May'avdut le'herut: Israeli Grassroots Revolts Against the Paternalistic Socialist System

Volume 10, No.1 Fall1991 MAY'AVDUT LE'HERUT: ISRAELI GRASSROOTS REVOLTS AGAINST THE PATERNALISTIC SOCIALIST SYSTEM Sam Lehman-Wilzig Sam Lehman-Wilzig is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University, where he has been teaching since 1977. He is the author of Stiff-Necked People, Bottle-Necked System: The Evolution and Roots of Israeli Public Protest, 1949-1986 (Indiana University Press, 1990). The present article is a synthesis of his soon-to-be-published book WILDFIRE: Grassroots Revolts in Israel in the Post-Socialist Era (SUNY Press, 1991). Introduction 11 The State of Israel is one of the world leaders in protest per capita.1 Nevertheless, such extra-parliamentary activities-especially those protest campaigns which are large scale and of long duration-have been shown to be relatively ineffective in achieving their goals.2 Assuming that Israelis will not just return docilely to their personal lives in the wake of such protest inefficacy , and assuming as well that the serious domestic problems which engendered such protest in the first place continue to fester, the obvious ensuing question is where do they go from there? What alternative means lie at the Israeli's disposal to carry out change? The answer is that from the late 1970s onwards Israelis across the board have begun to take matters into their own hands. I call this "Israel's Grassroots Revolt"-not because it is well organized as are many similar phenomena in the U.S., for example, but rather because for the first time in Israel's 1Gadi Wolfsfeld, The Politics of Provocation: Participation and Protest in Israel (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988); Sam Lehman-Wilzig, Stiff-Necked People, Bottle-Necked System: The Evolution and Roots ofIsraeli Public Protest, 1949-1986 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), chapter 4. 2Lehman-Wilzig,op. cit, ch. 9. See too Shmuel Lehman-Wilzig, "Me'kha'ah Tziburit Be'Yisrael: Ha'im Hee Matzlikhah?" in Medina, Memsha~ Ve'yakhassim Bein'leumiyyim, Number 31 (Summer/Autumn 1989), pp. 111-125. 12 SHOFAR history there exists a social phenomenon which has been initiated almost exclusively by "the wolman in the street" and of which a vast adult majority in the country has participated in one form or another. What is the gist of this grassroots revolt? The establishment by the public (and not the governing authorities) of alternative social and economic service systems, when and where the official ones do not function adequately or function in grotesque fashion. Often, "alternative systems" may be too strong a term, for usually there does not exist (at least at first) a conscious desire on the part of the initiators to institute an entire apparatus to compete with the governmentally sanctioned one. However, where the government's response is late in coming (or there isn't any at all), a fairly full-fledged service system does evolve. In any case, as I will argue later on, the critical aspect here is not the intent of those in revolt but rather its ultimate result. Issues Under Revolt It would be useful to first describe Israel's sundry grassroots revolts, to illustrate the nature and essence of this contemporary phenomenon. 1) Illegal Settlements: Starting in the 19708, Gush Emunim began circumventing the authorities by establishing "settlements" overnight. While in and of itself such activity did not set up a huge number of "facts in the field," the perception (and part reality) of do-it-yourself success became the opening salvo of the coming societal battles. The tremendous public controversy engendered by this anti-establishmentarian activity, and the obvious capitulation of the government in the face of these settlers' steadfastness, could·not but plant seeds in the minds of other Israelis, ripening over time. Subsequent developments were to bear this out-on both sides of the ideological divide. I would argue that (on the Right wing) increasing settler vigilantism in the territories during the 198083 was but a logical extension of the earlier illegal settlement activity. On numerous occasions, the settlers took matters into their own hands-either by overreacting in self~defense, or even through pre-planned violent (although rarely fatal) confrontations with surrounding Arab communities. In addition, and even more insidiously...