Local Communities and the Israeli Polity: Conflict of Values and Interests (review)

Book Reviews 147 critical analysis along these and other lines would have made this book a much more useful one, especially to those who are already familiar with the general story of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Jerome Slater Department of Political Science State University of New York at Buffalo Local Communities and the Israeli Polity: Conflict of Values and Interests, edited by Efraim Ben-Zadok. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. 285 pp. $19.95 (p). This edited volume focuses on local communities and regions within the Israeli polity. Efraim Ben-Zadok, the editor, underscores the lack of attention given to examining the local level within Israel and to its interactions with the national level. He introduces the notion of a "spatial sector" as an analytical concept for examining local and regional forces. A spatial sector is constituted where a distinct national social group comprises the majority of the population within a definite spatial area. Conflicts of interest and values arise in the interaction of a spatial sector with other parties within the larger Israeli society and within the central government. State policy at the various levels needs to relate to these conflicts in order to relieve the pressures placed on the system. In particular, Ben-Zadok argues that there is a need for a devolution of power to the local and regional units from the highly centralized form of government. The book is divided into five sections, each an area of imminent conflict. Four discuss the major "national" cleavages-Arab-Jewish, ethnicclass , religious-secular, and left-right, while the final section probes Jerusalem, a special case. The substantive chapters within the sections examine eight different spatial sectors: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza (Donna Robinson Divine), the Arabs in Israel (Majid AI-Haj), Oriental Jews in the Development towns (Efraim Ben-Zadok), renewal neighborhoods (Hana Ofek), the ultra-orthodox neighborhoods (Yosseph Shilhav), Gush Emunim's new settlements in the West Bank (Giora Goldberg), kibbutzim and moshavim (Neal Sherman), and Jerusalem (Ira Sharkansky). Ben-Zadok provides the theoretical framework in the introductory chapter. The irony of the internationalization and globalization of the world economy is that differences between regions within national boundaries 148 SHOFAR Spring 1995 Vol. 13, No.3 remain strong and, in many cases, are growing. The situation in Israel is no different, and it is crucial that we give priority to examining social, economic, and political variations at the local and regional levels. BenZadok 's bid to insert the local and regional levels into the debate in Israel's internal social structure is an important contribution, and this book is a worthy addition to the literature. The concern with local and regional differences within the field of geography, with which I am most familiar, centers on the role that space plays in producing the differences and exaggerating the conflicts. The use ofspace to achieve geopolitical objectives has long been a cardinal element of Zionist politics and appreciated by writers on the subject. Yet, as BenZadok notes, the use of space to achieve internal political goals has for too long been overlooked. We need, in considering spatial differentiation, to understand that various social and economic phenomena not only vary across space, but that space itself can be actively manipulated in efforts by the state and other parties to attain preferred political, social, and economic outcomes. Values and interests not only have different spatial expressions but the divisions are explicitly created to prioritize some localities and certain interests over others. Consequently, conflicts are often unavoidable. Although the authors do not make the distinction explicitly, the distinction between space as an arena in which activities are played out and space as part of the process used to promote certain interests and values over others is demonstrated in the chapters presented in this volume. In accordance with my personal preferences, I shall limit my comments to the religious-secular cleavage and the ethnic-class cleavage. Giora Goldberg's discussion of the transformation of Gush Emunim from a national social movement to a regional interest group shows how, as Gush Emunim's national fortunes wavered, the settlers in the West Bank applied greater efforts at the regional level...