Israel Studies: An Anthology - Multicultural Realities
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Multicultural Realities
By Guy Ben-Porat
(August 2009)
Introduction
In their seminal book, Trouble in Utopia (1989), Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, two of
Israel's leading sociologists, described Israel as an "overburdened polity." Growing tensions –
ideological, national, ethnic, religious and economic – have made governance all but
impossible. The cleavages of Israeli state and society have widened and deepened in the past
two decades. Significant changes have transformed Israel demographically, economically and
politically; raising significant debates and existential questions of identity, belonging and
rights. In practice, even if not officially recognized, the fact that Israel has become a
multicultural and multi-ethnic state is something with which the political system has been
either unwilling or uninterested to contend.
These dilemmas are far from new and have been part and parcel of state and nation building,
some since early Zionism. The role of religion in public life, economic ideologies, rights of
non-Jewish citizens and frustrations of non-Ashkenazi immigrants demanding equality were
constantly debated and contested. The economic and demographic changes, however, have not
only produced new tensions but have also had implications for older ones. All objections had
previously been successfully managed by the state through various methods of assimilation,
co-optation and coercion. Now, however, the gaps appear beyond the state's control and
threaten its ability to govern effectively. Thus, Israel, like many other states, faces dilemmas
that stem from a multinational and multicultural reality in which cultural, linguistic, religious
and ethnic minorities struggle for and against distinctive forms of recognition and
accommodation and, consequently, create new challenges for the democratic regime.
Reports of the 2009 Independence Day events attest to some of the ongoing changes. While the
majority of Israelis shared in the celebration, the religious extremists of Neturei Kartaburned
Israeli flags and declared it a day of mourning. A settler who was evacuated from the Gaza
Strip four years earlier explained that he would not hang a flag on his house and Arab citizens
commemorated the Nakba (catastrophe), the destructive events of 1948 (all reported on YNET,
29.4.2009). While the vast majority of Jewish Israelis do celebrate Independence Day,
schisms, debates and struggles are part of everyday life as they pertain to fundamental
questions of identity, belonging and the public good.  
A Multicultural Reality
Contemporary democracies are engaging in a multicultural reality that challenges the existing
order. This reality calls into question conventional understandings of national sovereignty,
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group identity, social justice and both group and individual rights (Tully, 2002). Cultural
diversity and ethno-national politics are common to most contemporary states who, contrary to
their image of homogeneity, must contend with a multicultural and at times multinational
reality (Connor, 1994; Tully, 2002 ). The growing reality of multinational and multicultural
creates new challenges for the democratic regime (Tully, 2000). Some states have shifted
toward a more accommodating approach to diversity and have adopted "multicultural policies"
that go beyond the protection of basic civil and political rights guaranteed to all individuals in
a liberal democratic state (Banting and Kymlicka, 2003). Other states are still debating how to
address the challenges of diversity and the multicultural reality.
The struggles associated with a multicultural reality and their outcomes depend not only upon
what ethnic or religious groups want, but also upon which opportunities are offered by the
state and what effects official policies and institutions have on ethnic identity and its political
mobilization (Brass, 1985; Rothschild, 1981: 2). Focusing on the characteristics, attitudes and
behavior of individuals and groups as causes of conflict often miss the crucial elements of the
“playing field” that institutional theory stresses (Thalen and Steinmo, 2000). The institutions –
which act as “rules of the game” - of both state and civic society are crucial in creating or
cementing cultural or identity politics (Crawford, 1998) and consequently can be either a part
of the problem or the solution. "Rules of the game", it must be stressed, often allow stability at
the expense of justice. Thus, minority groups could chose, under the right circumstances, to
challenge the rules and to sacrifice stability for what they may perceive as justice. Complexity
is greater when different groups struggles involve conflicting demands and competition
between groups over the state material and symbolic resources.
Israel's Declaration of Independence (May 1948) proclaimed Israel a Jewish state but at the
same time called upon the "Arab inhabitants" of the state to become full and equal citizens.
These two principles embedded in the declaration of independence – a Jewish state and a
democracy –entailed a differential set of policies for different groups adopted in the early state
period. Jewish immigrants were to assimilate into Israeli culture and society by both shedding
their diasporic identities and modernizing. The Arab minority had not assimilated and various
measures of control and autonomy were employed to prevent it from asserting its demands.
