Published in Critical Inquiry 26: 725-756 (summer 2000)
'ETHNOCRACY' AND ITS DISCONTENTS:
MINORITIES,
PROTEST AND THE ISRAELI POLITY
Oren Yiftachel
Geography Department, Ben Gurion
University, Beer-Sheva, Israel
yiftach@mail.bgu.ac.il
1 Thwarting the
Challenge
During Israel's
jubilee year, two notable challenges to the 'order of things' have emerged from
'peripheral' (non mainstream) groups, both concerning the issue of land
control. In early 1997, a group known as the 'Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow' began
a campaign under the slogan: "this land is also mine"
demanding a more equal share in
the state's vast public lands. These are held mainly by rural settlements
(kibbutzim and moshavim)[1] who are dominated by Ashkenazi Jews[2]. The 'Rainbow' claimed that since the lands were being developed for
commercial use, they should be shared more equitably, with more benefits
flowing to economically deprived Mizrahim. As stated by the Rainbow's spokesperson:
If the kibbutzim
no-longer farm much of their so-called 'agricultural' land, and now lease it
for mega-profits to mega-companies who build shopping malls and gas stations,
why shouldn't the benefits be shared among the Israeli public; after all, these
state lands are ours too! [3]
Later that year,
200 acres of agricultural land belonging to Palestinian-Arabs in Rukha, near Um
al-Fahem (15 kms south east of Haifa), were confiscated for army use, spawning
a wave of protest which ended up in three days of clashes between Israeli
police and Arab protesters. The police stormed a local high-school, and, for
the first time in the state's history, fired rubber-bullets at Israeli (Arab)
citizens. Fifty five local
residents and 15 policemen were wounded, and 20 protestors were arrested.[4] The anger and frustration of the situation was well expressed by a
local protester:
Can you believe
it? first they [the state] come and take from us the little land they didn't
take last time, then they don't let us protest against it, and finally shoot
our youth.... are we citizens or aliens in this state? do we have any rights
here? but forget it, nobody will listen to us anyhow.... after all, we are only
Arabs... [5]
But both Mizrahi
and Arab challenges failed: control over Jewish rural lands remained unchanged,
while the transfer of Arab lands at Rukha to army use stayed intact. The
Mizrahi challenge was quickly attacked from mainstream Israeli politicians, as
undermining a national symbol. It was also attacked by Arab leaders, who
pointed to the deep irony of the Mizrahim demanding from the Ashkenazim, that
which was not theirs, since much of the land had been expropriated initially
from Palestinian-Arabs; in other words.
Or as bitterly noted by an Arab activist: 'the Mizrahim simply wish to
join in the looting of Arab lands'[6].
The Arab protest
in Um al-Fahem was simply crushed by force. The problem of the confiscated agricultural land was passed
to a committee for reconsideration, but until the time of writing (October
1999) the situation has changed little. The Defence Minister (Y. Mordechai)
reflected the general mood in the Israeli-Jewish discourse at the time by
claiming: "the land is absolutely essential for our training, and beside,
if we give it back here, we'll have to return to the Arabs many of the army's
training grounds all over the country."[7]
Following these
events, the Mizrahi Rainbow changed tack and began to demand not the redivision
of national land, but the transfer of Israeli public housing (whose residents
are mainly low income Mizrahim) to the ownership of their residents. Using a far more ethno-national
rhetoric, which emphasized their contribution to the Zionist project of
Judaizing the country, they gradually won public support, and even managed to
influence new legislation which may now turn this goal into reality.[8] The consequences among the Arabs are less clear, but reports of
frustration and resignation in Um al-Fahem have also been linked to the
strengthening of the Islamic movement, and to the setting of new Islamic
educational, cultural and political agendas among the Arabs, some with
subversive undertones.[9]
The two acts of
protest serve as a telling entry point to the discussion of this paper, which
deals with the position of peripheral groups vis-a-vis a repressive regime.
They illustrate vividly the ability of a settling ethnic state to subdue
challenges from its peripheries, especially when these address issues
fundamental to the regime's ethno-territorial logic. Let us proceed to sketch the scholarly and
historical/geographical settings for our exploration.
2 Setting
In this essay I
analyze critically the structure of a regime I have termed ‘ethnocracy’,[10] and its impact on the position and identity of peripheral minorities.[11] To this end I will probe
the resistance to the Israeli-Jewish ethnocratic regime emerging from two
peripheral minorities, namely Palestinian-Arabs (hereafter 'Arabs') and
Mizrahim in the development towns (hereafter 'peripheral Mizrahim').
My main argument
in that Israel's ethnocratic regime, which facilitates the colonial Judaization
of the country, has buttressed the dominance of the Ashkenazi-Jewish
ethno-class, and enabled the 'blunting' and silencing of the resistance of both
Palestinian-Arabs and peripheral Mizrahim. Thus, and despite notable
differences, the marginalization of Palestinian-Arabs and Mizrahi Jews is
linked, deriving directly from the very same Judaization
(de-Arabization)project, which positioned these communities in cultural,
geographic, and economic peripheries.
This was partly
achieved by a duality between a democratic facade and a deeper
(undemocratic) regime logic, which facilitates the dispossession, control and
peripheralization of groups which do not 'belong' to the dominant ethno-class.
Thus the very nature of the settling ethnocracy, which combines expansion,
settlement, segregation, and ethno-class stratification, militates against the
effectiveness of challenges emanating form peripheral groups. The selective 'openness' of the regime,
which allows for public protest, free speech and periodic elections, is largely
an illusion: the ethnocratic regime has arranged itself politically,
culturally and geographically so as to absorb, contain or ignore the challenge
emerging from its peripheries, thereby 'trapping' them in their respective
predicaments.[12]
The 'entrapment' of the two peripheries is expressed by the lack of
available choices to mobilize against their collective marginalization. But,
the predicaments of peripheral Mizrahim and Arabs are quite different: the
former are 'trapped inside' the Israeli-Jewish ethnocracy, while the latter are
'trapped outside' its boundaries of meaningful inclusion, a key difference
which is explored later. Yet, the
emergence of an ethnocratic settling regime in Israel has worked to
significantly marginalize both groups. The protest campaigns also indicate that
the two groups are developing collective identities to counter the
marginalizing logic of the regime. The Arabs gradually disengaging (though not
separating) from the state to form an Arab 'region', while the Mizrahim emerge
is a deprived but 'moral' ethno-class.
Two other notable responses to the predicaments of the two sectors have
been the powerful emergence of Islamic and Jewish religious movements, and a
more recent secular mobilization around
ideas of multi-culturalism and binationalism, all of which offer
mobility and identity outside the existing state symbolic grid.
The remainder of
the essay will advance in three main stages, moving from theory, to analysis
and critique of the Israeli regime, and later to an exploration of mobilization
among the two peripheral minorities.
