Reassertion of Tradition?

As classic Labor Zionist ideology declined and the somewhat atypical period of mamlachtiut became a memory, it appeared that traditional political habits—protest, civil religiosity, extraparliamentary politics—were reasserting themselves. Can post-1977 Israeli politics be interpreted as a resurgence of tradition? In some respects it can be, but with caution: other forces are also at work, and in any event the end result has not been a triumph of one worldview over another but polarization and stalemate. There has been no dominant consensus to shape the nation’s response on the key issues of territory and security.

Politically, the deadlock was a result of the decline of Labor and the rise of the right. As Table 2 shows, there was a steady upward trend in Likud strength, from thirty-two seats in 1969 (counting the parties that later joined the Likud), to thirty-nine in 1973 and forty-three in 1977. The long-term steady slide of Labor, from fifty-six seats in 1969 to thirty-nine in 1988, is also apparent. But in 1977 this was magnified by the appearance of the Democratic Movement for Change, a reformist movement led by popular military commander and archeologist Yigael Yadin, whose fifteen seats came primarily at Labor’s expense. This, more than its own electoral success, put Likud in a position to form a government in 1977—but given prevailing trends, this would have happened one or two elections later in any event. Once it had happened, however, the election served to legitimate the Likud in the public mind. There was a significant shift in polling data to support of Likud positions, bringing opinion polls and party support into closer correlation. On the eve of the 1977 elections 61 percent of one sample still claimed to be closest to the Labor position on foreign policy, against only 30 percent for Likud. But immediately after the election and before any other changes had taken place, the same question drew only a 38 percent support for the Alignment’s foreign policy, while identification with the Likud rose to 53 percent.^[30] This was not just a change in parties but a watershed in Israeli politics. It brought a new orientation, with new values and political symbols, into equal political legitimacy and at least equal electoral potential with Labor Zionism. It marked the emergence of a truly competitive system, with clearly opposed options, as well as Israel’s first successful transfer of power.

The thought that the 1977 elections might have been an aberration was put to rest by the 1981 elections. The Likud continued its slow but steady accretion of strength, gaining an additional five seats over 1977. Furthermore, although the Likud had only a one-vote edge, the remaining seats were held by parties that, by and large, preferred Likud to Labor (religious and nationalist parties accounting for sixteen of the twenty-five seats). Ironically, the election left the religious parties in a better bargaining position, despite a drop in seats, because of the close balance between the two major blocs.

Nevertheless, Likud Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir (who had succeeded Menachem Begin in September 1983) appeared in a weak position when he was forced to call elections a year early, in July 1984. By this time the inflation rate was estimated at over 400 percent, and Israeli forces were still bogged down in southern Lebanon following the controversial Israeli invasion of that country in 1982. Public opinion polls in the early phase of the campaign predicted a decisive Labor victory—as they had in 1981. In any event, it was widely expected that the election would provide a clear mandate to one or the other of the two major blocs and end the stalemate between the two opposed conceptions that they represented.

This was not to be, however. In defiance of expectations, the 1984 elections produced a balance even more delicate than 1981, forcing Labor and Likud to embark on an era of power-sharing and mutual veto. While consensus on some pressing domestic issues—primarily the economy—proved to be within reach of the two blocs, their shared control of foreign and defense policy was marked by mutual paralysis and rejection of any new departures. To the surprise of most observers and despite repeated threats of collapse, this rickety structure actually lasted out its term of office. In part this could be attributed to the inability of either bloc to form a government on its own and the unwillingness of key parties, at crucial junctures, to face new elections. But it also represented recognition of the need for unity in addressing the country’s economic crisis, a task that could not be accomplished unless both major blocs were willing to share the onus of instituting the tough and unpopular measures required.

Paralysis in foreign policy seemed to be a price most Israelis were willing to pay in return for unity on economic and other domestic matters. It was also a luxury they could afford so long as no credible Palestinian negotiating partner, committed to coexistence with Israel, emerged. The government was thus under little domestic pressure, and only minimal international pressure, to offer any major concessions. In the mid-1980s, international conditions also favored inaction: the Iran-Iraq war preoccupied much of the Arab world, and Egypt was reintegrating back into the Arab fold without withdrawing from the Egypt-Israel peace treaty (though this remained a “cold” peace in most respects). These conditions changed, however, with the onset of sustained Arab unrest (the intifada) in the occupied territories from the end of 1987.