Finally, religious struggles were settled by a series of agreements known as the "status quo"
which, on the one hand, provided autonomy for religious groups and, on the other hand,
granted them a monopoly on significant issues in public life.
 The ability of formulate and implement the "rules of the game" – religious, ethnic and
national – in early statehood is attributed to the hegemony of the Labor Party (Mapai), and its
control of the political system.  The Labor Party, who came to dominate the Zionist movement,
embodied the pioneering spirit of Zionism and the redemptive activities of physical labor,
agricultural settlement and military defense (Horowitz and Lissak, 1978: 109). This hegemony
has translated into political power and the control of resources that re-enforced its position and
enabled the creation of a "political center" around which politics revolved. This powerful
position, on the one hand, and (with some additions and modifications in the first three decades
of the need (especially in the pre-state period) to ensure political support of all partners to the
Zionist project, underscored a series of arrangements and compromises between the Jewish
parties. These arrangements that secured the dominance of the Labor Party as the center of
politics continued statehood during which the Labor Party has won all elections and was able
to form the governing coalition.
In the 1970's the center began to implode under the pressure of various groups and wider
socio-economic changes that led not only to the defeat of the Labor Party but also to the
erosion of the "rules of the game" Associated with it. Consequently, governments in the past
two decades were unable to enforce the old rules of the game, formal or informal, or to
structure new ones. This inability could explain the declining trust of Israelis in government
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institutions and the strengthening of the major schisms. On the other hand, the structural
changes of Israeli society suggest a rethinking of its problems in the context of a multinational,
ethnic and cultural setting.
Implosion of the Center
As a national movement, Zionism and the leading force within it, the Labor Party, sought to
unite all Jews under the umbrella of national building projects. The Labor Party combined a
socialist rhetoric, a collectivist ethos, a secular interpretation of Zionism and largely pragmatic
attitude toward settlement and foreign policy. Its ideological dominance and control over
resources in pre-statehood enabled it to foster pragmatic relations with most parties. The early
period of statehood was still dominated by the collectivist ethos that overshadowed the existing
and evolving cleavages. In practice, the Labor Party controlled the axis of the political system
so that it was impossible to establish a government without it. Labor was always the primary
ruling party in a coalition structure in which the junior partners could be replaced (Naor,
2008).
Since the early 1970s, the divisions in Israeli society began to display saliency. The waning of
the Labor Party's dominance in the wake of the1973 Yom Kippur War and the growing
discontent of groups previously marginalized in Israeli society and politics. The change was
reflected first and foremost in voting patterns. In the 1977 elections the Labor Party was ousted
after 29 years in power. The winning party, Likud under Menachem Begin, placed the idea of
"Eretz Yisrael ha'Shlema" ("greater Israel") at the top of its platform and after the election
announced its intention to increase Jewish settlements in the territories captured in the 1967
War. Indeed, the debate over the future of the territories unfolded into the central divide of
Israeli politics; but not the only one. Other divisions include a growing resentment among
Arab citizens, religious and secular tensions and various ethnic and class struggles. These
divisions, previously managed by the state and the political center held by theLabor Party,
have become deeper and presented great challenges for the new ruling coalitions, largely
unable to replicate the dominance of the Labor Party.
The Jewish State and the National Minority
The tensions between Arab citizens and the state reached their peak after the collapse of the
Camp David summit in 2000. A series of demonstrations in Israel that followed violent events
in the West Bank and Gaza escalated to open violence and resulted in the deaths of thirteen
demonstrators –  Arab citizens, killed by the Israeli police. An inquiry commission established
after the events found fault in the police actions and, more important, deeper structural issues:
The events, their exceptional character and their adverse consequences were the result of
structural factors that caused an explosive situation among the Arab public in Israel. The state
and the elected governments consistently failed to seriously engage with the difficult problems
of a large Arab minority within a Jewish state. The government's treatment of the Arab sector
was generally of neglect and discrimination. At the same time, not enough was done to enforce
the law in the Arab sector. As a result of this and of other causes, the Arab sector suffered
deep distress evident, among other things, in high levels of poverty, unemployment, shortage
of land, problems in the education system and serious deficiencies in infrastructure. All those
created ongoing discontent, heightened towards October 2000.
