Israel’s First Fifty Years Copyright 2000 by Robert O. Freedman. This work is licensed un- der a modified Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this li- cense, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. You are free to electronically copy, distribute, and transmit this work if you attribute authorship. However, all printing rights are reserved by the University Press of Florida (http://www.upf.com). Please con- tact UPF for information about how to obtain copies of the work for print distribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). For any reuse or dis- tribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permis- sion from the University Press of Florida. Nothing in this license im- pairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. Florida A&M University, Tallahassee Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton NIVERSITY PR Florida Gulf Coast University, Ft. Myers U ES UWF S FAMU O FSU F Florida International University, Miami UNF F S L T O A UF R T I Florida State University, Tallahassee D E UCF A U N USF University of Central Florida, Orlando IV E RS FGCU University of Florida, Gainesville ITY FAU S FIU YSTEM University of North Florida, Jacksonville University of South Florida, Tampa University of West Florida, Pensacola Israel’s First Fifty Years Edited by Robert O. Freedman University Press of Florida Gainesville · Tallahassee · Tampa · Boca Raton Pensacola · Orlando · Miami · Jacksonville · Ft. Myers Copyright 2000 by Robert O. Freedman Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Israel’s first fifty years / edited by Robert O. Freedman p. cm. ISBN 0-8130-1819-6 (alk. paper); isbn 978-1-61610-116-9(pbk.) 1. Israel—Foreign relations. 2. Israel—Politics and government—20th century. I. Freedman, Robert Owen. DS119.6.I778 2000 956.9405—dc21 00-024427 The University Press of Florida is the scholarly publishing agency for the State University System of Florida, comprising Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida State University, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida, and University of West Florida. University Press of Florida 15 Northwest 15th Street Gainesville, FL 32611–2079 http://www.upf.com To my wife, Sharon, who adds a special sparkle to my life Contents Preface ix Introduction xi 1. Moscow and Israel: The Ups and Downs of a Fifty-Year Relationship Robert O. Freedman 1 2. U.S.-Israeli Relations since 1948 Robert J. Lieber 16 3. Israel and the American Jewish Community: Changing Realities Test Traditional Ties George E. Gruen 29 4. Israel and the Arab States: The Long Road to Normalization Malik Mufti 67 5. Israeli Thinking about the Palestinians: A Historical Survey Mark Tessler 95 6. Labor during Fifty Years of Israeli Politics Myron J. Aronoff 119 7. The Right in Israeli Politics: The Nationalist Ethos in the Jewish Democracy Ilan Peleg 139 8. Religio-Politics and Social Unity in Israel: Israel’s Religious Parties Chaim I. Waxman 162 9. The Arab Parties Elie Rekhess 180 10. The Changing Political Economy of Israel: From Agricultural Pioneers to the “Silicon Valley” of the Middle East Ofira Seliktar 197 11. The Press and Civil Society in Israel Michael Keren 219 12. Epilogue: The 1999 Elections and the Victory of Ehud Barak Mark Rosenblum 236 Bibliography 273 Contributors List 281 Index 283 Preface In its first fifty years, Israel has undergone radical transformation eco- nomically and militarily as it has moved from an agriculturally based state of 600,000 people with a weak and ill-equipped army to an industrialized high-tech state of more than 6 million people with an army that is one of the strongest in the world. Yet as Israel has forged ahead economically and militarily, basic questions about its identity and social structure remain. Should Israel be a Western-style secular democracy, or should its legal system and daily rhythms be based on Jewish law and tradition? Will there ever be economic and social equality between Ashkenazi and Sephardi citizens in Israel? Will Israel ever be able to make peace with its Arab neighbors, especially with the Palestinians, and integrate into the Middle East, or will it forever be a state that “dwells apart,” to use the biblical terminology? And what of the Arab citizens of Israel who now number almost one million? Will they be successfully integrated in Israeli life, on the basis of genuine civic and social equality, or will they become a fifth column threatening Israel’s security? In the foreign arena, there remain a number of questions as well. Will Israel’s alliance with the United States remain strong, or will the fissures that emerged following the election of Binyamin Netanyahu widen? Simi- larly, will Israel’s relations