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And there are some deeper trends at work as well, beyond politics and economics. The historical liberal and social-democratic nature of the Jewish state was rooted in the worldview of its founders in the early twentieth century. Zionist leaders like Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, and Golda Meir wedded the secular idea of national self-determination for the Jewish people to a vision of social justice. Under external and internal pressure, these values were not always successfully implemented, especially during the post-1948 mass immigration, but they continued to define the ideology of a society that viewed itself as both Jewish and democratic.
That worldview is no longer shared by all Israelis. The growth of Israel from a small and poor embattled land with 650,000 Jewish inhabitants at its founding to a thriving nation of almost eight million people today resulted from demographic changes that gradually but decisively altered the country’s social structure and politics. It is now clear how dramatic the impact of those changes has been.
One million immigrants from the former Soviet Union who have arrived since the late 1980s are enriching Israeli science, technology, music, and culture. But their political attitudes also reflect decades of life under Soviet rule: though mostly secular, many of them believe in a strong state with a hierarchical leadership structure, having little patience for outsiders or enemies (in this case, Arabs). As one of them quipped to me, “I do not want to live under Putin, but I want my leader to be like Putin.”
The wishy-washy social-democratic ethos of Israel’s Labor movement looked to them like a variant of bolshevism, and the kibbutz reminded them of a Soviet kolkhoz. Consequently, many of them felt much more comfortable with Netanyahu’s robust nationalism than with left-wing supporters of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.
Likewise, earlier immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East – the Mizrahi and Sephardi communities that now comprise almost half of Israel’s Jewish population – found the secular, egalitarian ethos of Labor to be deeply at odds with their religiosity and patriarchal values. For many, kibbutzim mean the breakup of the family and enforced secularization. And many brought with them memories of oppression in their Arab-majority countries of origin. Menachem Begin, the first Likud prime minister, capitalized on these immigrants’ resentment of the hegemony of the left-wing establishment.
Their descendants, together with immigrants from the former USSR, still form the backbone of support for Likud. And, given Likud’s natural alliance with orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jewish parties, the right-wing has gained a built-in advantage which will not disappear when Netanyahu leaves the scene. Israel is not on its way to becoming a Hungarian-like “illiberal democracy”; its democratic structures and norms remain resilient (though this will be tested by Likud’s looming attempt to grant Netanyahu immunity from the corruption charges he faces). But the institutional edifices that once made its liberal and social democratic sectors dominant have been significantly weakened.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/netanyahu-right-wing-dominance-in-israel-by-shlomo-avineri-2019-04
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