily), 28 May 1968.

5 The Arab communist vote can be assumed for the most part to be an anti-Israeli one. See Landau, J. M., ‘Les arabes israéliens et les élections à la VIème knesseth’, International Review of Social History, VII, 1962, pp. 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar and generally Laqueur, W. Z., Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, London, 1956.Google Scholar

6 For the identification of the parties, see the glossary at the end of the paper.

7 Beigin, M., ‘Conceptions and Problems of Foreign Policy’, Ha’uma (Hebrew Monthly), 03 1966, pp. 465–6.Google Scholar

8 Differences of opinion in these matters need not play a part in the fight within the Israel Labour Party over the succession of Mr Eshkol. As a feeler, the ‘Allon-plan’ appears to have the approval of Messrs Eshkol, Dayan and Eban (Dawar, 11 and 20 June 1968). The plan involves the return of the bulk of the West Bank. General Rabin, Commander in Chief during the June War and present ambassador to the USA, has repeated that one cannot have peace and Suez as a frontier (Dawar, 31 May 1968). And it is known that in Mr Ben Gurion’s view only Jerusalem and the heights of Golan are not negotiable.

9 In fine this is also the intention of Arabs who outside Israel – and mostly, too, in the occupied territories – dare confront Arab public opinion with moderate views. They recommend the abandonment of dreams of military conquest in favour of the uses of diplomacy to ensure what amounts to a peaceful liquidation of the Jewish state by forcing upon it an Arab majority, preferably within the 1948 frontiers or else even within the post-June frontiers. This is why Hourani, C., ‘The Moment of Truth’, Encounter, 11 1967, pp. 6–7 Google Scholar, rejects the conclusion of peace treaties with the argument that the replacement of Israel by a Palestinian state would render them superfluous. As for going back to the pre-1948 situation, even on the basis of independence, it must be remembered that it was the untenability of that situation in Palestine which finally brought the matter before the United Nations.

10 See Eisenstadt, S. N., Israeli Society, London, 1967, pp. 317 ff.Google Scholar

11 See Talmon, J. L. on the controversy in connexion with a Jew who had become a monk and claimed the right to return of an exile, in The Unique and the Universal, London, 1965, pp. 278–95.Google Scholar

12 Available data dearly show that the proportion of the vote given to religious parties is much smaller – about 50%– than the proportion of the more strict observers of religious traditions. See Matras, J., Social Change in Israel, Chicago, 1965, p. 99.Google Scholar

13 The ‘observant’ amount to 30% and the ‘partly observant’ to 46% according to an opinion survey reported by Antonovsky, A., ‘Israeli Political–Social Attitudes’, Amoth (Hebrew monthly), No. 6, 1963.Google Scholar Only 23% definitely supported and 20% regarded as probably justified the conduct of public life in conformity with religious tradition. That full conformity is implied by the question put to the respondents explains in all probability the difference of 33 between the totals – 76% and 43%– of the above mentioned pairs of percentages.

14 The distinction between fundamentals and operative ideology underlies the analysis of the Israeli situation in my ‘Ideology and Elections’, Molad (Hebrew Monthly, October 1960) and the more elaborate ‘Ideologie und Politik in Israelb’, Gescbicbte in Wissenscbaft und Unterricht, IX, September 1967, pp. 513–41, where I have also enlarged on topics treated in and related to the present paper. Responses of the public to the ideological positions of parties and indications of change as well as of disparities have been measured in elaboration on the scale types of Guttman, L., ‘Whither Israel’s Political Parties?’, The Jewish Frontier, XXVII, 12 1961, pp. 14–18 Google Scholar, by Antonovsky, A., in ‘Classifications of Forms, Political Ideologies and the Man in the Street’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, XXX, 1966, pp. 269 ff.Google Scholar, and Arian, A. in ‘Voting and Ideology in Israel’, Midwest Journal of Political Science, X, 1966, pp. 265–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Seligman, L. G. in Leadership in a New Nation, New York, 1964,Google Scholar deals with the ideological attitudes of Knesseth members. In conformity with a widespread habit, these authors see de-ideologization where one might better speak of ideological change, pluralism and bifurcation as phenomena of long standing. I deal with these problems in a forthcoming study.

