The Black Panthers Movement: Ethnic Tensions and “Left-Right” Tribal Polarization ———

——— 1971 — The Black Panthers Movement: Ethnic Tensions and “Left-Right” Tribal Polarization ——— 5. 1971 — The Black Panthers Movement: Ethnic Tensions and “Left-Right” Tribal Polarization I. Introduction With the general mobilization of military reserves in May 1967, unemployment figures became irrelevant and all economic and political processes took a new turn. Rafi and Gahal1 joined the government and Rafi’s new leader,2 Moshe Dayan, was appointed Minister of Secu- rity. The stunning military victory that followed the anxious “waiting period,” culminating in the occupation of the Old City of Jerusalem, helped Israeli society forget the prewar economic crises and conflicts that preoccupied it less than three months before. The heady sense of victory in the June 1967 War and its continua- tion as the War of Attrition with Egypt facilitated the establishment of a broad-based coalition government and heralded a relatively long period of industrial peace that lasted until 1970. During those years, no new collective agreements or cost-of-living allowances were signed, as part of the process of adjusting wages to the new labor market structure. As described in Chapter 4, the war caused tremendous structural changes by opening the labor market to the entrance of unorganized workers from the recently occupied Palestinian areas. The war also expanded the lo- cal consumer market by creating a Palestinian captive market for Israeli goods, in addition to the renewal of Jewish immigration and capital im- ports. The economy resumed its growth in 1967, with the GNP increas- ing by 10% (Yoran, 1989: 371), matching the high levels of the first half of the decade. However, the rise in security spending affected the balance of payments and national debt continued to rise (Berglas, 1989). 1 In Chapter 4 I described the formation of these two parties in the run-up to the 1965 elections, Rafias a splinter of Mapai led by Ben Gurion, and Gahal as a block of hawkish Herut and the Liberal Party. 2 Ben Gurion retired from politics after realizing that Rafi was not strong enough electorally to prevent the formation of any coalition without it. — 151 — ——————————————————— CHAPTER FIVE ——————————————————— The most remarkable structural change took place in the labor market, as the economy moved from deep unemployment to full employment. This period saw the most significant segmentation of the labor market,3 with long-term economic and political implications. Masses of previously unemployed Jewish workers returned to the labor market, but not necessarily in the same peripheral sectors—construction, agriculture, or light industry—where they had been employed prior to the 1966 recession. Some of them advanced to the primary sectors of public service and advanced industries, particularly the security industry. These two sectors were blocked to competing Palestinian workers (both citizens and non-citizens) for a variety of reasons, mainly security considerations, but also their lack of requisite technological skills (Grinberg, 1991). Accordingly, the Palestinian workers were employed in the secondary sector, freeing up Jewish workforce for jobs requiring technical expertise or managerial positions. Apparently, this segmentation occurred almost without any direct competition for jobs, but in a process of gradual adjustment of supply and demand, in which unemployed Jews entered the more stable labor market while their Palestinian counterparts settled for the remains. Thus it was “market forces” that funneled the non-citizen residents of the OT into the unstable and lower paying sectors. However, the state had a crucial role in maintaining the subjugated status of Palestinian workers by denying their civil rights and subjecting them to military rule (Shalev, 1992; Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein, 1987). The most remarkable political economic phenomenon of the post- 1967 years was the intimate linkage between market segments and ethnic origins, which crystallized ethno-class identities and fuelled struggles for the opening up of political space to new social actors, 3 For a full description of the restructuration of the Israeli labor market after 1967, see Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein (1987). I use here the terms segmentation and segmented labor market as a general theory of divided markets, and not as the implementation of the segmented labor market theory (Gordon et al 1982). There are three different explanations to the division between types of labor markets and types of workers, and in my view each of them described some specific phenomena, meaning they are not mutually exclusive. Dual labor market refers to a technical adaptation between types of employers and workers, without necessary direct competition between them (Piore and Dorenberg, 