3 On Nationalism,
'Ethnocracy' and Democracy
The conceptual approach of this paper emerges from the growing interest
in nationalism, which has virtually exploded to occupy a center-stage in both
social sciences and the humanities.[13] But our stance here is critical: despite their illuminating insights
and breath-taking endeavor, most nationalism devote only scant attention to the
impact of nationalism on intra-national and intra-state disparities
and cleavages, that is, the impact of nationalism on minorities. Most studies
have thus largely ignored a critical tension between nation- and
state-building, in what was termed by Anderson 'the impending crisis of the
nation-state hyphen'.[14] Symptomatic of this
deficiency has been a lack of engagement by most theorists with the debates on
civil society, post-colonialism, and the emergence of social movements,[15] and a myopia towards the centrality of space, its contours and internal
divisions.[16] With these deficiencies in
mind, let us now move from a general discussion on nationalism, to a critique
of ‘ethnocracy’.
‘Ethnocracy’ is a specific
expression of nationalism, which exists in contested territories, where a
dominant 'ethnos' gains political control and uses the state apparatus to
'ethnicize' the territory and society in question.[17] Ethnocracies are neither
democratic, nor authoritarian (or 'Herrenvolk') systems of government. The lack of democracy rests on their
unequal citizenship, and on a state laws and policies which enable the seizure
of the state by one ethnic group. They are not authoritarian, as they extend
significant (though partial) political rights to ethnic minorities. As detailed
elsewhere, ethnocracies emerge through a time/space fusion of three major
forces.[18]
(a) A settler and/or settling state which promotes external or
internal forms of colonialism (the former typically by Europeans, the latter by
the expanding core of ethnic states, such as Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Estonia or
Serbia);
(b) Rigid ethno-nationalism premised on an ethnic (and not
territorial) self-interpretation of the legitimizing principle of
self-determination, often buttressed by a supportive religious narrative; and
(c) An 'ethnic logic of capital', resulting in an uneven economic
landscape and long-term stratification between ethno-classes, expressed by the
flows of investment, development and labor-market niches; the polarizing effect of capital flow
has worsened in recent decades, following the increasing mobility of capital,
and the globalization of the world economy.[19]
A broad social structure typifies ethnocratic states (despite the many
important local variations), consisting of: (a) a powerful 'charter group',
being the founding core of the dominant nation;[20] (b) later groups of immigrants from different ethnic backgrounds to the
charter group, who are incorporated (usually unevenly) 'upwards' into the host
society; and (c) relatively weak and dispossessed local, indigenous or
rivalling ethnic groups, which are generally excluded from the meaningful
political and cultural realms.[21]
This structure exposes the inherent tension between the parallel
projects of nation- and state-building in ethnocratic regimes. This entails an
active exclusion of groups who are constructed as 'external' to the dominant
nation, by a combination of legal means, policy and cultural means. The excluded are usually indigenous
peoples, but also collectivities marked as 'foreigners' for generations. Yet,
at the same time these groups are incorporated (often coercively) into the
project of state-building. This tension of 'incorporation without legitimation'[22] is at the heart of the chronic instability experienced by ethnocratic
regimes.
In ethnocracies, as noted, the dominant ethno-class appropriates the state apparatus and attempts to structure the political system, public institutions and state culture, so as to further its control over the state and its territory. This results in the blurring of state borders, in an effort to incorporate diasporic co-ethnics while at the same time weaken or neutralize the citizenship of minorities. Estonia and Sri Lanka can serve as examples here: in the former, all people of Estonian descent, wherever they live, are entitled to citizenship, while over half the Russians residing in the state for over 50 years are disenfranchised. In Sri Lanka, over 2 million Tamils, who have resided in the country for generations are denied citizenship by classifying them as 'Indian Tamils', thereby maintaining the demographic dominance of the Sinhalese ethnos.
In both cases, as in the case of Israel/Palestine, the notion of the 'demos'
is crucially ruptured. Yet the
empowered 'demos' -- the community of equal resident-citizens -- forms the
basis for the establishment of democracy (demos-cracy). Its diminution highlights the
structural tensions between ethnocracy and democracy.
4 Ethnocracies and
Democracies
My articulation of the ethnocratic regime stems from a thorough critique
of its common representation as democratic. On the one hand such a regime
claims to be a full (and often even liberal) democracy, while on the other, it
routinely oppresses and marginalizes peripheral minorities, and constantly
changes the state structure in the majority's favor. The oppression of
minorities is often exacerbated by the legitimacy granted to the state
as 'democratic' in the international arena, as is the case in Israel.
This critique emerges from two main positions. First, I employ a Gramscian-informed perspective which seeks
to discover the underlying logic of power relations within a 'political-economy
of culture'.[23] This perspective is
suspicious of official rhetoric and declarations, constantly searching for the
deeper political and historical transformations, and the hegemonic forces,
often unseen or silent, who navigate these transformations. Second, the
critique emerges after privileging a look at society 'from the periphery into
the core', as done later in the essay, by discussing the mobilization of
Mizrahim and Arabs in Israel. This
angle reveals the impregnable, stratifying, and non-democratic nature of the
ethnocratic regime.
Needless to say, 'democracy' is not taken here uncritically. It is a
contested concept, hotly debated, rarely settled and widely abused, particularly
in multi-ethnic states (see Mann, 1999). It is an institutional response to
generations of civil struggles for political and economic inclusion, gradually
incorporating and empowering the poor, women and minorities into the once
elitist polity.[24]
This is not the place to delve deeply into democratic theory. Suffice is
to say that several key principles have emerged as foundations for achieving
the main tenets of democracy -- equality and liberty. These include
equal citizenship, protection of individuals and minorities against the tyranny
of states, majorities or churches, and a range of civil, political and economic
rights.[25] These are generally ensured by a stable constitution, periodic and
universal elections and free media. In multi-ethnic or multi-national polities,
as illustrated by the seminal works of Lijphart and Kymlicka, a certain parity,
recognition and proportionality between the ethnic collectivities is a
pre-requisite for democratic legitimacy and stability. While no state ever implements these
principles fully, and thus none is a pure democracy, ethnocratic regimes are
conspicuous in breeching most tenets of democracy.[26]
To further fathom the workings of ethnocracies, let us differentiate
analytically between regime features and structure. Some
ethnocracies possess 'visible' democratic features, such as periodic elections,
free media, autonomous judiciary which protects, and even (some) human rights
legislation. Yet the deeper structure of such regimes is undemocratic, mainly
because they promote the seizure of territory and the public realm by one
ethnos, thus undermining key democratic principles, such as civil and legal
equality, protection of minorities and maintenance of equality and
proportionality, among the collectivities making up the state. There are, of course, mutual influences
between the structure and the features, as neither remain static over time. But
the ethnocratic logic of the structure generally dictates the terms of much of
what transpires in the more
visible political arenas.