 
The Jewish-Arab cleavage is considered the deepest schism in Israeli society. Arab citizens are
an unassimilating working class minority and are considered by the Jewish majority as
dissident and associated with the enemy (Smooha, 1989, 218). Non-Jews in Israel constitute
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close to 20 percent of the population or about 1 million people. They belong to three religious
communities: Muslim (81%), Christian (9%) and Druze (10%). The Palestinian Arabs see
themselves as having been placed under "extreme structural discrimination policies, national
oppression, military rule that lasted until 1966, land confiscation policy, unequal budget
allocation, rights discrimination and threats of transfer" (Future Vision, 2006). Their demands
for equality and representation challenge some of the basic foundations of the state and
encounter wide resistance by the majority committed to the idea of the Jewish character of
Israel.
The definition of Israel as a "Jewish State," on the one hand, and its conflict with the
Palestinians of the territories and the wider Arab world on the other, have significant
ramifications for the status of the Palestinian Arabs within Israel. The Jewish character of the
state, almost a consensus among the Jewish majority, implies that Palestinian Arabs are
citizens of a state in which its symbols reflect the Jewish majority's culture and are exclusive
in nature. Beyond symbolic issues, the preference for Jews over non-Jews is anchored in laws
that deal with immigration, use of state land and semi-governmental institutions (Rouhana,
1998). The exclusion of Arabs is justified by an "ethno-republican discourse of citizenship"
(Peled, 1992) in which Jewish ethnicity is mandatory to be part of the community and one’s
contribution to the common good determines one’s status in that community. Arab citizens are
exempt from military service, which is considered the most significant contribution to the state
and therefore cannot count as "good citizens." While the army status has declined in recent
years social status and many social rights are still tied to the performance of military service,
so that the lower status of Arabs can be excused by their non-contribution.
The exemption of Arab citizens from military service is a result of the wider conflict and the
perception of the state of the Palestinian Arabs as a "fifth column." From the end of the war in
1948 until 1966, in spite of their formal citizenship, Arabs were placed under a military rule
that limited their movement. The gradual relaxation of Israeli policies towards Arab citizens
has not diminished the social gaps between them and the Jewish majority’s economic, social
and political marginalization (Gavison and Abu-Ria, 1999; Lustik, 1985; Lewin-Epstein and
Semyonov, 1993).
The politicization of Arab citizens was translated to various struggles designed to achieve
individual equality and struggles for collective recognition. While individual equality can be
achieved within the Jewish definition of the state according to some analysts (e.g., Smooha,
1992), collective claims of recognition (described as "Palestinization") challenge the
foundations of the state. The demands, however, seem to interact as the failure to achieve
individual equality could be a contributor to the consolidation of a Palestinian identity and
collective claims, especially among the younger generation. The solidarity of Arab citizens
with the Palestinians in the occupied territories was almost always within the confines of the
law. They consistently advocated a solution of "two states" in which they remain citizens of
Israel but demand wide reforms, namely annulling its Jewish character that would allow them
to integrate or, at the very least, would provide them with some form of cultural autonomy
(Ghanem, 2000).
 The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on the one hand, underscored the largely negative and
suspicious attitudes of Jewish Israelis toward Palestinian citizens and, on the other, presented a
dilemma for Palestinian citizens between their interests as a minority within a Jewish state
seeking integration and their commitment to their brethren's plight; a commitment that makes
integration difficult. Integration, in other words, is withheld not only by the Jewish majority's
exclusion but also by the Palestinian minority's difficulty to integrate in the state that holds
Palestinians in the occupied territories under military rule. Accordingly, peace between Israel
and the Palestinians, it was believed, could relax Israel's security dilemma and consequently,
provide greater acceptance for Arab integration. In addition, it could also solve the Arab
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citizen's moral dilemma. Indeed, a research finding in the mid-1990s when Rabin's
government made important strides toward equality for the Arab population,  revealed
"growing integration into Israeli society and politics on the one hand, and a growing distance
from Palestinian identity and politics on the other" (Smooha, 1998).