The intifada, unlike the previous sporadic rioting against Israel’s control of the territories, brought about a lasting change on this front. It threatened the country’s international standing and its internal cohesion, posing a sharp challenge that the country’s deadlocked political system was ill equipped to handle. It did not become a blatantly partisan issue, since Labor shared responsibility with Likud, but the future of the territories could no longer be shelved as a political issue. In this context, the scheduled elections of November 1, 1988, like those of 1984, were again a potential turning point that turned nowhere: the two blocs again emerged nearly equal in the number of seats won. But the Likud had a slight edge in postelection bargaining because the balance was held by a reinvigorated religious bloc with eighteen of the 120 Knesset seats. Some of the religious parties were closer to the Likud position on foreign policy and defense, and none of them were likely to sit in the same government with Labor’s secular leftist partners. As a result, Labor was forced to agree to a renewed National Unity Government on less-than-equal terms, with Shamir projected as prime minister for the full four-year term of office.

Basic disagreement over foreign policy still deadlocked the government, despite Shamir’s stronger position. This became more critical after December 1988, when PLO leader Yasir Arafat made his highly publicized declaration renouncing terrorism and calling for a negotiated peace based on coexistence of Israel and a Palestinian state. This statement changed the rules of the diplomatic game, increasing pressure on Israel for something other than the standard negative response. Also, the intifada was having a mixed impact on Israeli opinion: while the public continued to favor severe measures against violence in the territories, there was also a slight but measurable shift in a dovish direction on key long-term questions in Arab-Israeli relations.

By early 1990, the popularity of the National Unity Government had plummeted to the point that three-quarters of the public were unhappy with it.^[31] Finally, in March Labor Party leader (and Finance Minister) Peres succeeded in bringing down the government on a no-confidence vote. Bringing down the government did not mean, however, that Peres could offer a viable alternative. After long and intricate maneuvering, Shamir emerged as head of a “narrow” Likud-led government with a bare majority, marking the end of five and a half years of power-sharing by the two major blocs. But this government was also unable to pursue a coherent policy or serve out its full term of office. Shamir’s agreement to participate in the U.S.-initiated peace talks that began in October 1991 led to the defection of the smaller right-wing parties and to the calling of early elections in June 1992.

The 1992 elections produced a narrow margin of sixty-one seats for Labor together with other parties on the left, a “blocking majority” that forestalled formation of another right-religious coalition. On the basis of this slim edge, the Labor-led government of Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Minister Peres opened up direct negotiations with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), initiating a process that led to the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles in September 1993, agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and Jericho in May 1994, and an interim agreement on Palestinian autonomy in October 1995 (see chapter 10). But Israel remained deeply divided between a secular, modernizing, more dovish half and a traditional, conservative, more hawkish half. This was underlined by the 1996 elections where for the first time the electorate had to choose directly between two candidates for prime minister and in which Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu defeated Labor’s Peres by less than 1 percent of the vote.

The delicacy of the political balance meant that while the public did overwhelmingly support the idea of a peace process, there was still no clear consensus on the nature of the peace. Labor and Likud offered clearly different visions of an overall settlement of the Arab-Israel conflict. The Likud consistently advocated the Israeli right to remain in Judea and Samaria and to expand Jewish settlement there; there would be no Arab sovereignty west of the Jordan River, and Arabs living there would be offered autonomy as individuals but not as a nationality or by territorial definition. Peace would be finalized by the simple signing of peace treaties with bordering Arab states on the basis of existing lines of demarcation. Labor leaders called for some amendment of the pre-1967 borders in Israel’s favor, basically on strategic grounds, but favored withdrawing Israeli control over most of the West Bank in the framework of a permanent peace that would include demilitarization of the returned territory. Initially this meant the “Jordanian option,” which would avoid a Palestinian state by inviting King Hussein back into the West Bank. But in July 1988, King Hussein relinquished all claim to the West Bank and to speaking for Arabs living there, and Labor was eventually forced to deal with the PLO as the only credible representative of the Palestinians.