15 This might apply also to the Italian situation as analysed by LaPalombara, I., ‘Decline of Ideology: A Dissent Interpretation’, The American Political Science Review, LX, 03 1966, pp. 9 ff.Google Scholar

16 Akzin, B., ‘The Role of Parties in Israeli Democracy’, Journal of Politics XVII, 1955, pp. 607–45.Google Scholar

17 It combines the functions of a Trade Union Congress, the controlling owner of retail co-operatives, central purchase and distribution agencies, light and heavy industries, the biggest combine of building contractors, all bus co-operatives and the sick fund providing 70 per cent of the population with health services.

18 For an evaluation see Barkay, H., The Public, Histhadrutb and Private Sectors in the Israeli Economy. Falk Project for Economic Research in Israel. Sixth Report, 1961–63.Google Scholar

19 Mapai and Ahduth Ha’avoda secured 50.88 per cent for the Alignment in 1965, over and against 56 per cent which Mapai received in 1960 when the later Rafi secessionists were still within Mapai and Ahduth Ha’avoda outside.

20 Members of the religious parties belong only individually to the health service of the Histhadruth. These parties object to being officially represented and involved in an organization which accepts no official commitment in any religious aspect.

21 It is believed, however, that before Heruth was accepted, its members in the Histhadruth voted for Ahduth Ha’avoda on account of the trend of military activism in that party.

22 Apart from a few agreed issues the coalition parties must support the government in parliament even when their ministers have been outvoted in the cabinet. Otherwise they must resign from the coalition. In the Histhadruth there is also coalition government, but the majority in the secretariat commands one automatically in the plenum as well.

23 See Akzin, B. and Dror, Y., Israel– High Pressure Planning, Syracuse, 1966.Google Scholar

24 Ben David, J., ‘Professionals and Unions in Israel’, Middle Eastern Studies, Institute for International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Repr. No. 183, p. 51.Google Scholar Matras, op. cit., pp. 93 ff., 132 ff., 197 ff., rightly questions the assumption held by a number of Israeli writers that economic differentiation had no political and social significance in pre-state days. Even pending detailed statistical data, there are facts which speak against the supposed prevalence of egalitarian values. For instance, suffrage in Jewish municipalities was restricted and/or restrictively applied. This was not just an imposition of the mandatory power. Then there was the bitter fight about Jewish labour in privately owned farms and orchards. One must also assume that in their moral criticism men like Brenner, Beilinson and Berl Kaznelson were not dealing with marginal social discords.

25 For an Arab appraisal, see Mansur, A., ‘The Modern Encounter Between Jews and Arabs’, New Outlook, V, 1962.Google Scholar My colleague J. Landau has prepared a study on the Arabs in Israel to be published by Chatham House.

26 On expressions of prejudice see Shuval, J., ‘Emergent Patterns of Ethnic Strain in Israel’, Social Forces, XL, 19612, pp. 322 ff.Google Scholar Such expressions are invariably publicly censured, and segregationalism finds no political platform.

27 From 9% in 1952 to 14.4% in 1960. See Matras, op. cit., p. 128.

28 Gutmann, E. E., ‘Some Observations on Politics and Parties in Israel’, India Quarterly, XVII, 1961, p. 7.Google Scholar

29 See Eisenstadt, op. cit., p. 289 (only in Hebrew edition).

30 On such a system as a practicable alternative to the two-party system, see Etzioni, A., ‘Alternative Ways to Democracy – The Example of Israel’, Political Science Quarterly, LXXIV, 1959, pp. 196–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 This is not to say that orthodox organizations – and others – have never attempted to exert influence. For this and the whole ideological background see Halpern, B., The Idea of the Jewish State, Cambridge, Mass., 1961.Google Scholar It needs to be stressed that such influence does not necessarily work in favour of religious extremism.