Personal economic advancement has also failed to meet the expectations of the Palestinian
minority. Education not only offered limited personal advancement but also created higher
expectations and exposed the Arabs to their inferior status and the glass ceiling of the Jewish
state. As a result, Arabs lag behind Jews in standard of living, public services and educational
achievements. They suffer from higher poverty levels and unemployment, are concentrated in
lower-skill and lower-pay jobs and are underrepresented in high-skill, bureaucratic and
higher-status employment. While Jews are able to translate their educational achievements to
higher status occupation, Arabs find it difficult to do so because of a lack of employment
opportunities in Arab towns and villages as well as discrimination in the job market.
Affirmative action initiatives in public services have so far had little influence on the
representation of Arabs.
The demand for equality within Israel and growing Arab identification with the Palestinians of
the West Bank and Gaza led to new modes of political expression. First, a growing tendency
developed among Israeli Arabs, especially the younger generation, to define themselves as
"Palestinians." Second, religious identity has strengthened and has become a new source of
political expression in the Israeli-Palestinian axis. Finally, a generational change has also
occurred as younger Arabs feel confident enough to demand their rights as citizens of the state
while also speaking openly of their relation to the Palestinians in the occupied territories and
the Arab world in general. The gradual change has manifested not only in new Arab political
parties but also in non-governmental organizations and academia. New political expressions
include protests based on human rights discourse, attempts to use the courts in equality
struggles and a critical examination of Israel's democratic regime.
Between December 2006 and May 2007 several "future vision documents" composed by Arab
intellectuals and public figures were published, demanding, what they described as the
transformation of Israel from an ethnic to a democratic state (Jamal, 2008). The documents
provide a harsh critique of the Zionist Movement and the State of Israel in relation to the
Palestinian nation, citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the territories, and call upon the State
of Israel to adopt principles of corrective and distributive justice vis-à-vis the Palestinian
minority (Jamal, 2008).  It is of special significance that the writers of the documents chose to
refer to themselves as "Palestinian Citizens of Israel." Consequently, what the documents
raise, among other things, are demands by a minority defined not only in terms of individual
equality but also in terms of collective rights and recognition.
Between Religious and Secular
The role of religion in public life is the second major debate among Israeli citizens as old
agreements, formal and informal, no longer hold. Among Jewish Israelis there is a wide
consensus that Israel should be a Jewish state; however, this means different things to secular
and Orthodox Israelis. The former identify the “Jewish State” in terms of culture and
nationality while the latter conception is of a theocracy. The disagreements translate into
different questions over the role of Halacha, Jewish religious law, on the conduct of everyday
life. These questions include, among others, the observance of Sabbath, the import and sale of
non-kosher foods, the right of civil marriage and burial, the funding of Orthodox schools and
the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jews to the army. Social, economic, political and
demographic changes since the late 1980's – the globalization of Israel's economy and society
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and the immigration from the Former Soviet Union - have made these questions more acute.
The deepening divide between religious and secular Jews, according to some scholars, poses a
threat to Israel's social fabric (Etzioni-Halevy, 2002, 1).
Since the early period of Zionism, the controversy over the status of religion threatened the
unity of the Jewish community and the development of state institutions. Secular and religious
leaders agreed to a series of concessions, and the deferral of the most controversial issues
(Cohen and Susser, 2000). Following independence, the new political leadership agreed to
accept these earlier understandings. By freezing the "status quo," it was possible to avoid a
split between secular and religious Zionists. Practically, this meant that in the new state
kashrut (Jewish dietary rules) would be observed in public institutions, the Sabbath would be
respected, ultra-orthodox men and women would be exempt from army service and the
religious establishment would be the deciding voice for issues like marriage arrangements,
conversion to Judaism and burial. Church and state, therefore, were not separated in Israel so
that all citizens, regardless of personal belief, are under rabbinical jurisdiction in significant
matters of their personal life. What was not resolved by the status quo was left to the political
pragmatism of the leading secular and religious elites. Essentially, divisive issues were depoliticized
either by transferring them to the local-municipal or judicial level, or by simply
avoiding decisions (Don-Yehia, 1996; Cohen and Susser, 2000).
 
The majority of Israeli Jews do not define themselves as "religious" or "secular" but rather
choose less encompassing categories such as "traditional" or "non-religious." The practice of
religion, consequently, has had a large variation which has been motivated by personal history,
folklore and ethnicity rather than by a commitment to religious law (Cohen, 2000: 30-31).
