Table Of ContentI S R A EL A F T ER B E G IN
SUNY Series in Israeli Studies
Russell Stone, Editor
I S R A EL A F T E R B E G IN
EDITED
BY
GREGORY S. MAHLER
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany
©1990 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews.
For information, address State University of New York
Press, State University Plaza, Albany, N.Y., 12246
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Israel after Begin I edited by Gregory S. Mahler.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in Israeli studies)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-7914-0367-X. - ISBN 0-7914-0368-8 (pbk.)
1. Israel—Politics and government—Congresses. 2. Israel-
-Foreign relations—Congresses. 3. Political Parties—Israel-
-Congresses. 4. Begin, Menachem, 1913- -Congresses. I. Mahler,
Gregory S., 1950- . II. Series.
JQ1825.P3A176 1990
956.9405 4 י—dc20 89-28079
CIP
10 987654321
Contents
1. Israel After Begin
Gregory S. Mahler 1
Part One: Beginism, the Rule of Law,
and the Radical Right in Israel
2. The Legacy of Begin and Beginism for the
Israeli Political System
Ilan Peleg 19
3. Illegalism in Israeli Political Culture: Theoretical
and Historical Footnotes to the Pollard Affair
and the Shin Beth Cover Up
Ehud Sprinzak 51
4. Tehiya as a Permanent Nationalist Phenomenon
Aaron D. Rosenbaum 71
Part Two: Israel's National Security and Foreign Policy
5. Israeli National Security in the 1980s:
The Crisis of Overload
Avner Yaniv 93
6. Israeli-Soviet Relations Under the
National Unity Government
Robert O. Freedman 111
7. Israel in the Middle East
Laurie Mylroie 137
8. Israel and Morocco: The Political Calculus
of a ״Moderate״ Arab State
Mark A. Tessler 155
v
Contents
9. The Guarded Relationship Between Israel and Egypt
Ann M. Lesch 187
10. The Not-so-Silent Partnership: Emerging Trends
in American Jewish-Israeli Relationships
George E. Gruen 209
Part Three: The Domestic Political Environment
11. The Party's Just Begun: Herut Activists
in Power and After Begin
Alan S. Zuckerman, Hanna Herzog,
and Michal Shamir 235
12. Better Late than Never:
Democratization in the Labor Party
Myron J. Aronoff 257
13. Beyond the Begin Revolution: Recent Developments
in Israel's Religious Parties
Gary S. Schiff 273
14. Israel's Economic Policy in the Post-Begin Era
Yakir Plessner 291
Notes 307
Contributors 345
Index 349
C H A P T ER O NE
Israel After Begin
Gregory S. Mahler
Fully a month after the elections for Israel's Twelfth Knesset
(parliament) in November 1988, Israel's two major political parties,
Likud and Labor, were still engaged in a battle over which was more
capable of forming a coalition government. Likud had received the first
post-election "mandate" from the president to attempt to create a
coalition, but by the end of three weeks was still unable to put together
a parliamentary majority without the assistance of Labor. At the same
time, both Likud and Labor were loudly and firmly articulating their
intentions of avoiding another "national unity" government of the type
in which they had both served during the preceding four years. Even-
tually, despite their protestations to the contrary, Likud and Labor
created precisely the kind of national unity coalition that they had
promised their followers in the election campaign that they would
never form again.
That this could have been the case at all would have shocked
someone who had not observed the politics of the preceding political
decade. Prior to 1977, the idea that Likud could be even a part of a
government coalition was — with the exception of a brief National Unity
Government in the Seventh Knesset — almost unbelievable. The
Mapai/Alignment/Labor block had so thoroughly dominated Israeli
politics for Israel's first thirty years that many perceived the Likud as
an "unrealistic" party, capable of serving in the Opposition, or perhaps
as part of a broad National Unity Government, but clearly not capable
of creating a coalition government on its own.
The 1977 election of the Ninth Knesset changed the political
landscape, however. The final words of a 1981 national study of political
behavior in the Knesset included the observation that
1
Israeli Borders Today
Map from Israel: Government and Politics in a Maturing State by Gregory Mahler, copyright
c 1990 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Israel After Begin 3
Regardless of how or why Likud came into power [in 1977], it
seems clear that forming the Government has given the Likud a certain
respectability that many Israelis felt it lacked prior to 1977, feeling that
the Likud was only an opposition party.
Whether a Likud or a Labor alignment ends up winning a
plurality in the 1981 election, it seems clear that another thirty-year
period of Labor rule is extremely unlikely . . . Many in Israel, who
in the past would never have supported the Likud because it was
perceived as an extremist party, perpetually in the opposition, have
now decided that the Likud is a reasonable alternative to the Labor
alignment, and having proven its ability to govern — regardless of
policy outcomes — the Likud has become a much more viable alter-
native to Labor hegemony than it was before it had a chance to
demonstrate its ability.1
Time has proven this prediction to be an accurate one. Since the 1977
election, Likud has either served as the sole ״major partner/׳ or shared
the role as major partner, in all Israeli coalition governments, and Labor
has served as the secondary, sometimes ״almost equal״ party, but has
proven unable to regain its position as the dominant party in the
political system, which it enjoyed for virtually all of Israel's early years.
The man credited for changing the relationship between the
political parties in Israel was Menachem Begin. Historians suggest that
he was more than just a Resistance fighter and a party leader; he was
the agent of some fundamental changes in the nature of the Israeli
polity. Among the many facets of Israeli politics affected by Begin might
be included the nature and degree of competition offered by the Likud
in elections, the role of Sephardic Jews in the polity, the pattern of
Israeli settlements on the West Bank, Israel's relations with her Arab
neighbors, a peace treaty with Egypt, and other structures equally
significant in the Israeli political landscape. Begin׳s influence can be
seen in sociocultural variables, in party structures, in electoral compe-
tition, in foreign policy, and in economics. Many of these changes are
described in the essays in this volume.
In fact, scholars in recent years have begun to refer to a ״Begin
era" in Israeli political history. In this framework, Menachem Begin
is seen as a ״watershed" in Israeli politics, and it is possible to speak
of a ״pre-Begin era," a Begin era, and a ״post-Begin era" when we
seek to study both Israeli domestic policy and Israeli foreign policy.
Scholars contributing to this volume focus on a relatively new theme
in the study of Israeli politics: ״What is the nature of Israel in this post-
Begin era?"
