How Israel's Changing
bebman, Charles S.
How Israel's Changing Israel: Building a New Society by Daniel J. Elazar Indiana University Press, 1986 287 pp, $2995 Reviewed by Charles S. bebman Daniel Elazar is a prolific writer who is...
...Elazar's central thesis is that Israel is a new frontier society formed by an implicit covenant or understanding among its early founders about the nature of the community they sought to build...
...As a resident of Israel and professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, his observations about Israeli government and politics are of special interest to American Jews...
...The significance and growing independence of local political systems from the central political system has provided the opportunity for Sephardic political leaders to gain experience and to project themselves as potential national leaders...
...He is also well known to students of American Jewish society, for his second arena of interest is world Jewry...
...Elazar's impressions and the studies he cites to support his observations are woven together by a unifying conception of the nature of Israeli development...
...In the words of its most vocal defender, Moshe Arens, the issue pitted those of great vision against those of contracted vision...
...Consequently, a heavy ideological current infused the foundation of Israel...
...Many of the current problems of the new Jewish state stem from the inability of its political system to absorb the changes implicit in this development...
...The normalization of Zionism, its matter-of-fact acceptance by Israeli Jews on the one hand and the emergence of local loyalties on the other, serve as the basis for Elazar's thesis that Israel is to be comprehended as moving from what he calls ideological to territorial democracy...
...The book is not easy to read...
...In the fierce debate that took place in 1987 in Israel over whether the government should discontinue production of the Lavi fighter plane, political lines within the government itself were very clearly drawn...
...Consistent with this thesis is the second unique contribution of Elazar's book: He is far more attentive to local government, to the services provided by municipalities and to the political systems that they generate, than one generally finds in English-language treatments or, for that matter, even in Hebrew-language treatments of the subject...
...American Jews who are serious about their interest in Israel will have to read what he says with care...
...First of all, Elazar seeks to describe Israeli political life within the context of his own theory about frontier societies...
...Perhaps this is because I am an Ashkenazic Jew...
...Perhaps because he too is a Sephardic Jew, Elazar is particularly sensitive to what he feels is Israeli writers' inattentiveness to, if not disparagement of, Sephardic Jewry, its past contributions and its potential contribution to the new society...
...The style is somewhat turgid, and where the author does wax passionate, for example in his discussion of Sephardic Jewry and the invidious comparisons he draws with Ashkenazic Jewry, I found the discussion problematic...
...Charles S. Liebman is a professor of political studies at Bar-Han University...
...All Likud members but one (the finance minister) supported continuing the development of the Lavi...
...Israel was formed as an ideological democracy in which a premium was placed on doctrinal fidelity...
...Like other new societies, Israel's founders could not build their community on customs or traditions because they did not exist...
...Most of it is based on previously published essays...
...The current development of Israeli society must be seen as the gradual replacement of that ideological component by a territorial component...
...In this respect, there are striking parallels, in Elazar's opinion, between the United States and Israel...
...Whether or not one agrees with the author, he is certainly making an important series of statements...
...Even more disturbing to those, like myself, who feel the issue pitted the rational versus the irrational in Israeli politics, is the fact that Israeli-born children of Sephardic fathers were even more favorable to continued production of the Lavi than were their parents...
...The importance he attributes to Sephardim is the third novel element in Elazar's study...
...This same finding emerges on issues of territorial nationalism and hostility to Arabs...
...For the American supporter of Israel who wonders about the accuracy of American newspaper acounts of corruption by public officials, ethnic animosity, oppressive treatment of the Arab minority, increasing tensions between secular and religious Jews, and governmental indecision in Israel, Elaz-ar's book will be a welcome antidote...
...The other side insisted that continued production of the Lavi was a matter of national pride...
...Despite the neat split along party lines within the government, however, public opinion polls showed that Likud and Labor supporters were divided among themselves, though not evenly...
...the updating is not always successful...
...As the issue played itself out in the last days prior to the final government vote, the ministers of finance and defense were aligned on one side, arguing that the continued production of the Lavi would be disastrous for the economy and for Israel's security...
...I think Elazar is wrong in either excusing or denying the existence of a populist strain and nationalistic chauvinism among a disproportionately high number of Sephardim...
...Nonetheless, a number of books dealing with Israeli government and society have appeared in the last few years, and it is appropriate to ask in what ways Elazar's new book differs from others in the field...
...All Labor members of the government eventually voted against its production or abstained...
...The polls showed that ethnic origin was relevant to how an individual felt about the issue...
...How Israel's Changing Israel: Building a New Society by Daniel J. Elazar Indiana University Press, 1986 287 pp, $2995 Reviewed by Charles S. bebman Daniel Elazar is a prolific writer who is considered a world authority on the topic of federalism...
...His expertise is acknowledged both by his academic peers and by the many governments throughout the world, including the United States government, that have called him for consultation and advice...
...rather, they had to impose their own vision of their nation's future...
...Ashkenazic Jews overwhelmingly favored discontinuing production, whereas Sephardic Jews favored continuing production...
...The Sephardic-Ashkenazic issue was hardly relevant in the party split...
...In general, I found Elazar a touch too defensive and apologetic about Israeli society...
...Territorial democracy, according to Elazar, places a premium 1 'on simply living some place by right," and in one sense, as the author points out, this is what the Zionist endeavor is all about...
Vol. 13 • March 1988 • No. 1