Secular Jews, for whom Jewishness is an ethno-cultural identity, share a great deal in common
with religious Jews in terms of both practices and collective commitments to Jewish continuity
and often participate in religious rituals. This is even more true for Jews who do not follow
many the rules of the Halacha but remain attached to tradition (Liebman and Susser, 1997,
Levy et al 2000). Thus, people who shop on the Sabbath, and in so doing defy a religious
commandment, often obey other commandments and perform religious rituals. They often fast
on Yom Kippur, avoid eating non-kosher food and even attend synagogue occasionally (BenPorat
and Feniger, 2009).
The religious-secular status quo has crumbled in the past years under new pressures, despite
the large number of Israelis who do not belong to either side of the continuum. In the Israeli
parliament a steady growth can be observed in the power of the Haredim (Jewish ultraOrthodox
parties) and an opposing ideologically militant secular camp. Political debates over
the questions of army conscription of religious Jews, gay rights, the sale of non-kosher food
and commercial activity on Saturday are all part of a growing religious-secular struggle that
seems to defy any attempt to find new compromises. One study described secular-religious
relations in Israel as relations that "have gone from compromise to crises, from mitigating
arrangements to aggravated strife, from bad to worse” (Cohen and Susser, 2000, xii). In a
survey conducted in 1999 (before the outbreak of the Second Intifada), a clear majority of
Israelis saw a greater danger in internal divisions than in the conflict with the Palestinians
(60% compared to 30%), and 62% of the respondents indicated that the schism between
Orthodoxy and secularism overshadowed all others (Peace Index, 2000). While in the past
decade security concerns and the Jewish-Arab schism dominate the political debate, the major
religious-secular debates have not been resolved.
The status quo is challenged by four interrelated changes. The first is a liberal secularism
aimed at church-state separation and protection and creation of civic rights. A growing number
of Israelis, especially of the younger generation, reject the limitations of the status quo and
demand that the state provide for civil marriage, civil burial and recognizeReform and
Conservative Judaism. In addition, new trends of "secular Judaism" seek to reinterpret the
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meaning of being Jewish. This struggle has recently shifted away from the formal political
arena towards private decisions of consumption, leisure or, in case of marriage, to marry
outside of Israel or to raise a family without getting married (Ben-Porat, forthcoming).
The second challenge comes from the mass immigration from the Former Soviet Union (FSU)
since the early 1990's. The fact that many of the immigrants are not considered Jewish by
Orthodox definition and that a vast majority maintain a secular lifestyle has only added to the
growing trend of secularization. A large number of immigrants and their children who are not
halakhically Jewish cannot marry in Israel unless they go through an Orthodox conversion.
The immigrants' demand for non-Kosher food has led to the establishment of supermarkets and
delicatessens that cater to the tastes of immigrants, much to the dismay of many religious
citizens. These commercial institutions also satisfy the demands of many secular Israelis whose
leisure and consumption patterns no longer conform to the status quo (Ben-Porat,
forthcoming).
The third significant challenge to the status quo is the development of a consumer society
whose practices undermine that status quo. In the early years of statehood, limitations on
commercial activity were easier for the secular public to accept because its lifestyle and means
were more modest. Globalization and the development of a western-type consumer society in
the 1990s created new incentives for both secular and traditional Jews that challenged the
status quo. Thus, while for observant Jews the Sabbath is a day of worship and prayer that
includes a prohibition on business, commercial activities and travel, for secular Jews it is a day
whose meaning is in the hands of individuals. As a result, more and more commercial
establishments are operating on the Sabbath. Shop owners have found different ways to
circumvent the prohibition of operating on the Sabbath. While government inspectors fines
stores that operate on the Sabbath, for violating laws that prohibit employment of Jews on
Sabbath, store owners were initially not deterred by the relatively low fines and, when fines
were raised, began to employ non-Jewish workers as salespersons.
The fourth challenge to the status quo is the link that developed between the religious-secular
divide and the territorial question. The religious national party cooperated until the middle of
the 1970s with the Labor Party, a cooperation based on the religious-secular status quo and the
relatively moderate positions of both parties on questions of national security and foreign
policy. After 1967, the two parties drifted apart as a younger national religious population took
the lead in the settlement of the occupied territories. This movement was led by an extraparliamentary
movement called Gush Emunim. Its opposition, the leftist-dovish parties and
extra-parliamentary movements were dominated by secularists. Thus, the religious-secular
divide was overlapped by an ideological difference that increased the rift between the sides and
made compromise and cooperation all the more difficult.