Ethnocracies thus operate simultaneously in several levels and arenas, and create a situation where political struggles are often waged around the state's features, while little is said and fought over the deeper hegemonic structure. As powerfully argued by the seminal work of Antonio Gramsci, a ‘moment’ of hegemony is marked by:
...the unquestioned dominance of a certain way of life... when a single
concept of reality informs society's tastes, morality, customs, religious and
political principles...'.[27]
The hegemonic order reflects and thus reproduces the interests of the
dominant ethno-classes, by representing the 'order of things' in a distorted
manner as legitimate and moral, and by concealing its oppressive or more
questionable aspects. This public perception is maintained by preventing,
deflecting or ridiculing discussions which challenge the regime structure, and
limiting public debate to its 'shallow' features. In his enlightening
discussion on resisting hegemony, Gramsci differentiates between 'wars of
manoeuvre' and 'wars of position'.
The former target contemporary political-party conflicts and interests
embedded in what we term here 'regime features', thus concentrating on short-term political or material
gains. The latter address the deeper, and often unseen, hegemonic ideas and
'truths' which generate long-term power relations and their societal
legitimacy, that is, what we term here 'regime structure'. Gramsci's normative strategies aim to
shift the attention of political entrepreneurs who represent the exploited
strata from the 'wars of manoeuvre' to the 'wars of positions', and thus
articulate a counter-hegemonic consciousness.[28]
In this light, I have identified several structural ‘bases’ which
constitute the foundation of ethnocratic societies, being objects in the 'war
of positions' a-la Gramsci. These include the rules, policies and institutions
affecting immigration, the spatial system of land and settlement,
the state's constitution, the role of the military, the nature of
the dominant culture, and the regulation of capital. These bases, each separately and
together, powerfully mould ethnic relations in contested territories, but are
rarely subject to the day-to-day or electoral deliberation. Genuine debate on these 'taken-for-granted'
issues is generally absent from the public discourse, especially among the
dominant majority. But the
dominance of the various 'truths' behind these 'bases' is of course not
absolute, and may be exposed and resisted as political entrepreneurs exploit
the tensions and contradictions in the system, to advance anti-hegemonic
projects.
But in Israel most of the structural 'bases' are still intact, as subjects such as immigration policies, the role of military, the state constitution, and even the ethnic nature of development policies (which routinely privilege Jews over Arabs) are rarely discussed in national Jewish politics. This is not accidental of course, allowing the dominant Jewish ethnos to extend its control over Palestinians (both in Israel and the occupied territories), through the use of discriminatory immigration, land, settlement, cultural and development policies, and through the (nearly unquestioned) centrality of the (Jewish) army in the state's decision-making arenas.
5 Ethnocracy and
Minorities
The crux of the
ethnocratic system is its ability to maintain the control and dominant position
of the 'charter' group. This is premised on the exclusion, marginalization or
assimilation of minority groups. But not all minorities are treated
equally. Some are constructed as
'internal', whereas others are marked as 'external'. A critical difference
exists between those considered part of the 'historical' of even 'genetic'
nation', and others whose presence is portrayed as mere historical coincidence,
or as a 'danger' to the security and integrity of the dominant ethnos. These discourses strip 'external'
minorities from means of inclusion into the meaningful sites of 'the nation'.[29]
Ethnocracies are driven, first and foremost, by a sense of collective
entitlement among the majority group to control 'its' state, and 'its'
homeland, as part and parcel of what is conceived as a universal right for
self-determination. Thus, belonging to the dominant ethno-nation is the key to
mobility and resources among peripheral groups, and a strategy adopted by most
immigrant minorities, who thereby distance themselves from indigenous or other
'external' minorities.
The charter group can thus play a dual game, on the one hand articulating a discourse of belonging which incorporates later migrant groups, ‘inviting’ them into the moral community of the dominant ethno-nation. But on the other hand, the charter group uses this very discourse of inclusion and belonging to conceal the uneven effects of its strategies, which often marginalize the immigrants, economically, culturally and geographically. It would be a mistake, however, to treat this as a conspiracy; it is rather an expression of broad social interest, generally unspoken and unarticulated, which privileges social circles who are closest to the ethno-national core. This ‘natural’ process tends to broadly reproduce, though never replicate, patterns of social stratification.
The strategy towards indigenous minorities, or fragments of rival
nations, is more openly oppressive.
They are represented and treated, at best, as 'external' to the
ethno-national project, or, at worst, as a subversive threat. The principle of self-determination is
used only selectively, pertaining to ethnicity and not to an inclusive
geographical unit, as required by the basic principles of the nation-state
order, and by the tenets of democracy. Many of the projects which typify
ethnocracies, namely, frontier
settlement, land seizure, military expansion or economic growth, encroach into
the position and resources of local minorities. This is often 'wrapped' in a
discourse of modernity, progress and democracy, but the very material reality
is unmistakable, entailing minority dispossession and exclusion.
However, the self-representation of most ethnocracies as democratic
creates structural tensions, because it requires the state to go beyond
lip-service and empower external minorities with some (though always less than
equal) formal political powers. It
is in the ‘cracks’ and ‘crevices’ between the open claims for democracy, and
the denial of full minority participation, which harbor the tensions and
conflicts typical of ethnocratic regimes.[30]
The dual game of a public democratic facade alongside structures of
ethnic expansion and control, is thus at work towards both internal and
external minorities, although these are practised differently. The difference
lies here in the selective imposition of borders and boundaries. Ethnocracies typically impose a
multiplicity of physical, legal, social
economic and cultural boundaries, which differentiate between
ethno-classes. These have uneven
levels of porosity: the dominant group can usually travel freely across
boundaries, 'internal minorities' are more restricted, often culturally and economically,
while 'external minorities', are systematically excluded.
We must also note that the breeching of democratic principles in ethnocratic states is far more severe vis-a-vis minorities marked as 'external', due to their systematic rejection from meaningful membership in the polity, often expressed by legal and institutional means. Minorities characterised as 'internal' face lesser problems as regards the formal possibility of democratic inclusion. But in ethnocratic regimes, this possibility generally comes with a steep collective price of cultural and economic stratification. Based on the theoretical foundations, we can move now to sketch the Israeli scene.
6 The Israeli
ethnocracy: Judaizing/Colonizing the homeland
Following independence in
1948, Israel began a concerted and
radical strategy of Judaization (de-Arabization). The expulsion and
flight of around 750,000 Palestinian refugees during the 1947-49 war created
big 'gaps' in the geography of the land, which the authorities were quick to
fill with Jewish immigrants and refugees who entered the country en-masse. The 'darker side' of this strategy was the destruction
of 418 Palestinian-Arab towns, villages and hamlets[31], and the concurrent prevention of the return of Palestinian refugees. During the first decade of
independence, Israel built hundreds of Jewish settlements, often near or
literally on the site of demolished Arab villages and towns.
