To understand the full nature of the political and social rift within Israeli society, it is necessary to explore the realm of emotions.
To understand the full nature of the political and social rift within Israeli society, it is necessary to explore the realm of emotions. Much of the extreme language employed by both sides rests on emotions, and the intensity of some of the central social actors, such as Justice Minister Yariv Levin, can also be understood as having an emotional base. What sort of emotions are we talking about? We can get a sense of these emotions from some recent statements of Likud spokespeople, first a tweet from Minister of Environmental Protection Idit Silman, and second, an off-the-cuff remark by MK Tally Gottlieb.
Silman responded to criticism of the disruptive behavior of a Likud activist as follows:
“Mordechai David is simply holding up a small mirror to the radical, protesting left – and they are in panic and shock. They cannot understand how this is happening to them, the privileged children of the gods. These arrogant elitists are unable to digest the fact that what is permitted to do to right-wing public officials and their families may also be done to radical left-wing activists who incite.”
On the surface, the heart of Silman’s argument is reciprocity – if the left engages in disruptive, intrusive behavior, so can the right. Nevertheless, she devotes considerable attention to what sociologists call stratification, charging left-wing activists with being “privileged,” “arrogant elitists,” etc. Although not ostensibly germane to her logical argument, one gets the impression that this is her real message. This messaging comes up repeatedly among Likud and right-wing spokespeople in manifold ways. Thus during the recess in the court proceedings in which prominent left-wing (or “liberal”) activist Shikma Bressler sued Likud MK Gottlieb for defamation, Gottlieb remarked in an aside to one of the spectators, “she [Bressler) thinks we are baboons.” More confrontational Likud ministers and Knesset members, such as Dudi Amsalem and Miri Regev, routinely take this Juno-faced defensive/offensive posture.
The populist right accuses the left of exuding condescending superiority or elitism, while exhibiting considerable anger and offense at being looked down upon. This kind of rage can have severe consequences. As Charles Dickens observed in “A Tale of Two Cities,” it can lead to the guillotine. Surely, it provides energy for the Judicial Reform (or Revolution) project in Israel. Levin and other coalition members appear to be motivated as much by resentment as by their vision of a new Israeli legal dispensation.
Does the left, in fact, treat its opponents with disdain and disrespect, negating their honor and significance? Over the years, there have been incidents of well-known figures from the left publicly referring to Likud and right-wing supporters with disdain and disrespect. Dudu Topaz, a well-known Israeli entertainer, gave a speech during the 1980 election campaign in which he referred to the Likud supporters as “riff raff” and implied that all they were good for in the military was guard duty. Thirty-five years later, the well-known artist and humorist, Yair Garbuz, referred to traditional right-wing adherents as “amulet kissers,” implying that they were superstitious, ignorant and irrational. But these incidents are exceptions; most leftists are too well-mannered to make blatant derogatory remarks. Still, do they reveal something true about the underlying attitudes of the current “liberal” sector?
On some level, there certainly is a tendency among some of the historically “liberal” elites to emit an air of superiority, but it’s not a personal, but rather a cultural, trait embedded in Zionism itself. Zionism was a movement with objectives on several levels. Of course (especially since the late 1930s), it focused on creating a Jewish state, but it had major social and cultural goals as well. These were encapsulated in the figure of the “New Jew.” The creation of a Jew who was sovereign in their own land with their own language. The New Jew was self-reliant and productive, secular and rational, engaging in agriculture and industry, not the “huckster” trades of the Jewish minority – willing and able to defend themselves.
The new institutions of the incipient state, such as the Histadrut, the Kibbutzim and Moshavim, the Palmach, etc., more or less realized this idea. The superior self-regard with which this class held itself can be seen in the very terminology with which it designated itself: Halutzim. This was generally translated as “pioneers,” to make it familiar to American readers. However, a more accurate translation is “vanguard.” It designates a revolutionary elite leading the way to a transformed Jewish people.
This transformed population filled the leadership positions in the nascent State of Israel. Immigrants who came afterwards had a more difficult time joining this governing elite of transformed New Jews. Some had difficulty because of their religious or traditional proclivities. Others simply did not want to be transformed in this fashion. Many arriving from North Africa and the Middle East were deemed unworthy, and it was believed that they could not be transformed. Stratification among the Jewish population of Israel organized itself around this issue in the state’s first decades. The upper strata, termed “the first Israel,” enjoyed prestige and as a result was able to create for itself advantageous economic and social arrangements.
The lower strata, the “second Israel,” suffered disdain and condescension, which only exacerbated their lack of access to prestige, income, and property. Religious and traditional people, as well as Mizrahim, can attest to the patronizing attitude they encountered, to varying degrees, in their dealings with the old elites in the army, the universities, the media, etc.
The protest against this culminated in Likud’s 1977 victory – the “government turnover” election. The Likud became the ruling party for the next 40 or so years (and still counting). Yet, a modus vivendi was reached between the contending sectors. The Likud, representing the untransformed or partially transformed second Israel, controlled the government and political system, while the New Jews became the “establishment,” controlling the economy, the high-tech sector, the universities, the media, the justice system, and the defense apparatus. Netanyahu was careful to include representatives of the old elites in all the governments that he formed.
The current government is an exception to this pattern. It rests entirely on parties that represent untransformed or only partially transformed populations, and it has pursued a revolutionary agenda abrogating the division of labor between the institutional establishment of the New Jews and the government of more traditional untransformed Jews. Its agenda, of which the “Judicial Reform” is a central piece, is to hollow out the independent power centers of the old establishment. As is the case with other revolutionary governments, it continues while in power to exhibit symbols of protest. Thus, it continues to attack the liberal elites, who are also largely its political opponents, as “privileged,” “arrogant” and the like. It is unrealistic to expect it to abandon its polarizing discourse and rhetorical style. It uses its protest against the historical stratification system of Israel, along with the intense emotions that it generates, for political mobilization of its “base.”
Nevertheless, the government’s current situation is not entirely happy. The Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war obviously put the government in a defensive and awkward position. The largest security failure in Israel’s history happened during its watch. Beyond that, more subtle issues are arising. The war exposed its inherently ambivalent attitude toward Israel’s fabled intelligence and security agencies and the Air Force. The government celebrated the phenomenal success of these bodies in the war against Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. Yet, these bodies are run by the very transformational elites at whom the government directs its protest and resentment. The solution the government has found is to blame them for the Oct. 7 attack and step up the attacks on them as undermining the government and the state of Israel. One gets the impression that because the operations against Iran, Hezbollah and Syria were so successful, it had to redouble its attacks against the Shin Bet, the IDF and the Air Force.
A deeper problem may be that the government does not seem to have a clear idea of what a nontransformative Zionist Israeli state would look like. For the time being, it concentrates its energy negatively – on attacking the old elite and dismantling its power centers. But it has not really articulated a positive vision. And to the extent that its members do have positive visions, they contradict each other. The Haredim, for example, see a blanket draft exemption for all Haredim (whether they study Torah or not) as a fundamental demand. However, this demand is strenuously opposed by the Religious Zionists. If the coalition wants to continue to rule coherently, it needs to open a conversation regarding its ultimate vision of the Jewish state. Ultimately, such a conversation would have to include the old transformative elites, who continue to contribute to Israel’s economic, technological, military and cultural success.
Perhaps, if all sectors of the Israeli population participate in such a foundational conversation, which would, as it were, re-found the ideological and cultural basis of the Jewish state, the wounded pride, condescension, disdain and hatred can be overcome.