In the political arena, religious-secular conflicts became more intense and deadlocked. In the
1980s, ultra-orthodox (Haredi) parties which had maintained some distance from the
ideological debate found themselves in a new position as coalition bargaining enabled them,
among other things, to receive state funding for their educational institutions. The rise of Shas,
an ultra-Orthodox Sephardic (or “Mizrahi”) party that originally gained its power from the
lower-class Sephardis added to the tensions. Unlike the other ultra-Orthodox parties that
refrained from taking ministerial position that would put them in charge of "secular" affairs,
Shas has chosen to hold offices. This has set them against, first and foremost, an emerging
party of the immigrants from the FSU in a fight over the control of the Ministry of Internal
Affairs. In the late 1990s, a secular-liberal party, “Shinuy” (change), was formed so as to
“liberate Israel from religious control. The religious-secular debate has subsequently turned
even more heated with demands to separate church and state, allow a secular marriage
ceremony and cancel or significantly limit the exemptions from army service given to ultraOrthodox
men. The Shinuy party success was short termed and it disappeared from the
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political map in the 2006 elections but the religious-secular debates continued in the
parliament and elsewhere.
Socio-demographic and economic changes that contributed to secularization were matched,
therefore, by the formal status and political power of religious groups. In the official political
sphere this resulted in a deadlock as the secular population could ignore much of the
limitations imposed by the status quo – marriage, food consumption and the Sabbath – but
were unable to change its rules. In addition, questions regarding drafting the ultra-orthodox to
the army and resource allocation to religious institutions continued to be a source of
frustration. The Orthodox parties retained their formal monopoly over major issues such as
marriage and divorce, but were frustrated themselves by the lack of enforcement. The religious
parties also saw their communities endangered by the expanding sale of non-Kosher meat and
the conducting of commerce on Saturday.
The status quo, therefore, has eroded in the past two decades and no longer provides the
guideline for the rules of the game for either side. Consequently, “[r]ather than an
accommodation of each other's needs in the interest of preserving national unity, a
majoritarian, winner-take-all style has grown more and more dominant" (Cohen and Susser,
2000: xii). The erosion of the status quo, therefore, not only makes the enforcement of existing
rules difficult but also undermines the possibility of establishing newly agreed upon rules.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity in Israel is usually refers to the division between Ashkenazim (Jews of European
descent) and Mizrachim (Middle Eastern and North African Jews, sometimes referred to as
Sepharadim or Oriental). This division, emerging shortly after statehood with the mass
immigration of Jews from Arab countries, is reflected in voting patterns and political
orientations and is related to religious and political schisms described above. Israel's nation
and state-building ethos negated ethnicity in favor of a common Jewish-Israeli identity that
was to override all other identities and affiliations. Gradually, however, ethnicity came to the
fore through various political expressions, some indirect and interlinked with other divisions
(religion, class and voting patterns) and some, in later years, in direct political and social
initiatives that challenged the existing order. Another more recent ethnic division has occurred
between veteran Israelis and the newcomers from the FSU who also display the characteristics
of an ethnic community.
The vast majority of Mizrahim immigrated to Israel after its independence in 1948. The new
immigrants who had few connections in the new land also suffered discrimination from the
veteran Ashkenazi population who viewed Mizrahi culture with disdain. The veteran elite saw
itself as a leader of a pioneering enterprise that included physical labor, agricultural settlement
and military self-defense. The newcomers after the establishment of the state were to become
part of this pioneering ethos in which the veterans already held leading positions. The state
and institutions embarked on a project of assimilation that sought to transform the cultural
identity of new immigrants but, at the same time, socially marginalized the newcomers as
many of the Mizrahi immigrants were either sent to settle the periphery or to become manual
laborers of the developing economies. In the early years of statehood an "ethnic gap" was
formed between Mizrahim and Ashkenazim that was reflected in patterns of residency,
educational attainment, occupational status and income distribution.