The duality of the Israeli state can thus be traced to its early days:
it created a state with several significant democratic features and
formalities, but at the same time established a legal, institutional and
cultural regime structure which advanced an undemocratic project of Judaizing
and de-Arabizing the country. This
duality became obvious and much criticized following the conquest of further
Palestinian territories after 1967, but it existed before, and still exists
today in 'Israel Proper', where the laws, policies and institutions which
facilitate the Judaization process are still in operation. It is important to
distinguish between the pre-1948 period, when Jews arrived in Palestine mainly
as refugees, in a population movement I have conceptualized as 'colonialism of
collective survival'[32], and the periods, which see the Israeli state engaging in internal
(post-1948) and external (post-1967) forms of colonialism.[33]
Because we are mainly interested here in the position of minorities,
this is not the place to fully enter the active debate on the level of
democratic institutionalization in Israel. Suffice is to note that several key democratic principles
are routinely violated, all due to the ethnocratic nature of the Israeli
regime. Consequently, Israel never had a constitution, and basic human rights
and capabilities are thus not protected by special legislation[34]; there is no separation between state and church; there are some 20 pieces of legislation which
discriminate formally between Jews and Arabs[35]; and, as we shall see below, the state never established the
legal-territorial basis for democracy, that is, it has not defined its borders,
it occupies and actively colonizes Palestinian and Arab territories beyond its
internationally reconized borders, and maintained a legal and institutional
system of land control which is deeply undemocratic.[36]
This political design is premised on a hegemonic perception, cultivated
since the rise of Zionism, namely that "the land' (Haaretz) belongs to the Jews, and only them. An rigid form of territorial
ethnonationalism developed from the beginning of Zionist settlement, in order
to quickly 'indigenize' immigrant Jews, and to conceal, trivialize or
marginalize the existence of a Palestinian people on the same land. The frontier became a central icon, and
its settlement was considered one of the highest achievements of any Zionist
'returning' to the revered homeland.
A popular (and typical) youth-movement song, frequently sang in schools
and public gatherings and known to nearly every Jew in Israel during its formative
years, illustrates the powerful construction of these icons and myths.
WE SHALL BUILD OUR LAND, THE HOMELAND
(Nivne Artzenu Eretz
Moledet)
(By: A. Levinson; Translation: Oren Yiftachel)
We shall build our
country, our homeland
Because it is ours,
ours, this land
We shall build our
country, our homeland
It is the command of our
blood, the command of generations
We shall build our
country despite our destroyers
We shall build our
country with the power of our will
The end to malignant
slavery
The fire of Freedom is
burning
The glorious shine of
hope
Will stir our blood
Thirsty for freedom, for
independence
We shall march bravely
towards the liberation of our people
Such sentiments were translated into a pervasive program of
Jewish-Zionist territorial socialization and indoctrination, expressed in
school curricula, literature, political speeches, popular music, and other
spheres of public discourse.[37] The vision promoted was a 'pure' ethnic state, replicating the East
European examples from which the founding elites had arrived. Frontier settlement thus continued as a
cornerstone of Zionist
nation-building, even well after the establishment of a sovereign state,
forming a central part of the sacred values, the heroes, the mythology and the
internal system of legitimacy and gratification of the settler society.[38]
Jewish frontierism has gained new energies following the 1967 war, after
which Jewish control was extended to the entire historic Palestine/ Eretz
Yisrael and beyond. The scope of this paper does not permit full discussion on
the significant impact of the semi-official-inclusion of the occupied territories into the
realm of the Israeli regime, and the important changes following the 1993 Oslo
agreement.[39] Let us just remark that the mutual recognition between the Jewish and
Palestinian national movements is of course highly significant, and may in the
future halt the Judaization 'pulse' of Israeli Jews. However, at present, and
without peace or stable borders, the moral power of the Judaization project is
still prominent in Israeli-Jewish society.[40]
This is aptly demonstrated by a song which became immensely popular during the 1990s, composed and sung by a renown Israeli rock-singer, Rami Kleinstein. It is worth paying attention to the total devotion and erotic attraction to the land, radiating from the song's lines, and its religious and historical under-tones. Absent are the Arabs in this idealized landscape, as evident by describing the land as ‘barefoot’ or ‘having no clothing’. So, while, the drive to settle the frontier and expand Jewish control has waned in recent years, it is still a major political and cultural icon in Israeli society, as illustrated by the following passage from the song:
OUR TINY-LITTLE LAND (Artzeinu Haktantonet)
Yoram Tahar-lev and Rami
Kleinshtein
Our tiny-little land
Our beautiful land
A homeland with no
clothing
A barefoot homeland
Sing your poems to me
You beautiful bride
Open your gates to me
I shall cross them and
praise the Lord…
To be sure, the perception
of this land and the state of Israel as a safe haven after generations of
Jewish persecutions, and especially after the Nazi Holocaust, had a powerful
liberating meaning. Yet the 'darker sides' of this project were nearly totally
absent from the cultural and political construction of an unproblematic
'return' of Jews to their ‘beckoning’ promised land, in a process described
aptly by Yitzhak Laor as a 'national narrative without natives'.[41] Very few dissenting voices were heard against the hegemonic 'Judaizing'
discourse, policies or practices. If such dissent did emerge, the hegemonic
national-Jewish elites found effective ways to marginalize, co-opt or gag most
challengers
7 Judaization and the
Making of 'Ethnocracy'
The Judaization
strategy became the core project and the main logic around which both Jewish
and Palestinian societies developed in Israel/Palestine. It shaped relations
between the two ethno-nations and among ethno-classes within each. The main 'bases' of ethnocratic states
identified above have all been central to the regime in Israel/Palestine. These
include Israel’s Jews-only immigration policies; its constitution-in-the-making,
which enshrines the state's Jewishness; its development and investment
strategies which heavily favored Jews over Arabs, but at the same time maintained
ethno-class gaps among Jews[42];
the central and critical role assigned to the military, which excluded
the vast majority of Arabs, while exacerbating the stratification between
Jewish ethno-classes[43];
and the firm imposition of the Jewish
and Hebrew culture (in its Ashkenazi guise) as the only medium of
communication, norms and practices governing the Israeli public sphere. These are enshrined in a range of
Israeli laws, practices and institutions, discussed by a vast literature.[44]
The last 'basis'
concerns land, settlement and planning policies on which we touched earlier.
Here there were several mechanisms, which worked powerfully and systematically
to transfer the ownership, control and use of land from Palestinian-Arabs to
Jewish hands. The Jewish collectivity owned seven percent of the country's
lands prior to 1948, and at present the state of Israel, together with the
Jewish National Fund, owns over 93 percent. This process is unidirectional
as under Israeli basic law, state land cannot be sold, including the occupied
territories where over 50 percent of the land has been either transferred to
state ownership or to exclusive Jewish use.[45]
The control of land enabled the establishment of over 700 Jewish settlements in
Israeli/Palestine, at the time when no new Arab settlements were allowed.[46]
The bases of the
Israeli settling ethnocracy are all buttressed by the declaration of the state
as 'Jewish', and not 'Israeli' as would be required under a normal
application of the right for self-determination.[47] This is not mere semantics, but a
profound obstacle to the imposition of democratic rule which, as noted, should
be premised on the empowerment a sovereign 'demos'. The Israeli regime has no clearly identifiable 'demos', but
rather a complex, and layered set of stratified group rights and capabilities.