with Russia, which initially looked so promis- ing after the collapse of the Soviet Union, again begin to deteriorate, thus repeating the pattern of Israeli-Soviet relations after the State of Israel was established in 1948? Finally, what of the future of relations between Israel and American Jewry, which reached a high point during the prime ministerships of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres from 1992 to 1996, only to deteriorate seriously afterward? Will these relations recover, or will the differences over issues such as religion and the peace process inten- sify and cause a major rift between the two largest segments of world Jewry? These are some of the questions that were dealt with at a conference, “Israel at Fifty,” held at Baltimore Hebrew University in May 1998, the fiftieth anniversary of Israel’s independence. The conference, attended by scholars from around the world who brought with them differing perspec- tives, was held under the auspices of BHU’s Center for the Study of Israel and the Contemporary Middle East, which celebrated its twentieth anni- versary in May 1998. The center’s first conference, “The Middle East and x | Preface the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” was held in May 1978; subsequent conferences have been held on such topics as “The Middle East after Camp David”; “Israel in the Begin Era”; “The Middle East after the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon”; “The Middle East from the Iran Contra Affair to the Intifada”; “The Intifada: Its Impact on Israel, the Arab World, and the Superpow- ers”; “The Middle East after the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait”; “Israel under Rabin”; and “The Middle East and the Peace Process.” The proceedings of each of the conferences were published in book form, after being edited by the director of the center, Robert O. Freedman. This book, Israel’s First Fifty Years, also edited by Freedman, is the tenth in the center’s series. In preparing a book of this type, I received help from many sources. My secretary, Jean Bernstein, helped insulate me from the hubbub of running our university while I completed the editing of the book; Elise Baron, secretary of the Graduate School, prepared the manuscript; Bruce Men- delsohn, director of University Communications, helped publicize the conference from which this book emerged; Steven Fine and his able staff in the BHU Library—Barbara Salit-Mischel, Andrew Johnson, and Elaine Mael—provided invaluable computer and research assistance; and Liya Slobodsky helped maintain my research files. I would also like to thank George Hess, then chairman of the Board of Trustees of Baltimore Hebrew University, for his strong support of the Center for the Study of Israel and the Contemporary Middle East, as well as his successor, current board chairman, Michael Hettleman; Richard Pearlstone whose generous con- tribution, through the Jack Pearlstone Institute for Living Judaism, pro- vided the bulk of the funding for the conference; and Arthur Abramson, Lynne Katzen, and Stacey Steinberger of the Baltimore Jewish Council who were Baltimore Hebrew University’s partners in convening the con- ference. Finally I would like to thank my wife, Sharon, who has always showed gracious understanding as I seek to juggle the responsibilities of directing a university while at the same time continuing my scholarly re- search. It is to my wife that this book is dedicated. Robert O. Freedman Preface | xi Introduction In the fifty years since its birth, Israel has developed at an extraordinary pace. Its population has increased sixfold, from 600,000 to 6 million, and in the process Israel has resettled millions of immigrants from all over the world, with the majority coming from the Arab world, the former Soviet Union, Romania, and post-Holocaust Europe. Israel’s economic base has been transformed from agriculture to industry, with a significant portion of the industry being high tech. Universities have appeared in Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beersheva to compete with The Hebrew University of Jerusa- lem. The per capita standard of living has risen from near poverty after Israel’s War of Independence to the level of Western Europe by 1998. Finally, Israel’s army has also been transformed from what could basically be called a citizen militia in 1948 to one of the top professional armies in the world. In the political sphere Israel has also developed, although the direction of its development has been hotly debated. It has moved from a dominant party system in the 1948–77 period, with Labor in the dominant position, to a system of two major contending parties, courting a number of smaller parties, from 1977 to 1998.