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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Israel
Index
Political power in Israel has been contested within the
framework of multiparty competition. Parliamentary elections are
held every four years, and, unlike many parliamentary systems, the
electorate votes as a single national constituency. Power has
revolved around the system of government by coalition led by one of
the two major parties, or in partnership among them. From the
establishment of Mapai in 1930 until the 1977 Knesset elections,
Labor (and its predecessor, Mapai) was the dominant party. Labor's
defeat in the 1977 Knesset election, however, transformed the
dominant party system into a multiparty system dominated by two
major parties, Labor and Likud, in which neither was capable of
governing except in alliance with smaller parties or, as in 1984
and 1988, in alliance with each other.
Since 1920, when the first Elected Assembly was held, no party
has been able to command a simple majority in any parliamentary
election. Israel has always had a pluralistic political culture
featuring at least three major polarizing social and political
tendencies: secular left-of-center, secular right-of-center, and
religious right-of-center. No single tendency was dominant in the
1980s. Political fragmentation, as marked by the proliferation of
parties, is a long-standing feature of Israeli society. For
example, in the prestate period, between 1920 and 1944, from twelve
to twenty-six party lists were represented in the Elected Assembly.
In the first Knesset election in 1949, twenty-four political
parties and groups competed. Since then the number has fluctuated
as a result of occasional splits, realignments, and mergers.
However, dominance by two major parties and a multiplicity of
smaller parties remained deeply embedded in Israeli political
culture (for details of individual political parties, see Appendix B).
In addition to political operations, party functions during the
prestate period included "democratic integration," that is, the
provision of social, economic, military, and cultural services for
party members and supporters. During the postindependence period,
party politics, in particular regarding competition between Labor
and Likud and their respective allies, continued to be vigorous.
Many analysts saw signs of a political crisis looming with the
emergence of extremist minor parties and extraparliamentary protest
movements (e.g., Kach and Gush Emunim). These groups challenged the
traditional parties on such issues as the roles of the state and
religion and the future territorial boundaries of the Jewish state.
Israel's major parties originated from the East European and
Central European branches of the WZO, founded by Theodor Herzl in
1897, and from political and religious groups in the Mandate
period. For example, a faction called the Democratic Zionists,
including among its members Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first
president, was active in 1900; Mizrahi (Spiritual Center), an
Orthodox religious movement, was founded in 1902; and the
non-Marxist Labor Zionist HaPoel HaTzair (The Young Worker), was
established in 1905. Aaron David Gordon, the latter group's
spiritual leader, was instrumental in founding the first kibbutz
and moshav soon after the party's establishment
(see Political Zionism
, ch. 1). Moreover, in 1906 the Marxist Poalei Tziyyon
(Workers of Zion--see Appendix B) was created to initiate a
socialist-inspired class struggle in Palestine. Ber Borochov was
its ideological mentor, and Ben-Gurion and Ben-Zvi were among its
founding leaders. Vladimir Jabotinsky founded the right-wing
Revisionist Party in 1925 to oppose what he considered the WZO
executive's conciliatory policy toward the British mandatory
government and toward the pace of overall Zionist settlement
activity in Palestine.
These early, formative experiences in political activity
produced three major alignments. All were Zionist, but they had
varying shades of secularism and religious orthodoxy. Two of the
alignments were secular but ideologically opposed. The first
consisted of leftist or socialist labor parties of which Mapai,
founded in 1930, was the dominant party. The second consisted of
centrist-rightist parties; Herut (Freedom Movement--see Appendix B),
founded in 1949, the Revisionist Party's successor and the
present Likud's mainstay, dominated that alignment. Herut, which
had become part of Likud, eventually won a mandate to govern in
1977 under Begin. The third major political alignment consisted of
Orthodox religious Zionists. A fourth category of minor Zionist
parties also emerged, traditionally allied with one of the two
major alignments; non-Zionist communist Arab or nationalist Arab
parties constituted the fifth grouping.
In the late 1980s, the stated values of Israeli political
parties, including religious, communist, Arab nationalist, and
mainstream parties, could not properly be placed on the left-right
or liberal-conservative spectrum except, perhaps, on the issue of
the future of the occupied territories. The positions advocated by
Labor, Likud, Orthodox religious parties, and the constellation of
smaller parties allied to them have varied greatly. On the extreme
left, the most anti-Western element in Israeli politics was Rakah
(New Communist List--see Appendix B), a Moscow-oriented group with
a contingent of former Sephardic Black Panther activists that
appealed to Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment. Of the
long-established minor parties, the moderate left-of-center Mapam
(formally Mifleget Poalin Meuchedet, United Workers' Party--see
Appendix B), which from 1969 to 1984 constituted a faction in the
electoral alignment with Labor, the Citizens' Rights Movement
(see Appendix B), and Shinui
(Change--see Appendix B), were
Labor's traditional satellites.
Labor, in alignment with Mapam from 1969
until 1984, favored a negotiated settlement concerning the occupied
territories involving the exchange of land for peace.
On the center-right of the political spectrum were Likud and
its satellite parties, Tehiya, Tsomet, and Moledet. On the fringe
right was Kach, which the Knesset outlawed in 1988 because of its
racist platform that wished to expel all Arabs from the occupied
territories. Likud, especially its Herut component, favored
retaining much of the occupied territories to regain what it
considered to be the ancient boundaries of Eretz Yisrael. The
positions of the religious parties--the National Religious Party
(NRP--see Appendix B), Agudat Israel, Shas (Sephardic Torah
Guardians--see Appendix B), and Degel HaTorah (Torah Flag--see
Appendix B)--generally coincided with the right-of-center parties,
although the NRP trade-union component has continued its alliance
with Labor in the Histadrut.
Israeli parties have engaged in many activities even in
nonelection years. Indoctrination of young people has been
important, although in the case of the Labor Party it had markedly
lessened in the 1980s in comparison to the prestate period.
Political parties retained much of their early character as mutual
aid societies. Consequently, voters have tended to support the
country's political parties as a civic duty. Membership in a
registered party has not been a requirement for voting, but formal
party membership was high and party members have accounted for 25
to 50 percent of the vote.
Except for small Arab and communist groups, Israeli political
parties have been basically Zionist in their orientation. Given the
shades of interpretation inherent in Zionism, parties drew their
support from adherents who might be secular, religious, or
antireligious, adherents of social welfare policies or free
enterprise (the distinction was not always clear because
Mapai/Labor in fact created Israel's capitalist economy), advocates
of territorial compromise or territorial expansion. In general,
attempts to organize parties on the basis of ethnic origin--for
example, in the cases of Yemeni, Iraqi, or Moroccan Jews--had been
unsuccessful until the early 1980s, when the Sephardi-based Tami
(Traditional Movement of Israel--see Appendix B) and Shas were
formed.
With the exception of religious parties, Israeli parties
possessed national constituencies but also engaged in politics
based on territorial subdivisions and local interests. Increasingly
during the late 1980s, local party branches enjoyed greater
independence in selecting local personalities in internal party
nominations for mayoral, municipal council, Histadrut, and Knesset
elections, as well as their own parties' central committees and
conventions. This independence resulted in part from the growing
tendency to vote on the basis of individual merit--mayoral
elections, for example, reflected an emerging pattern of
split-ticket voting--rather than traditional party loyalty. This
trend, if sustained, is likely to lead to the decentralization of
party control, if only to ensure that voters will support the same
party in national as well as local elections.
Data as of December 1988
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