On the surface, the Likud’s conception was no less ideological than the Labor version: it proclaimed Revisionist tenets of the Jewish right to the entire Land of Israel and a veneration of ethnicity typical of modern nationalism (as described in chapter 3). In this sense, the post-1977 division simply marked the renewal of the intense ideological conflict of the pre-state period, which had been muffled in the first two decades of statehood. But the worldview represented by Menachem Begin also incorporated some new elements, leading some to describe it as a “New Zionism” or as “neoRevisionism.” In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the message became much more emotional, with an even stronger focus on assertive self-defense and a defiant rejection of the outside world.^[32]

Revisionism in any variant was, of course, more receptive to claims of Jewish tradition than Labor Zionism had ever been. It embodied a militant and unapologetic affirmation of historical and ethnic roots and the rejection (in theory) of “non-Jewish” secular doctrines. Religious symbolism was assimilated and adapted to a nationalist ethos, creating a new “civil religion” synthesizing these two elements.^[33] In its more extreme manifestations, it could even be seen as an atavistic response to modernity, similar to Islamic fundamentalism in rejecting the modern world and calling for a return to one’s own roots.

Modernized secular Zionists saw this as a huge step backward. Uniqueness, rather than normalization, was becoming the watchword. Diaspora mentality “was forcefully returning, uninvited, to the house which Zionism built.” ^[34] Instead of becoming a nation like other nations, Israelis were again seeing themselves, in the words of Balaam’s blessing, as “a people who shall dwell alone” (Numbers 23:9). Israel was moving from a universalistic, secular, rational, civic orientation to one that was particularistic, religious, mystical, and primordial. It was reverting from an “Israeli” outlook, embodied in the concept of the State of Israel, back to a more “Jewish” self-identity, tied to the idea of Eretz Yisrael.^[35] There was a reassertion of tradition after an interlude during which it had been temporarily submerged by a now-receding wave of secular ideology.

The reassertion of tradition could be seen on a number of fronts, from a strengthening of Jewish studies in secular schools to a revival of femininity in daily life. The impact on the role of women is especially instructive. Labor Zionism had taken pride in its progressive stance on women’s issues, reflected in such images as women serving alongside men in the army and Golda Meir’s election as one of the first women heads of government in the world. In truth these images were always overdrawn; Israel was in the forefront as far as legal equality was concerned but lagged behind many other states regarding de facto equality in public life, in the marketplace, and in society at large. Even some of the advances made were rolled back as progressive ideology yielded ground to more traditional attitudes associated with growing religiosity or imported non-Western folkways. For example, the representation of women in the Knesset fell from twelve seats in 1948 (and a high of thirteen in 1955) to a low of seven seats in 1988 and eight seats in 1996.

Religious revivalism and messianism were important dimensions of the new intellectual climate. The establishment of a separate state religious school system, as part of a network of institutions tied to the National Religious Party, had reinforced a distinct religious-Zionist subculture within Israeli society. The younger generation that passed through this network underwent intense socialization into the religious interpretation of Zionism. They served as the basis for Gush Emunim (Bloc of the Faithful), the group that spearheaded the establishment of Jewish settlements throughout the occupied territories.

Gush Emunim was not simply a religious faction but represented more broadly a “revitalization” movement of a type not unknown elsewhere.^[36] In reaction to the threat of modern secular culture, such movements seek to revive traditional patterns (as they conceive those patterns). Gush Emunim adherents felt that the movement was acting to realize a divine purpose and that the return of Jews to Eretz Yisrael was the beginning of the final redemption for Jews and for mankind. In seeking to reclaim the entire Jewish homeland, therefore, they were performing a sacred mission. They did not seek the normalization of Jews among the family of nations but rather a return to the concept of chosenness that secular Zionists had tried to abandon. Jews, in this view, have a unique attachment to Eretz Yisrael that transcends the kinds of claims others may have there. The Western civic ideal is not applicable: equality among different peoples is not possible in these circumstances, and democracy is secondary to national rights. Arabs who live in Eretz Yisrael should have full civic rights only if they accept the essential Jewishness of the state; otherwise, they must choose between living there peacefully without full rights, or leaving.

