Ethnicity as a product of political negotiation: The case of Israel

TY - JOUR

T1 - Ethnicity as a product of political negotiation

T2 - The case of Israel

AU - Herzog, Hanna

N1 - Funding Information: The readiness to comply with the Yemenite demands must be understood, in the light of the organized Jewish community as a voluntary framework. By their participation, the groups gave validity to the authority of this structure (Horowitz and Iissak, 1978). The Yemenites' Association received 2,845 votes, 8.8 per cent of the total, giving them twenty delegates to the 2nd Asefat Hanivcharim, as compared with 5.8 per cent achieved in the first and 3 per cent in the third election campaigns. They received, in the special election, more seats than the Sephardis (who won 19), despite the fact that the latter made up a greater proportion of the population. The Yemenites' Association managed to arouse the interest of Yemenite voters and to encourage them to close ranks; they achieved a peak turnout never reached again. The changing power of ethnicity as a political resource is clearly shown in another example, that of the Sephardi demands for separate polling stations, known as the Curia system. These demands were accepted in 1931, but rejected in 1944. The change was not due to the organizational success of the lists nor to the consolidation of ethnic identity, but rather to the changing value of the resource of ethnicity. In 1931 the National Committee was interested in massive participation in elections because it was the first implementation of Jewish community regulations; consequently it yielded to the Sephardi threat to boycott the elections. In 1944, however, the organized Jewish community was an established fact, and the struggle then centered on internal power relations, so that the threat of boycotting the elections was no longer effective. The rhetoric used by the Sephardis in both election campaigns was identical: they demanded representation because of, rather than despite, their social and organizational weaknesses. The exchange value of these weaknesses fluctuated with the changes in the conditions in which the negotiations were held. The power of ethnicity as a political resource must be measured not only by means of the electoral success of the ethnic list. The appearance of independent ethnic lists was ill-received even in the pre-state period. But at the same time, there were continued attempts to organize those from eastern countries into ethnic frameworks controlled by the general parties (Zamir, 1966, Cohen et al., 1962). Political ethnicity was supported by various organizational arrangements (financial support, cooptation, favors, etc.) but at the same time continual efforts were made to revoke its legitimacy. These attempts were also differential. Within a party, or in a satellite party (like the Sephardic list attached to the General Zionists in the election to the Second and Third Knesset), ethnicity was to a great extent legitimate, but as a resource in the hands of an independent body, it was taboo (I return to this point in the last part of the paper). In the early years of the State, parties tended to support ethnic lists as auxiliary or subsidiary lists (for example, in the First Knesset, Mapai supported the Sephardic list, and the General Zionists supported the Yemenites' Association). This model of supporting pseudo-independent bodies was gradually replaced by the cooptation of the leaders of the independent lists. Thus, Mapai absorbed Shitreet; the General Zionists, adopted Sasson, who was a member of the Sephardic list in the Second Knesset; the Liberals, Shlomo Cohen-Tzidon, who headed an Oriental list in the Fourth Knesset; and the United Religious Party, Schaky, who also initiated an ethnic list for that election. All of them obtained 'safe places' on the absorbing parties' lists.

PY - 1984/10

Y1 - 1984/10

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84927458008&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/01419870.1984.9993465

DO - 10.1080/01419870.1984.9993465

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AN - SCOPUS:84927458008

SN - 0141-9870

VL - 7

SP - 517

EP - 533

JO - Ethnic and Racial Studies

JF - Ethnic and Racial Studies

IS - 4

ER -