Its ethnic interpretation to the principle of self-determination now
creates a distorted situation where many Jews around the world have two
potential rights of self-determination (as part of their country's and as
automatic Israelis), while millions of Palestinians are denied even one such
right.
Another striking
facet of this distorted setting is that Jews who are citizens of other
countries have more rights in Israel's land and settlement systems then the
state's own Arab citizens. Arab
rights under the Israeli regime (that is, the area where Israel exercises
de-facto sovereign control) are stratified legally and institutionally between
Druze, Bedouin, Palestinian-Arab citizens, Jerusalem Palestinian residents, and
'subjects' of the Palestinian Authority.
This is a vivid illustration of the workings of the ethnocratic regime,
where at a fundamental
level, rights and resources are based on ethnicity, and not on territorial
citizenship, all geared to facilitate a demographic and spatial expansion of
the dominant ethnos.
The ethnocratic
nature of the regime is also conspicuous in the selective imposition of
boundaries and borders. For example, the Green Line (Israel's pre-1967 border)
functions only as a barrier for the movement of Palestinian-Arabs, but not for
Jews, who can freely cross it and settle in the occupied territories. A striking illustration of this
undemocratic practice is the myopia towards the Green Line during Israeli
elections which are described by nearly all commentators, as free and
democratic. Yet, Jews residing in
the occupied territories have determined the election of right-wing governments
four times during the 1980s and 1990s, while the Palestinians, who were
subjects of the Israeli regime, remained disenfranchised. During the 1996 elections, for example,
Netanyahu would have lost by over five percent if results were only counted
within the Green Line. Yet, he was
elected Prime Minster, and most scholars continued to treat 'Israel Proper' as
democratic! [48]
Within 'Israel
Proper', for example, Arab citizens are prevented from purchasing land in about
80% of the country, through the imposition of institutional and municipal
regulations in rural areas which do not apply on Jews.[49]
The boundaries practised towards the Mizrahim are less visible, expressed
mainly by informal economic, cultural and geographical barriers to their
mobility within Ashkenazi-dominated Israeli society. These are intimately
linked to the Judaization of Israel/Palestine which, as noted, entailed a
radical de-Arabization process, which deligitimized Arab culture,
politics and capital. This was
destructive for most Mizrahim who at the time could be described as Arab-Jews.[50] But the comparison should be qualified:
I am not claiming that the ethnocratic regime is formally undemocratic towards
the Mizrahim, at least not in recent decades, but rather that the undemocratic
structure of the Judaizing system vis-a-vis Palestinian-Arabs has affected the
Mizrahim adversely in a range of
cultural, economic and geographic matters.
The dominance of the Ashkenazim was furthered by equating the version of
Jewish-Hebrew culture they had constructed with 'Israel' in-toto,
thereby demoting all other cultural forms. The founding Ashkenazim gained further status by
representing 'their' state as 'western', and 'modern', but at the same time as
the bearer of moral projects such as the 'ingathering of the exiles' (mizug galuyot), and the 'melting pot' (kur hahituch), both connoting a sense of
equality between Jewish ethno-classes. This placed the Mizrahim in a position
of weakness, as their only option
for mobility was to enter the margins of the 'western' Ashkenazi-qua-Israeli
society, whose culture, rules and practices were alien to their background and
capabilities. It is striking that
the Ashkenazim became a numerical minority in Israeli already during the early
1950s, but the working of the ethnocratic settling regime, and the fusion of
their identity with a general form of 'Israeliness', enabled them to maintain
long-term dominance.[51]
The processes described above, however, are not unidimensional, and must
be weighed against counter-trends, especially the growing assimilation of
Mizrahi Jews into the Israeli middle classes in the country's main urban areas,
the increasing universality in
legal and social rights across groups in Israeli society, and greater cultural
pluralism.[52] Yet, the parallel Judaization and ethnic stratification trends have
been powerful, and have come to mark Israel's social landscape.[53] This has been translated
into a broad ethno-class structure, in which the dominant stratum is mainly
occupied by Ashkenazim (34 percent)[54], followed by an intermediate Mizrahi stratum (36 percent), and a
marginalized Palestnian-Arab minority (17 percent). The rest of the Israeli
citizenry is made mostly of Russian-speakers who have formed a discernible
ethnic enclave which, in the long-term, is likely to merge with the Ashkenazi
group.
8 Peripheral Minorities
Having established the parameters, we can now focus in more depth on the
two minority communities who are the subject of this paper: the
Palestinian-Arab citizens and the Mizrahim in the development towns.[55] Given their peripheral status and location, their non-Ashkenazi
background, as well as similar population size, and despite some important
differences, it may be illuminating to compare and contrast their political
mobilization vis-a-vis the state.
The Palestinian-Arab minority numbered 950,000 in late 1998, constituting
17 percent of Israel's population.
This minority is made of the fragments left after the 1947-49 expulsion
and flight of some three quarters of the Palestinian-Arab community, in what is
known as the 'Nakbah' (disaster).
The Arabs, who reside in three main regions, in the country's north,
center and south, were placed under military rule between 1948 and 1966 -- a
period which cemented their position as Israel's lowest socioeconomic stratum.
During the 1950s, and as part of the pervasive Judaization strategy, the Arabs
lost around 60 percent of their lands
through wide-spread expropriations.[56] But during the last two decades, levels of control over the Arabs have
eased, their communities have gone through (partial) modernization, and their
social, political and economic capabilities have slightly improved, although
they remain Israel's most deprived ethno-class.
The second
periphery, the development towns[57],
includes the 27 urban centers built or significantly expanded mainly during the
1950s for the housing of new Jewish immigrants, as part of the official
'population dispersal' strategy.[58] In 1998 they housed a population of
1.01 million, or 18 percent of Israel's population, of which about two thirds
were Mizrahim, and most of the rest recent Russian-Speaking immigrants. During
the 1950s and 1960s they evolved into a poor, isolated and distressed sector of
Israeli-Jewish society.[59]
Over the years,
the towns were subject to policies which enhanced their dependence on the
central state apparatus, mainly expressed in the channelling of labor-intensive
and economically insecure industries to the towns and the mass construction of
cheap public housing. These created social stigmas, concentrated of social
problems and crime, causing a process of 'negative filtering' and considerable
population turn-over.
The territorial
Judaization policy is of particular relevance to the two peripheral groups. The
transfer of lands and relentless Jewish settlement activity created a 'layered'
ethnic geography. Arab geography has been severely contained by the state, and
remained virtually frozen. The
increasing encirclement of Arab localities with Jewish settlements, and the
lack of residential alternatives, has effectively caused the ghettoization
of the Arabs. As regards the Mizrahim, around half of them were settled (often
coercively) in distressed development towns (often of expropriated Palestinian
land), and thus found themselves residing in segregated and stigmatized
enclaves. [60]
Hundreds of rural
Jewish settlements (kibbutzim and moshavim) were also built in the same areas,
most of which populated by more powerful Ashkenazi groups.[61] But the state allowed these localities
to segregate themselves from both Mizrahim and Arabs in nearly all facets of
daily life, thus creating an uneven 'fractured' regional geography.[62]
This 'layered' geography of ethnic power shaped the daily existence among both
Mizrahi and Arab groups from which the protest analyzed below has emerged.