Gush Emunim served as the ideological vanguard of the New Zionism, as the main force behind the settlement movement in the territories, and as a bridge between religious and secular nationalists. In some ways, it was co-opted and used by the leadership of Likud, which shared most of its immediate goals. In another sense, this connection with the ruling party gave Gush Emunim and the settlement movement an influence in public life well beyond what would be expected from the actual size of their membership. The influence of Gush Emunim-style nationalist ideology cannot account, however, for all of the overlap between religious self-identity and support of more hawkish parties. The core supporters of Gush Emunim, and the ideological expressions of nationalism generally, came disproportionately from Jews of European background. The religious orientation of Middle Eastern Jews is generally less doctrinaire and less messianic. In the style of the Middle East, religion is more a matter of traditions and customs tied to group identity than of inviolable sacred ideology. Religious Jews of Middle Eastern background were drawn to the Likud and other secular nationalist parties more by a general sense of ethnic particularism than by ideological fervor. But they were still predisposed more to support of Likud than of Labor, with its secular socialism and Western universalism.

This visceral attraction of Revisionism to many less Westernized Jews, religious and nonreligious, was apparent in some early successes. For example, the first place where the Revisionists gained a majority in a Zionist movement branch was in Tunis, in 1928.^[37] This tendency was obscured in the early statehood period, for reasons already outlined (above and chapter 4). But it emerged more strongly as time passed, reinforced by the hostility of refugees toward their lands of origin. Many Middle Eastern Jews related easily to Menachem Begin’s emotional appeal to ethnic sentiment and his unapologetic defense of Jewishness. Middle Eastern Jews also shared with the Likud (before 1977) common ground as outsiders facing a haughty and patronizing Labor Establishment.

The appeal of the right to Middle Eastern Jewish voters was not, therefore, ideological or intellectual primarily, but more attitudinal and emotional. Support of the Likud was a way of breaking the hegemony of a Western-oriented elite, of asserting full and equal membership in Israeli society, and even of turning the tables on those who had been disdainful of them (now it was Labor Zionists who were “less Zionist”). Belief in the historical or God-given right to the entire Land of Israel was less central to this than the social and demographic realities that had shaped the historical experience of Israelis from non-European lands.^[38]

The loss of a dominant consensus meant, inevitably, the loss of coherence and strong direction in government. Though one bloc might control the government, it held no monopoly on legitimacy and its ability to make basic changes was limited. There were more autonomous forces to deal with, as new organizations and groups appeared to represent their own interests. The role of parties was weakened, and the cabinet was less able to act with unity and decisiveness. In some ways, these trends marked the reemergence of the pre-state coalition tradition, when power-sharing arrangements were broad and shallow with much less coalition discipline. There was also less coherence within the parties, however, as the hold of ideological camps and movements loosened. In a sense, what was happening was what Peter Medding has called “the breakthrough of society.” ^[39] This moved Israeli politics closer to underlying human realities and fostered the reemergence of pre-civic patterns of behavior; in the words of one commentator, the loss of governmental coherence was “taking us back to the shtetl” (the Jewish village of Eastern Europe).^[40]

The pattern of decentralized bargaining among semiautonomous agencies has emerged even more strongly. Kupat Holim Klalit (the Sick Fund of the Histadrut), which had been a direct participant in making health policy when the Labor Party was in power, became a “veto group” in the setting of that policy.^[41] A proposal for a five-day work week was the subject of negotiations between the Histadrut and the Ministry of Finance. Reforms in energy policy were negotiated among the Ministry of Energy, the three major oil companies, and the corporation operating the refineries. The transfer of absorption services for new immigrants from the Jewish Agency to the government was the subject of difficult negotiations between the agency and the Ministry of Absorption, with the Ministry of Finance also involved. The examples could be multiplied extensively, involving a variety of public, semipublic, and private bodies according to the subject involved.