In the early years of statehood, beside largely failed attempts to form Mizrahi parties and
social movements, the majority of Mizrahim voted for the dominant Labor Party. After 1973,
however, the majority of Mizrahim voted for the Likud. As an opposition party with a stronger
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nationalist agenda the Likud was able to appeal to the Mizrahim who were frustrated with their
secondary status in Israeli society. It was the Likud's ability to present itself as a representative
of the disadvantaged Mizrahim (in spite of its liberal economic orientation) against the
hegemony of Mapai that enabled it to win the 1977 elections and remain in office for another
15 years. The disappointment with the economic policy of the Likud Party, and the growing
economic gaps, led to the formation of Shas, a Mizrahi orthodox religious political movement,
mentioned above. In addition, NGOs, largely secular and often dovish in their political
orientation have been organized to promote social, economic and cultural justice for Mizrahim.
In a high profile campaign, the Mizrahi Rainbow Democratic Coalition (Hakahet) successfully
challenged in the Supreme Court policies of land allocation that favored descendants of the
veteran elite.
Unlike the Mizrahi groups, immigrants from the former USSR that arrived in the 1990s were
quick to organize politically and socially and to use their human capital and the relaxation of
the state's assimilationist perception to protect their cultural identity. Thus, a "Russian"
political party was formed shortly after the mass immigration of approximately one million
Soviet Jews began to arrive. In addition, cultural and commercial institutions were formed to
satisfy various needs and demands of the immigrants. Because of a strong feeling of cultural
superiority, the immigrants demanded to preserve their Russian cultural heritage and to dictate
their terms of integration into Israeli society. From the majority perspective, the Russian
immigrants were at times perceived not only as competitors in the labor market but also as a
threat to "cultural-religious space" (Horowitz and Leshem, 1998; Remennick, 2007). Overall,
Russian Jews hold hawkish, economic liberal and secularist opinions together with an ethnic
identity that keep them connected yet separated from the veteran society (Philipov, 2007).
Ethnicity, politicized and organized, has both material and symbolic aspects. Both Mizrachim
and Russians highlight past injustices and contemporary statistics to demand equality and fair
distribution of resources. Ethnic groups are also concerned with cultural-symbolic issues of
representation. Thus, in recent years Mizrahi activists have raised demands related to school
curriculum and the teaching of history, demanding to recognize Mizrahi culture in public life.
While some of these demands were framed in religious terms through the Shas Party, others
were made by secular activists who outlined their demands in terms of multicultural
recognition and justice. Russian immigrants have placed fewer demands upon the state for
recognition and have instead formed their own schools, media, and cultural outlets that
maintain their cultural distinction.
Conclusions
Nationalism, religion and ethnicity are the central fault lines in Israeli society, but are often
overshadowed by the "territorial debate" between hawks and doves. The fault lines also
overlap. Religious Jews tend to be more hawkish than secular Jews. Ashkenazim tend to be
more secular and dovish than Mizrachim. Russian immigrants are secular, but also more
hawkish than the veteran Ashkenazi group. Class is also a factor in these divisions; the Arab
minority and the ultra-Orthodox are the poorest groups in Israeli society, while Ashkenazim
are more represented in the upper economic circles than the Mizrahim and the Russian
immigrants. Class identity, however, is rarely, if ever, universal in Israel and is separated along
ethnic and national lines of identity.
While the cleavages described above – national, religious and ethnic – are interrelated and
overshadowed by the territorial debate, each division also has a life of its own, translated into
demands, struggles and initiatives. Overall, as argued above, previous arrangements are no
longer sufficient for the various groups. Accordingly, the demands raised by Arab citizens,
religious and secular Israelis and ethnic groups underscore the perception of the "overburdened
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polity." These cleavages contain both material and symbolic aspects as they relate to struggles
over resource allocation and recognition and to attempts of groups to shape public life or to
protect their own way of life.
Engagement with its old-new multicultural reality will be a major challenge for the Israeli state
and society. The outcomes of these struggles, no longer contained by a dominant center, will
depend not only on the demands of ethnic, national or religious groups, but also on the
opportunities offered by the state and the ability of Israel's democratic regime to accommodate
the challenges. Institutionally, new forms of representation will have to be created and new
spaces will need to be devised in order for groups to maintain their identity and for the
political system to re-assert its legitimacy and enhance its capacity to govern. This will
include reforms of the institutions related to everyday life: Education, health and security as
well as that of the "rules of the game" of the political system itself.  These changes are likely
to be crucial to the shape and form the struggles take in the next years and for the future of
state and society in Israel.
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