We can thus see how the central Zionist project of Judaizing the country
has worked to both dispossess the Palestinian-Arabs, but also to segregate,
weaken and marginalize peripheral Mizrahim, through the very same settlement
process. The legal, institutional and cultural mechanisms geared to segregate
Jews from Arabs, which were at the basis of Zionist settlement were also used
-- in a different, softer, manner -- to seclude Jewish elites from co-national
'minorities'. This was most conspicuous in the country's rural areas, between
kibbutzim and development towns, but was also evident in all of Israel's urban
areas.[63] The two sectors have thus evolved into notable geographical and
ethno-class peripheries.[64]
9 Challenging
Ethnocracy? Protest by the Peripheries
Let us switch the
angle now, and observe what occurred at the two peripheries. Based on
conventional theories which link political mobilization to relative deprivation
in a democratic regime[65], we may expect the two sectors to have developed into significant sites
of resistance to the Israeli regime.
Has this happened? Was there a challenge emerging from the
periphery? And more specifically,
are they any voices addressing the pitfalls of the Judaization project? To explore this, we briefly trace here
the nature and fluctuation of political protest among Palestinian-Arabs and
peripheral Mizrahim.[66] This is not an in-depth
analysis, which is carried out elsewhere[67], but rather a prism through which to illustrate the positions and
capabilities of minorities within the ethnocratic system.[68]
a. Palestinian-Arabs
The public voice of Palestinian-Arabs in Israel only began to surface in
the mid 1970s.[69] Prior to that, and due to military rule imposed over their localities,
poverty, isolation, fragmentation and peripherality, Arabs only rarely
challenged the Israeli state and its policies. In the early years the
activities of the national al-Ard ('the land') movement (which was subsequently
declared illegal) and annual
rallies staged by the Communist party around May Day, were the most notable
occasions expressing anti-government resistance.
Serious Arab protest erupted in 1976 as a head-on challenge to the Judaization project. The occasion was the first 'Land Day' in 1976, which marked the point of entry of Arabs into Israeli public politics. A general strike and mass demonstrations against land expropriation in the Galilee took place, resulting in widespread clashes with the police, and the killing of six Arab protesters. Since then, Land Day has been commemorated as a major annual event. Despite the traumatic events of that day, and the failure of the campaign to retrieve the land, the Arabs gained presence in Israeli politics; they could no longer be ignored.
Following the first Land Day Arabs began to marshal popular anti-government sentiments and gradually built a well-organized and sustained civil campaign, around the leadership of voluntary bodies such as the 'national committee of Arab municipalities', the 'Following Committee', and recently the Islamic Movement. The civil campaign came into full force during the mid to late 1980s, combining past grievances with a future outlook, as displayed by the following statement by the mayor of Dier Hanna, a medium-size Arab locality town, during Land Day of 1983:
Israel has taken our land, surrounded us with Jewish settlements and made us feel like strangers in our homeland... the Jews do not realise, however, that we are here to stay, that we are here to struggle for our rights, and that we will not give up our identity as Palestinian-Arabs and our rights as Israelis... the more they take from us, the more we fight...
The campaign
progressed with dozens of pre-planned events, a fairly coherent ideology of
'peace and equality', militant rhetoric. In 1987, the National Committee even
published a 10 point manifesto claiming to represent the goals of the entire
Arab community, articulating a vision of Arab-Jewish relations moving towards
equality and stability, as well as greater Arab control over education,
planning and development issues.
This vision expressed, for the first time, a coherent collective dissent
by Israeli citizens to the tenets of the Jewish and Judaizing ethnocracy.
What did the
Arabs protest against? Our
analysis reveals three dominant issues: land and spatial policies,
socioeconomic conditions, and (Palestinian) national rights. The continuing
prevalence of all three issues in almost equal intensity is quite
striking. Despite yearly
fluctuations, we consistently find
issues of land, nation and resources leading Palestinian-Arab protest.[70]
But the Arab civil campaign began to wane and change during the 1990s. In every year, except for 1994, we see levels of protest and mobilization lower than the hay days of the late 1980s (although considerable protest activity continued). Arab protest has also changed its character: it is far more local, reactive and sporadic, in contrast to the more programmatic and pre-planned campaign of the 1980s. How can this decline and change be explained, especially in light of the persisting exclusion and deprivation of Arabs in Israel?
Some claim that a
combination of a pervasive process of 'Israelification', as well as improved
Government policies, especially during the Rabin/Peres Government's years
(1992-1996) did make the difference.[71] Others claim the opposite:
Arab marginality within the Judaizing state has caused a prolong crisis,
distorted development and a confused identity, all militating against the
maintenance of an organized civil campaign.[72] My position is that the
Arabs have hit the impregnable walls of the Jewish 'moral community' which
still pre-occupied with its own victimizations and fears, thus able to ignore
the undemocratic nature of Arab exclusion, and the political ramifications of
their visible and obvious deprivation.[73]
There is a
prevailing feeling among Arabs that under its current political structure, the
Israeli state is able to continue and reject, deflect or ignore Arab demands
for equality.[74] Hence, anti-state protest
may be losing its appeal, while other modes of operation gain favor, including
the strategic use of the Arabs growing electoral clout[75], or the channelling of Arab energies into a quiet construction of
political, social, economic and cultural enclaves within Israel.
Most recently, the on-going absence of Arab political gains generated demands for cultural and religious autonomy, and for turning Israel into a "state of all its citizens". In the Israeli ethnocratic and Judaizing setting these basic, and even banal, democratic demands harbor genuine dissent, against a uni-cultural state which often privileges world Jewry over the state's Arab citizens. It has generally caused aggressive Jewish reaction, bordering on panic, illustrating the obvious gap between Israel's self-representation as a democracy, and its ethnocratic reality. Mainstream Israeli-Jewish discourse (of both right and left-wing parties) has quickly painted this demand as 'radical' and 'subversive', as recently argued by A. Burg, a Labor MP considered 'leftist' and known for his pro-peace activities. In the following statement Burg marks the simple civic demand as 'dangerous' and raises the shadows of antisemitic persecutions:
The demands to turn Israel into a state of its citizens are symptomatic
of the persistent desire by the Arabs, since 1948, to undermine the Zionist
idea, which, we must remember, comes hard on the heels of generations of Jewish
persecutions in the Diaspora; we
are not a normal nation because the majority of Jews live outside their only
state; we therefore cannot become
a state of all its citizens, or risk losing the moral meaning of our state.[76]
Against this prevailing attitude, the Arab collective identity has
developed into a position which can be conceptualized as a 'region' in Israel.
