The Modern Middle East - A Political History Since World War I (Third Edition)
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Figure 27. Emma Zvi Yona bathing her son at the unauthorized outpost of Moaz Esther. Corbis.
Any examination of the political history of the Middle East would be incomplete without an account of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. But any treatment of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in one chapter is also bound to be incomplete. Consequently, the scope and purpose of the present chapter are modest. I seek to highlight the competing notions of identity among the Palestinians and Israelis, an integral part of which for both peoples is a connection to the same piece of land. Both Israelis’ and Palestinians’ sense of identity has been shaped by and has in turn shaped their actions and their contemporary history. Their identity-based actions have led to the emergence of conditions on the ground that are insufficiently familiar to most outside observers but that are, for people on both sides, the reality in which they have to live. I will, therefore, as much as possible present a picture of the circumstances on the ground, especially those created and perpetuated by each side to further its national agenda. Finally, the chapter will turn to the search for peace, undertaken by some but not all Palestinians and Israelis, and the difficulties that have, for the time being, made such a possibility distant and elusive.
COMPETING NATIONAL IDENTITIES
At the core of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis has been a persistent negation of the identity of the other side. From the very beginning, both sides felt that the other side had no right to exist. When the first of the five aliya began in the early 1880s, this negation of identities intensified, and it gradually but steadily reached the crescendo of open conflict and warfare. As time went by, and as the irreconcilability of the two sides’ identities became starkly clear, the religious aspects of each side’s identity became more pronounced. In its earliest manifestations, Zionism was assertively secular, strongly influenced by a pervasive yearning for social justice and egalitarianism among European intellectuals of the time. While Judaism formed the larger cause and the context within which the Zionist project was articulated, the origins of Zionism lay in secular nationalism and a desire to escape the growing anti-Semitism of European Gentiles. As the Zionists’ conflict with non-Jewish Palestinians intensified, however, their claim to be the rightful inheritors of the land increasingly assumed biblical justifications. By the 1930s and 1940s, the failure of the Zionist project was not an option for those in European Jewry who were lucky to have escaped Hitler’s concentration camps. This only deepened the biblical conviction that the artificially created territory called Palestine had no right to exist. No less of an authority than the Bible had promised Eretz Israel to the Jews. There was no such thing as Palestine or a Palestinian. Thus, for purposes of cohesion and self-validation, the evolving identity of Israelis drew more and more on the religious roots of Zionism.
The route that Palestinian identity took to assert its validity and vitality was somewhat different, at least up until relatively recent times. As chapter 3 demonstrated, Palestinian nationalism was sparked in the 1920s in reac--tion to the increasing physical presence and economic dominance within Palestine of incoming Zionist immigrants. Whereas the overall premise of early Zionism was vaguely religious, from the very beginning Palestinian nationalism was primarily territorial and secular. This is not to say that religious personalities and institutions were insignificant in the formation and direction of a Palestinian sense of identity. The full-scale Palestinian rebellion of 1936–39, in fact, was led by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini. However, during the formative years of Palestinian identity, from about 1948 to the beginning of the intifada in late 1987, when a sense of identity was about all that the stateless Palestinians had, religion’s role was only secondary. The idea of Palestine as an actual territory and a historic memory shaped what it meant to be Palestinian. That the Palestinians themselves were divided into Christians and Muslims, very unequally but still divided, had much to do with the general deemphasis of religion as a source of Palestinian identity during much of this period. Only later, in the intifada years of 1987–93 and afterward, did the perceived failures of the secularly led Palestine Liberation Organization prompt many Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to look for other alternatives. At that point, religion, and more specifically Islam, once again asserted a role in the formation of Palestinian identity.