As a result of frustration over their inability to influence policy, Israelis turned—or, perhaps more accurately, returned—increasingly to unofficial and unstructured channels of political action. The level of protest and other forms of direct action had as noted been relatively low during the period of state-building on the civic model. But from the early 1970s there was a steep rise in direct public participation (or “hyper-participation”) in politics, creating greater democracy (in a basic sense) at the cost of greater discord and disorder. As Itzhak Galnoor summarized the situation, “there has been…increased committed participation and more direct impact on steering, accompanied by less stability and greater difficulties in governing.” ^[42] In short, by the 1980s the incidence of protest and demonstration in Israel surpassed that of almost any other democratic regime.

As measured by Sam Lehman-Wilzig, the frequency of “protest events” in Israel can be divided into four distinct periods. During the first six years of statehood, despite the enormous problems of state-building and mass immigration, there were on the average only fifty-four significant protests or demonstrations annually. With improvement in the economic situation and greater overall stability, this decreased to an average of thirty-nine protest events per year in the domestically quiescent period of 1955–1970. Beginning in 1971—a year marked by the end of an external threat (the war of attrition) and the breakup of the National Unity Government that had ruled since the eve of the 1967 war—the number of protests and demonstrations tripled to an average of 122 per year over the next eight years. At that point, corresponding with the Egyptian peace treaty and the onset of triple-digit inflation, this level of protest almost doubled again, to an average of 202 annually during the following eight years.^[43] In 1986 Lehman-Wilzig concluded that Israel was “the most protest-oriented polity in the democratic world today,” pointing out a 1981 survey which showed that 21.5 percent of Israelis had taken part in a protest event while the highest proportion anywhere else was 11 percent, in the United States.^[44] Gadi Wolfsfeld, comparing Israel to eight other democratic states, found that only in Italy had a higher percentage of the public participated in a demonstration.^[45] In this light, perhaps the most symptomatic political event of post-1977 Israel was the 1982 demonstration by an estimated 400,000 protesters—nearly 20 percent of the country’s adult population—demanding an official inquiry into the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon (a demand that the government was forced to meet).

In these “old-new” patterns of direct action and confrontational politics, as with traditional Jewish politics, the prevalence of informal bargaining and unclear lines of authority led competing groups and interests to resort to tactics outside of normal procedure. Linking this contemporary surge of protest to classical Jewish “oppositionism,” Lehman-Wilzig argues that “the modern secular State of Israel may be somewhat of a novum in Jewish political history, but the political culture animating it has roots deep in the past.” ^[46]

The growing frustration with existing channels of political communication and influence, in the 1970s and 1989s, was reflected in the declining role of parties. From Zionism’s earliest days parties had been the dominant channels in politics. But after 1948 the role of parties was undercut by the development of state institutions and bureaucracy, vast changes in demography, growing social and economic complexity, generational change, and the overall decline of ideology. One clear index of this development is the decline in party membership: in the mid-1950s over one-quarter of the Israeli population were members of a political party, but this figure declined to 18 percent in 1969, 13 percent in 1977, and only 8 percent in 1988.^[47]

Together with this came a devastating increase in the percentage of those surveyed who said the government was performing “poorly” or “very poorly,” from only 8 percent in 1967 to 81 percent in 1977 (and with similar high percentages for Likud governments in the 1980s).^[48] Public frustration with existing channels led to more direct forms of communication, whether as protest or other forms of direct action. It was “the lack of formal opportunities for political communication” or the “blocked opportunities” that lay behind the resort to venerable patterns of confrontational politics. When asked to identify the reasons for Israel’s high level of protest activity, the leading explanation chosen by Israeli respondents was that “the citizen does not have enough other ways to express himself to the authorities.” ^[49]

There were of course other circumstances that pushed politics into irregular channels. The 1967 war had put on the table issues upon which there was deep division and toward which some groups put principle ahead of adherence to procedure. At the same time, the war also created greater room for such debate by reducing security fears that normally impelled Israelis to unite and submerge their differences. In addition, the second generation from the great influx of Middle Eastern Jews in the 1950s, born or raised in Israel, was less hesitant than its parents in challenging inequities, and this generation was coming to political maturity. Finally, modernization also reinforced the return of extraparliamentary politics; in particular, the introduction of television in the late 1960s greatly enlarged the potential of public drama as a means of getting the attention of nonresponsive leaders.