This is a political and spatial entity which lies between local and state
levels, and combines the various Arab localities into a state-wide ethnic and
political community. This 'region' is formed as a clear site of resistance to
the 'order of things' in Israel, but is also a painful reminder of the Arabs'
inability to integrate,
significantly change, or secede from the state.[77] It is gradually developing
through a crisis-riddled process, during which the Palestinian-Arabs in Israel
are being shunned by both mainstream Israelis and Palestinians. The 'region' resembles a 'chain of
beads', based on the deep historical roots of Palestinian-Arabs in their
homeland, but also on the common memory of dispossession and deprivation
suffered within the Israeli state, which amplifies the meaning to (the
remaining) Arab places and localities.[78]
The mixture of steadfastness and militancy, with cynicism, irony and confusion, is mirrored by the following lyrics written by a leading Palestinian-Arab politician and poet, the late T. Ziyyad, who was at the time the mayor of the Galilee city of Nazareth. His poem reflects the nature of the new Palestinian-Arab spaces within Israel.
≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠
Nazareth
(Part One from a trilogy)
Tuwafik Ziyyad (1989)
We guard the shades of
our figs
We guard the trunks of
our olives
We sew our hopes like
the yeast of bread
With ice in our fingers
With red hell in our
hearts...
If we are thirsty, we
shall be quenched by the rocks
And if we are hungry, we
shall be fed by the dust...
And we shall not move
Because here we have
past, Present
And Future.
≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠
b. Development Towns
In comparison to the Palestinian-Arab sector, the scene of public
protest among Israel's development towns has been less volatile.[79] Most events have been local, although the Development Towns Forum -- a
state-wide voluntary body of mayors -– has also been active in coordinating and
promoting many events and issues.[80]
Levels of protest in the towns have been persistent, if not spectacular. It achieved notable presence in national politics, and carved a permanent niche for peripheral Mizrahim in the policy-making scene. It fed on pervasive feelings of neglect, and on a mixture of anger, resignation and hope, illustrated well by the following account of one of the first residents of Ofakim, a southern development town:
We were loaded on trucks just outside the Haifa port. went for hours and hours on stiff wooden truck benches, with many kids, women and elderly people. Once we got to the town...we refused to get off.... then they sent us to 'another place', but the truck actually returned in a circle to the same site... . Only because of the unbearable heat...we agreed to get off... since then we are here... But I am very proud, since someone had to settle these areas, someone had to show that this is a Jewish state, so we did, and with all the hardships, it was worth it.. .
This testimony harbors the deep ambivalence of the peripheral Mizrahim,
being both marginalized by the Judaization project, but identifying with it at
the same time. This set the
tone for their public protest over the years, which has been caught between the
desire to belong, and the urge to resist and complain. The first wave of
Mizrahi protest outside the towns erupted in Haifa's low-income neighborhoods
(known as' the Wadi Salib riots') in 1959, and was later followed by militant
‘bread and jobs’
demonstrations in Beer-Sheva, Jerusalem and Jaffa.[81] But we found little
evidence for similar events in the development towns. The isolation, poverty, and small size of the towns were
probably responsible for this passivity. Small scale anti-governmental protest
began in the towns a few years later, when Israel was hit by a deep
recession. But, like the Arabs,
residents of the towns enter fully the Israeli public domain only during the
1970s, as their collective voice was a major force behind the ascendancy of the
Likud to power.
Protest in the development towns grew quite gradually, and apart from
one exceptionally active year (1989) remained without the volatility and direct
challenge to the regime surfacing in the Arab periphery. This stands in
contrast to far more intensive and often fluctuating levels, not only among the
Arabs, but also in nearly all other organized sectors of Israeli society.[82] The relative detachment of
the towns from the major political struggles of Israeli society was conspicuous
in the early 1970s, when the Black Panthers movement mobilized many Mizrahim,
especially in Jerusalem's poor neighborhoods, but managed to rally only scant
support in the towns.
But in the protest that did take place, what was the nature of the
Mizrahi voice? What did peripheral
Mizrahim mobilize against? Despite the large number of events in and about the
towns, we discovered that the range of issues has been quite narrow, revolving
almost entirely around socioeconomic issues. [83] The narrow focus of
protest is especially conspicuous in comparison to other groups in Israeli
society who have campaigned on a range of matters pertaining to the national
agenda, including Israel's relations with Germany, Arab-Israeli wars, the
occupation and settlement of Palestinian territories, nature protection,
religious-secular, Mizrahi-Ashkenazi and Arab-Jewish relations within Israel,
as well as matters pertaining to resource distribution and service provision.[84] This relatively limited focus points to the 'entrapment' of peripheral
Mizrahim within the Israeli settling ethnocracy, with only very limited options
with which to challenge their position, leading to the emergence of a fairly
docile 'ethno-class' identity, as further discussed below.[85]
Returning to the Judaization project, it is particularly striking to
note the virtual absence of public objection among peripheral Mizrahim against
continuing Jewish settlement, in 'Israel Proper' or the occupied territories. But such settlement activity has
clearly deprived the towns of material and human resources.[86] Instead of objecting to
on-going settlement activity, the Development Towns Forum accepted towns from
the occupied territories (Ariel, Ma'ale Adumim and Katzrin) into its ranks,
thereby indicating indirect support to the continuation of Jewish settlement.
Why do leaders of towns support further Jewish settlement activity? This, I suggest, reflects the dependent and insecure position of peripheral Mizrahim within the Israeli ethnocracy, ‘cornering’ them to take a territorial-nationalistic and pro-settlement (i.e. anti-Palestinian) position. This impedes their ability to voice opposition and challenge policies which clearly affect them adversely.
What about the fluctuations in protest? These, we found, were almost
entirely influenced by two related factors: macro economic conditions and
public policies. We can note waves
of protest surfacing during every period of economic hardship and restructuring
in Israel which usually hits
peripheral groups hardest. This
occurred during the mid 1960s, the late 1970s, the mid 1980s, the late 1980s,
and the mid 1990s, when many demonstrations, rallies and media activities in
the towns objected, at times fiercely, to the rise in unemployment, the decline
in services and the emigration from the towns during these periods. And conversely, during periods of
government investment in the towns, and growth in local employment, such as the
early 1980s (with the 'neighborhood renewal' project), or the early 1990s (the
massive building for 'Russian immigrants') the towns remained relatively calm.[87]
In overview, the nature of public protest staged by peripheral Mizrahim
reflects a profound transformation of identity: from peripheral ethnicity(ies)
to a deprived ethno-class. This transformation has occurred under the
force of the settling Jewish (de-Arabizing) ethnocracy, which has wiped out
Mizrahi culture while settling them in frontier regions, thus spawning the
emergence of a relatively uniform, marginalized (and mainly Mizrahi)
'ethno-class' in the towns. In
other words, the identity of peripheral Mizrahim as reflected in their
campaign, is most identifiable in terms of their peripheral socioeconomic and
geographical position, and not through a distinct cultural or ideological
stand.