Thus both Palestinian and Israeli identities have demonstrated that they are changeable and dynamic. In a roughly parallel pattern, both have evolved from being predominantly secular to becoming heavily (but not entirely) religious. Perhaps more important has been their symbiotic relationship, each having influenced the other by its own nuances and changes over time. In some ways, as the conflict has unfolded, the two identities have fed off each other. The ever-present danger posed by the very existence of “the Other” has given both identities a degree of cohesion that they might not otherwise have had. Multiple divisions run through both the Palestinian and the Israeli communities. The Palestinians are primarily divided along the lines of class standing, religious affiliation, and place of residence; the Israelis, along the lines of ethnicity and degrees of religiosity. The gravity of the conflict and the fear of defeat—or, for the Palestinians, even more defeat—have blunted the potential of each of these sources of division. Nonetheless, beneath the surface the divisions do exist and in profound ways affect the collective identity of each of the two communities. Consequently, they merit further exploration.
The most pronounced source of division within Israeli identity concerns the ethnic background of Israel’s Jewish inhabitants. Jews are likely to consider themselves as belonging to one of two groups, the Ashkenazim, or those with a European background, and the Sephardim, broadly considered to be of Spanish or “Eastern” origin. Although all non-European Jews are generally considered to belong to the Sephardim, the correct use of the label actually applies only to the descendants of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492.3 Other non-European Jews from the Middle East and North Africa are called the Mizrachim (also pronounced Mizrahim). Nevertheless, the two terms Sephardim and Mizrachim are today used interchangeably in Israel, and people belonging to the two groups are considered as one. In 2009, Israel’s total population of 7.5 million included 5.7 million Jews, 1.3 million Muslims, 150,000 Christians, and 124,000 Druze. Of the country’s Jewish population, some 28 percent had been (or their fathers had been) born in Asia and Africa, 34 percent in Europe and America, and the rest, about 38 percent, in Israel.4 Of those who immigrated to Israel from 1990 to 2007, just under 1 million people, 11 percent were from Asia and Africa and 89 percent were from Europe and America.5 An overwhelming majority of immigrants to Israel during this period had been born in the former Soviet Union, former Soviet republics, and other former communist states in eastern and central Europe, notably Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary.
As these numbers indicate, whether Ashkenazi or Mizrachim, Israel’s Jewish immigrants often bring with them specific cultural practices, social norms, and even religious observances and rituals from the countries they left behind. In many ways, the adoption of the Hebrew language as the primary medium of communication in Israel serves an important unifying role among culturally and linguistically disparate groups.6 However, differences in physical appearance, dialect, accent, food, customs, and even ritual observances often persist for several generations, sometimes even permanently.
The Ashkenazi-Mizrachim ethnic divide is the larger context for several other divisions that run through Israel’s Jewish community, including those of economic and class status, Jewish doctrine, and political affiliation. At the most general level, the Mizrachim tend to be concentrated in the lower socioeconomic levels of Israeli society, complain of discriminatory treatment by the politically and economically dominant Ashkenazim, and, as a result, generally side with the nonestablishment parties of the Right. The Ashkenazim, many of whom trace their origins back to the early days of Labor Zionism in the late 1800s, have long held mos
t of the economic and political power in Israel. For example, the Ashkenazi-dominated Labor Party ruled uninterruptedly from 1948 until the 1977 elections.
There are also doctrinal differences between the two ethnic groups dating back to the earliest days of European Zionist settlements in Palestine. The Mizrachim do not have different doctrinal movements within them. The Ashkenazim, on the other hand, are divided into an Orthodox (mainly Hasidic) and a more numerous non-Orthodox category, and the latter are themselves divided into the Reform and the Conservative movements.7 Early in the history of the Zionist movement, as the Mizrachim living in Palestine found themselves increasingly outnumbered because of successive aliya from Europe, they challenged the Jewishness of the Ashkenazim, claiming that only Mizrachim rituals and observances represented the true Jewish faith.8 They were unsuccessful; in fact, “the Euro-Israeli establishment attempted to repress the ‘Middle Easternness’ of Mizrahim as part of an effort to Westernize the Israeli nation and to mark clear borders of identity between Jews as Westerners and Arabs as Easterners.”9 Today, the ethnic divide—the sense of “otherness”—has not changed much, having in recent years assumed added potency with the birth and successes of a Mizrachim-dominated political party, the Shas.