While there is something “democratic” about direct public involvement on the political stage, there are also drawbacks. As Wolfsfeld puts it, “Israel has developed a participatory democracy, but the modes of participation leave something to be desired.” ^[50] Politics conducted in the street tends to be episodic, reactive, negative, and something of a blunt instrument. Rewards go to those groups that are best organized, most disruptive, and least ready to compromise, which hardly encourages a civil political discourse. Even in the best circumstances there is a potential threat of violence. Finally, increased recourse to such methods undercuts the ordinary processes of government and fosters disrespect for regular procedures and the rule of law.

All of this is part of a process in which the centralization of the system is challenged and a diffusion of power is taking place. Even in the area of local government, usually considered the most centralized feature of the Israeli system, there has been considerable diffusion of power. As local governments have almost no restriction on their borrowing, they often go deeply into debt and then bargain with the state for funds to repay the loans. So long as local expenditures do not violate state policy, the state usually ends up covering them (the Knesset passed a law to prohibit such practices, but it has not been effective). Even more importantly, there has been a trend in some of the larger municipalities toward increasing financial independence by increasing local taxes and forgoing the fiscal support of the national government upon which they had depended in the past.^[51]

More is involved here than protest plain and simple; the diffusion of power and expansion of public involvement extend to other ways of bypassing formal channels of government. In this broader sense, it could be said that Israelis have a penchant for direct action as part of the informal bargaining that takes place. Perhaps this can best be seen by citing the direct actions reported in the Israeli press during one randomly chosen week:

A right-wing group blocks the road between Gaza and Israel with burning tires in order to protest the entrance of Arab labor to Israel.

Na’amat, the women’s division of the Histadrut, conducts a national “referendum” on the issue of economic equality for women.

Young Labor Party activists bring sacks of garbage to the twelfth-floor office of Tel Aviv’s Likud mayor as a strike of municipal sanitation workers continues.

Tel Aviv’s striking garbage collectors try to physically block the work of private contractors hired to remove the accumulated refuse.

Parents and children in a Jerusalem neighborhood stage an unlicensed demonstrationto demand installation of traffic lights in a busy intersection (licenses to demonstrate are usually given for the asking).

Also in Jerusalem, members of a right-wing group try to disrupt an open-air performance of a play they deem objectionable.

A construction firm in Haifa occupies a building it has built for the municipality and refuses to transfer possession until its financial claims are settled.

The municipal offices of Yokne’am, a development town, shut down for two hours to protest the loss of jobs at a local factory.

Eighth-graders in Kiryat Shmonah barricade themselves on the upper floor of their school building following cancellation of a class trip.

A national protest meeting is held in Jerusalem to press Bezek, the government communications company, to remedy defective telephone service.

Right-wing demonstrators block a convoy of vehicles, organized by left-wing groups, that is carrying food supplies into the Gaza strip during a curfew there.^[52]

Another dimension of the “old-new” pattern of direct action was the establishment of alternative social and economic networks. The Israeli public has often organized its own informal systems to address unmet needs. Under this rubric are phenomena as varied as the settlers’ movement in the occupied territories, pirate cable television (operating, at one time, in a quarter of Israel’s households), the black market, and private health insurance plans. In the 1970s and 1980s budgetary pressures forced serious cutbacks in government spending, leading to the emergence of “gray education” and “gray medicine” as families made their own arrangements for additional schooling or medical treatment. Likewise, dissatisfaction with police protection sparked an explosion of private security forces, which by the late 1980s outnumbered Israeli police three to one; even in the isolated haredi community, residents organized civil patrols to secure the safety of the streets.^[53]