1971). Split labor market refers to workers with different labor price and direct competition that leads to ethnic hostility (Bonacich, 1972). Segmented labor market theory refers to the interest of the employers to divide and rule the workers (Gordon et al., 1982). I assume that all these processes were at work at different levels, places and sectors, so I prefer to use “segmented” as a general term and not as a specific theory. — 152 — ——— 1971 — The Black Panthers Movement: Ethnic Tensions and “Left-Right” Tribal Polarization ——— agendas and discourses on ethnic disadvantage—the same space that had been shut down in the violent repression of the 1959 Wadi Salib riots. The “moment” of the Black Panther resistance movement sparked six months after the cease fire agreement with Egypt that ended the War of Attrition, and it ended when the 1973 War disabled the movement’s capacity to mobilize masses. This mo(ve)ment of resistance represented a reaction to the new structuring of the dual Israeli/Pal- estinian political economy, which had created four completely distinct ethno-classes. The Black Panthers protested against their discrimina- tion as Mizrahim despite the fact they were also Jews. They succeeded in gaining recognition and improving the economic situation of their constituencies, although they failed in their attempt to accomplish political representation and mediate their collective interests. In 2013, the Mizrahi collective identity is arguably still the forbidden identity in Israel. I will discuss this fascinating phenomenon in the conclusion of this chapter, as well as in Chapters 8 and 9. The post-1967 structure of the Israeli political economy was com- posed of at least four ethno-classes with different levels of civil rights, cultural capital, and positioning in the labor market (Nahon, 1993a; Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein, 1987; Grinberg, 1991; Shafir and Peled, 2002): 1. European Ashkenazi Jews largely controlled the economy, the state, and the political apparatuses. They were highly educated and employed in the stable segments characterized by higher salaries and guaranteed social rights (Grinberg, 1991). These groups were represented by strong and autonomous trade unions within the Histadrut or were fully independent of it.4 Their main advantage over the other groups was their cultural capital as members of the dominant ethno-class and their privileged “republican” citizen rights (Shafir and Peled, 2002). 2. Mizrahi Jews from Arab countries were economically and political- ly weaker, and their children found it harder to advance in the formal education system (Nahon, 1993a). They were settled in Israel’s peripheral areas and employed in relatively unstable segments with lower pay 4 As we may recall from Chapter 3 the most powerful professional workers gained a fully independent position from the Histadrut. These were the physicians, the university professors and the high school teachers. — 153 — ——————————————————— CHAPTER FIVE ——————————————————— and no guaranteed social rights (Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein, 1987; Shafir and Peled, 2002). These workers were represented by relatively weak unions controlled by Mapai and the Histadrut and were dependent on them for their economic conditions (Grinberg, 1991). Their advantage over the two remaining groups was their Jewish identity, which entitled them to ethno-national citizenship, which (at least formally) legitimized their demand for full equality with the first group given Israel’s definition as a Jewish State (Shafir and Peled, 2002). 3. Palestinian citizens of Israel were disadvantaged compared to the first two groups in terms of labor market segments and union representation. Their basic advantage compared to the last group (which became more significant as the years went by) was their citizenship, which en- abled them to achieve significant, albeit limited, improvement through legitimate political bodies (Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein, 1987; Shafir and Peled, 2002; Smooha, 2002). 4. Palestinians under military control in the OT had no civil rights, including the right of free association (for either economic or political purposes), were economically dependent on the state, and were forced to seek temporary employment in sovereign Israel, regardless of their skills or education. The segmentation of the labor market is interpreted here as an unin- tended consequence of the 1967 War. However, it became a structural solution for the problem faced by Mapai and the Histadrut during the previous period of full employment. The new segmented labor market structure split the workers according to levels of citizenship, cultural capital and unionization power. Once the labor market homogeniza- tion process had thus been reversed, the Histadrut’s

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