The socioeconomic differences between the Ashkenazim and the Mizrachim are especially glaring. The Mizrachim constitute what one Israeli scholar has called a “semi-peripheral” group in Israeli society, located between the “peripheral” Palestinians, whether Israeli citizens or noncitizens, and the dominant Ashkenazim.10 Although precise data on levels of income and standards of living for the two communities are not available, the per capita income of the Mizrachim is estimated to be about two-thirds the figure for the Ashkenazim.11 The Mizrachim tend to be concentrated in lower-income neighborhoods, attend poorer schools, and are overrepresented in the ranks of the poor and the working classes. The Mizrachim also form the bulk of Israel’s Jewish prisoner population and constitute a high percentage of Israeli criminals. Although nearly a quarter of all Jewish marriages are now mixed, the social and cultural gaps between the two communities remain considerable. Only about 25 percent of Mizrachim high school students graduate, compared to 46 percent of Ashkenazi. Primarily because of poorer schooling, the Mizrachim make up only about 20 percent of Israel’s university student population, whereas the figure for the Ashkenazim is over 70 percent. Throughout the country, there are only a few Mizrachim university professors. Although since the mid-1970s the Mizrachim have made noticeable socioeconomic advances in Israeli society, these gains either have been outstripped by those of the Ashkenazim (in areas such as education, occupational status, and income) or have been in fields whose social significance has declined (such as careers in the military and ownership of small shops and businesses).12 In fact, as compared to that between first-generation Jewish immigrants from various Middle Eastern countries, the income gap between second-generation Mizrachim and Ashkenazim has increased, and the percentage of second-generation Mizrachim who hold blue-collar jobs is more than twice that of first-generation Mizrachim.13
Differences in levels of education, purchasing power, places of residence, and living standards have had other social and cultural consequences as well. The Mizrachim complain about having their heritage and their contributions to Jewish thought and life marginalized in school textbooks, the popular media, and even the writings of Ashkenazi intellectuals.14 For some time now, for example, many respected Israeli intellectuals (all of Ashkenazi background) have openly wondered what it means to be an Israeli and have written about an Israeli “identity crisis” (more of which below). Often conspicuously absent from their discussions, however, has been attention to the predicaments and identities of the Mizrachim, implying that the Mizrachim are at best marginal to the formation of a collective Israeli identity and at worst irrelevant.15 The massive influx of new Ashkenazi Jews in the early 1990s following the collapse of the former Soviet Union has only exacerbated the Mizrachim’s sense of marginalization.