Another “old-new” pattern was the tendency to illegalism, or an attitude of expediency toward the law, a tendency which “is nourished by the venerable tradition of the shtetl.” ^[54] During the Ben-Gurion period, this tendency remained largely under the surface as the government promoted its version of mamlachtiut, or civic-mindedness, as a cure for age-old habits of circumventing unwanted authority. After Ben-Gurion left the scene, familiar attitudes came back into the open as public scandals multiplied and corruption at higher levels became increasingly open. It appeared that the exploitation of a public position for private or party needs was “almost legitimate,” or so widespread that no guilt was really involved. As extraparliamentary politics became more common, violations of the law by extreme movements were opposed only by political enemies; few figures in public life condemned the illegal acts of groups with which they sympathized.^[55] The expansion of protest politics involved a paradox: greater acceptance of the democratic right of protest, but consequently a lessening of respect for orderly procedure and the general rule of law.^[56]

To what extent can a decline in support for democratic values be documented? As summarized in chapter 1, the evidence is mixed:

1. Respect for political parties, the media, and some other institutions in democratic politics is remarkably low, though not substantially different from some other democratic nations.
2. A significant part of the public thinks that Israel is “too democratic,” and such attitudes tend to increase with greater religiosity and decrease with greater education. Again, this is not radically different from other democracies, though Israel tends to the European approach permitting greater curbs on free speech, in the name of public order, than American thinking would customarily permit.^[57]
3. Where Israeli belief in democracy seems relatively weak is in three particular areas: (a) deference to authority and support of strong leadership, especially when security issues are invoked; (b) sensitivity to the image being projected externally, and consequently demands for controls on the media; and (c) accommodation of non-Jewish minorities on a fair and equal basis. All three of these weaknesses reflect in one way or another the impact or limitations of Jewish historical experience.
4. Israel is characterized by “focused intolerance” toward an Arab minority that is clearly identified and linked with a foreign threat, while democracies such as the United States, with a variety of target groups, demonstrate “pluralistic intolerance.”
5. The intifada or Arab uprising in the occupied territories, from late 1987, led in the short term to demands for tougher policing, but in the long term to greater readiness for compromise (see chapter 10).

The New Zionism never became dominant in the way classical Labor Zionism had been at its peak. Vociferous debate over the future of the territories continued unabated, with the dominant tone in intellectual and academic circles still set by the doves. (The novelist Amos Oz taunted the hawks: “Why are most of the creative people in the country, heaven help us, ‘leftists’? Is it a conspiracy? Has Damascus bought out Hebrew literature lock, stock, and barrel?”)^[58] The political success of the Likud from 1977 to 1992 served to legitimize it as a contender for power, but the effort to substitute Revisionist symbols and myths for established Zionist symbols and myths did not succeed: “The majority of the nation’s educational and cultural elite and leading figures in the media are among the substantial number of Israelis who do not share the cultural definition of political reality staged by the Likud.…” ^[59]

The Likud’s success in pulling even with Labor at the polls was not achieved on the basis of its ideological appeal alone; in fact, the ideology may on balance have been a handicap. There is substantial evidence that many of those voting for the Likud were actually closer to Labor on issues such as the territories.^[60] In other words, by the 1980s the electorate was voting somewhat to the right of its beliefs, just as in the 1950s and 1960s it had voted to the left of its beliefs (see chapter 4). Menachem Begin’s success in attracting votes did not come from his ideology, which he had learned to downplay, but from his appeal to the emotions and sentiments of traditional, religious, and above all Middle Eastern Jews who were alienated from the Labor Zionist Establishment. Begin’s own party, Herut, had by this time completed the transition from ideological movement to modern, bureaucratized political party.^[61]

What we have seen, in sum, is a reassertion of traditional Jewish occupational and social patterns, religious beliefs, and non-European influences that ended the dominance of Labor Zionism. Like other “new societies,” Israel moved from ideology to patterns more reflective of its human and material realities.^[62] There was a weakening of the “movement style of life” and an accentuation of occupational, economic, and ethnic differences.^[63] While politics created society in the yishuv, the more common pattern is now emerging: social realities shape politics.