This collective identity is marked by a strong desire to assimilate and
integrate into the 'core Israeli culture', a pervasive feeling of deprivation
vis-a-vis the national center, and a drive for improving the towns' low
socioeconomic position. The
combination of economic deprivation and social alienation from the Israeli
center have recently given rise to a range of political movements which promote
local patriotism, and especially Sepharadi Jewishness.[88] Most notable has been the
successful ultra-orthodox movement of Shas, to which we shall return below.[89]
The prevailing attitudes among peripheral Mizrahim show suspicion
towards the surrounding Arab and Jewish-Ashkenazi settlements. Their attitudes towards Arab-Jewish
relations are particularly intransigent, while their 'voice' toward the general
Jewish public addresses the potential guilt of Israeli elites towards frontier
Mizrahi settlers. But it does not, represent any profound challenge to the
prevailing 'order of things'.[90]
This tenor is well articulated by the following poem, written recently by Kobbi Oz, lead singer of the rock band "Tippex", which hails from a southern development town. The poem positions the Mizrahim as victims of the Judaization project, and laments in ironic language the building and populating of the towns. But, typically to the voice emerging from peripheral Mizrahim, it ends not with confrontation or dissent, but rather with a quiet wish to find a path into the Israeli center.
≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠
DUST HEIGHTS
(TIPPEX, 1995)
It's not impressive, the
government ministers thought
there are empty patches
on the map
Down there a settlement
is amiss
So the powers laid down
the order:
We'll build a town, and
bring some people
So they fill with their
lives all the new houses
It's good, plenty of
settlements (dots) on the maps
And the newspapers
promised exposure
So the ministers ordered
in a sleepy voice
And went to treat other
'emergencies'
A junior clerk covered
the distance
To announce the opening
of the new town called:
Dust Height.....
dust.... dust.....dust....
In Dust Heights at Dusk
People gather along the
central path
To remember dreams of
the forgotten
Solidarity of the
forsaken
They paved a road, black
and narrow
Cutting deep into the
desert
At the edge, they built
some homes
As if they scattered
match boxes
Coffee-shops with
drunken men
And others are locked
inside their homes
And each and every one
just dreams
About the day they will
cross the road to/from nowhere
≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠
12 Beyond Entrapment?
As we have seen, both Palestinian-Arabs and peripheral Mizrahim have
raised clear voices of protest in the Israeli public realm, but have not been
able to either change their predicament or destabilise the system. We explained this by describing these
communities as 'trapped' at the margins of an ethnocratic political system,
thus having little realistic options for effective mobilization. Peripheral Mizrahim have been 'trapped
within', while Palestinian-Arabs 'trapped outside' the Zionist project.
Expansionist Jewish nation-building in a contested territory was constructed as
a highly moral project, inseparable from its problematic Judaizing and
de-Arabizing colonial dynamics.
This enabled the (mainly Ashkenazi) Israeli elites to blunt, deflect,
belittle or delegitimize the protest staged by non-Ashkenazi groups. Notably, the legitimacy of the
Israeli-Jewish ethnocracy is so powerful that most Israeli Jews, including most
scholars, have been blind to its undemocratic aspects, and to the direct
linkages between the exclusion of the Arabs and the marginalization of the
Mizrahim.[91]
Yet social settings may be malleable, and marginalizations can generate new collective consciousness and alternative agendas. The various responses to the situation of 'entrapment' are worthy of their own in-depth analysis. Let us just mention here briefly two notable recent responses. The first, and perhaps the most effective has been the establishment of fundamental religious alternatives. This can account for the rapid rise of religious organizations to prominence, both among Palestinian-Arabs, where the Islamic Movement has become a major force, and in the development towns, where the Mizrahi-Sepharadi religious movement Shas has risen to a status of an influential local and national actor. In the last elections, for the first time, parties associated with these movements received the highest numbers of votes among both Arabs and Mizrahim.
The agendas of minority religious movements combine the provision of
social services with the construction of new/old identities which partially by-pass
and transcend the state and its grids of power and signification. As such,
the they offer a renewed discourse of belonging, accessible to all believers.
Their popularity is thus related to their potential to offer 'liberation' from
the stigmatized 'entrapments' of the current cultural and ethno-class system.
The second, less conspicuous, response to the 'entrapment' at the state
margins, has seen a search for secular and decentralised political futures,
especially among intellectuals from minority communities. Among the Arabs, this
spawned the revival of the binational idea for the entire Israel/Palestine
territory. This idea has a rich
history, but it is now raised seriously for the first time by intellectuals and
leaders among Palestinian-Arabs in Israel.[92] Among the Mizrahim, the 'Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow', with which we
opened the paper, is articulating a vision of a multi-cultural Israel, where Mizrahi,
and other cultural groups, would be able to construct their own version of a
'good community'.[93] The gradually growing attraction of these ideas rests on their moral
appeal, but also on the liberating path they offer minorities from the
oppressive logic of the present ethnocratic system.
What are the theoretical insights offered by our analysis? Can it illuminate events beyond
Israel/Palestine? First, we can note the considerable power of nationalism, as
expressed by the ethnocratic regime, to maintain the position of elites and
dominant ethno-classes. Theories
of nationalism have usually ignored the mechanisms of internal stratification
linked to the process of nation-building, which are all too obvious in
ethnocratic regimes. In Israel,
the parallel discourses of 'national belonging' coupled with the 'need to
Judaize the country' (towards the Mizrahim) and the contradictory mixture of
'the Israeli democracy' with 'our Jewish state' (towards the Arabs) managed to conceal
-- but at the same time enable -- the
preservation of Ashkenazi-Mizrahi-Arab stratification, and the silencing
of grievances raised by the periphery.
A further lesson, often neglected by theories of nationalism, is the
difficulty of constructing meaningful citizenship within segregative
ethnocratic regimes. Because genuine membership in such regimes is first and
foremost based on ethnicity, state citizenship does not developed into a
powerful platform for mobilizing political demands, nor can it form a
significant foundation for inter-ethnic social solidarity. In Israel, this is
exemplified by the totally separate campaigns conducted by Arabs and
peripheral Mizrahim, despite both sectors having similar geography, grievances
and cultural backgrounds.
Finally, our analysis provides a thorough critique of ethnocratic
regimes, in Israel/Palestine and elsewhere. The capacity of a regime to receive legitimacy by boasting a
democratic government, while at the same time ethnicize the state at the
expense of minorities, should be scrutinized and theorized further. The
inability of the two large peripheral groups studied here, which constitute
around a third of Israel's population, to mount a serious challenge to the
discriminatory logic of the Israeli ethnocracy, is testimony to the 'darker
sides' of this regime. These make its thin democratic facade an illusion. Genuine democratization depends,
intra-alia, on the cessation of the Judaization project, the demarcation of
permanent boundaries, and the redivision of land and settlement resources more
equally and fairly, as demanded by the Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow and the
owners of Rukha Lands, with whom we opened our essay. Democratization is
necessary if Israel is to move towards stability and legitimacy, and avoid the
open conflict typical of ethnocratic regimes. At the edge of the millennium, both options remain within
the realm of possibility.