All this has influenced the Mizrachim’s political proclivities. Most of the Mizrachim immigrated to Israel beginning in the 1950s, by which time the Ashkenazim had already solidified their control over the institutions of the state and the economy, including the bureaucracy and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Upon arrival, most Mizrachim were subjected to indignities by Ashkenazi officials—including being sprayed with DDT before being allowed into the country—and found themselves on the economic, political, and social margins of Israeli life.16 They blamed their predicament on the Ashkenazi-dominated Labor Party, which happened to be social-democratic in its ideological orientation. Some two decades later, by which time the Mizrachim immigrants had learned the rules of Israel’s political game, they felt confident enough to exert themselves politically, casting their votes in opposition to Labor and in favor of the Right.17 Thus began the ascendancy of the Likud in 1977 and, later, the religious Shas Party in 1984 (the party itself was formed in late 1983).18
As a political party founded by and largely representing the interests of the Mizrachim community, the Shas is a relatively recent phenomenon in Israeli politics. For a group that found itself increasingly on the margins of Israel’s political, cultural, and economic life, the Shas has represented a powerful tool for self-actualization and social integration. Since its entry into Israeli politics in 1984 after winning four seats in the Knesset (the parliament), the party has been rising both steadily and impressively, at one point in the mid- to late 1990s emerging as the country’s third-largest party.19 This rise was further facilitated by the party’s populist appeal to lower-income Mizrachim, especially in the smaller towns and cities, where the larger political parties, notably the Likud and Labor, have not had as strong a foothold as they do in places like Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Through control over such key cabinet offices as the Ministries of Labor, the Interior, and Religious Affairs, Shas leaders were able to funnel government funds to many of their constituencies, thus enhancing their own chances for reelection. They even sought to strengthen their relations with Israel’s Arab bedouins, whose traditional values they to some degree share.20 Moreover, the Shas controls an extensive network of schools and religious seminaries, each offering a deep reservoir of volunteers in any given election, and throughout the year runs missionizing seminars to expand the circle of the “new returnees to Orthodoxy,” the baalei tshuva.21
Clearly, the continued threat presented to both the Ashkenazim and the Mizrachim from a completely alien, even hostile ethnic group, the Arab Palestinians, has greatly blunted the potential for ethnic tensions among Israeli Jews. Despite their complaints, therefore, the Mizrachim have almost uniformly embraced the concept of mizug galuyot, the fusion of the exiles.22 Located in an intermediary position between the peripheral Palestinians and the dominant Ashkanezi—they have allied themselves with the Ashkenazim and with the Israeli state apparatus, seeking greater integration into the “mainstream” of Israeli society rather than segregation from it.23 According to one Israeli scholar, “By the early 2000s, more than 50% of Mizrahim belonged to the middle-class. Among this population, as shown by [previous] research, many were married to spouses of Ashkenazi origin and raised children hardly aware of any ethnic allegiance. This is widely accounted for by the broadly non-ethnic ‘all-Israeli’ mood prevailing in middle-class secular milieus and which, as such, cannot legitimately object to the acceptance of socially-mobile Mizrahi individuals. Mobility resulted in greater exposure to the dominant culture and rapprochement to secular patterns of life.”24 Many Mizrachim have not only assimilated but also reached impressive upward mobility in the political establishment, as demonstrated by the careers of David Levy, a Moroccan-born former foreign minister, and Moshe Katsav, the country’s Iranian-born president from 2000 to 2007. For its part, the (Ashkenazi-dominated) political establishment cannot afford to ignore this important “counterelite,” especially with the political muscle of the Shas behind it, and has embarked on frequent, much-publici
zed campaigns designed to improve the living standards of the Mizrachim. These have included schemes such as job creation and training, subsidies and allowances, and, of course, inclusion at the highest echelons of the state, especially in the cabinet.
Alongside the Ashkenazim-Mizrachim ethnic divide and its multiple social, economic, and political facets, a larger debate has emerged in Israel over the precise nature of Israeli national identity and particularly the proper role of religion—Judaism—in the constitution of Israeli identity.25 The increasing powers of the political Right in recent decades, coupled with unprecedented increases in the pace of building new settlements in Palestinian territories, have led to intensified exploration of the relationship between Zionism as a nationalist movement and Judaism as a religion. Questions such as “What does it mean to be an Israeli?” and, more basically, “Who is a Jew?” have become part of the dominant intellectual discourse of the country.26
Such questions were a product of the profound soul-searching instigated by the psychological shock of the 1973 War. In the words of one Israeli scholar,
When the October 1973 War destroyed the image of material power upon which the feelings of security of most Israelis was based, a deep sense of anguish was bound to pervade the whole nation. The crisis was all the more profound because of the rapidity with which the whole nation passed from a situation of pseudo-normality to one of a total struggle for survival. . . . The Israeli had been brought face to face with himself, with his split identity and his cultural alienation, and for the first time had no possibility of avoiding a look into the mirror of realities.27