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Agrarianism in Israel's Party System*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Amitai Etzioni
Amitai Etzioni*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Extract

The agricultural sector of Israel's Jewish population is not very large; nevertheless the role of agriculture in the political life of the country is of the utmost importance. Seven of the sixteen members of the present cabinet (July, 1956) are members of kibbutzim (collective agricultural settlements). Twenty-six of the seventy-five Jewish members who support the government coalition in the 120-member Knesset (Israel Parliament) are members of kibbutzim or of moshvei-ovdim (co-operative agricultural settlements). David Ben-Gurion, Israel's outstanding leader, who is the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, retains his affiliation with a kibbutz and declares himself to be an agricultural labourer. Recently, for example, he relinquished all his official positions and left for a year and a half to do agricultural work in a kibbutz in Israel's pioneering frontier area, the Negev. The Minister of Finance, the Director General of the Ministry of Defence, and the Secretary General of the Histadrut (Federation of Labour)–three of Israel's key positions–consider themselves members of kibbutzim and take pride in their past as agricultural labourers. The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces, a most popular figure with the youth of the country, was born and raised in a co-operative agricultural settlement, and his father, himself a farmer, is a member of the Knesset.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 23 , Issue 3 , August 1957 , pp. 363 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1957

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Footnotes

*

This is a revised edition of a paper submitted to the round-table of the International Political Science Association, Geneva, Sept., 1956. It was written when I was a graduate student and research assistant at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and I am indebted to Professor Benjamin Akzin for his comments, which helped me considerably. For the general background of democracy in Israel and an analysis of the political parties of the country, see B. Akzin, “The Role of Parties in Israeli Democracy,” Journal of Politics, XVII, 1955. This paper deals with Jewish agriculture only. Arab agriculture in Israel and its political life are so fundamentally different from Jewish agriculture that they warrant a separate discussion.

References

1 As at Dec. 31, 1954, the Jewish population in Israel totalled 1,526,009, distributed as follows: urban, 1,161,030; rural, 360,637; in special homes for immigrants, 4,342. The rural population of 360,637 was distributed as follows: moshavot (agricultural settlements based on private ownership), 61,610; moshvei-ovdim (co-operative agricultural settlements), 89,850; kibbutzim (collective agricultural settlements), 76,115; other kinds, 133,062, including special kinds of moshavim and maabarot (new immigrants' settlements) and immigrants' camps. (Israel Statistical Yearbook, no. 6, 1955–6.)

2 The kibbutzim and moshvei-ovdim together constitute what is generally referred to as the “collective sector” of Israel's agriculture, as distinct from the “private sector” grouped mainly in moshavot, that is, settlements based on private ownership.

3 For a full comparative study of the pre-state (Yishuv) and Israeli society, see: Eisenstadt, S. N., The Absorption of Immigrants (London, 1954)Google Scholar; and Akzin, , “The Role of Parties in Israeli Democracy,” 515–17.Google Scholar See also Bentwich, N., Israel (New York, 1953).Google Scholar

4 For a recent study of kibbutzim and their structure, see: Garber-Talmon, J., “Social Differentiation in Collective Settlements” in Scripta Hierosolymitana, III (Jerusalem, 1956)Google Scholar; and Infield, H., Cooperative Living in Palestine (New York, 1944).Google Scholar

5 On moshvei-ovdim see: Garber-Talmon, J., “Social Differentiation in Communal Settlements,” British Journal of Sociology, 1951 Google Scholar; and Assaf, Ami, Moshvei-Ovdim in Israel (Tel-Aviv, 1954) (Hebrew).Google Scholar

6 For a thorough sociological analysis of the problems of change see Parsons, T., The Social System (Glencoe, Ill., 1951), chap. XI.Google Scholar

7 See Eisenstadt, The Absorption of Immigrants.

8 Bank of Israel, Annual Report, 1955, 61, 95.Google Scholar

9 Ibid., and Horwitz, D., The Development of the Palestinian Economy (Tel Aviv, 1948) (Hebrew).Google Scholar

10 For a description of the various political parties mentioned hereinafter, see Akzin, “The Role of Parties in Israeli Democracy.”

11 Israel Statistical Yearbook, no. 6, 1955–6.

12 This paper leaves out the Communists, because they have only a very limited hold in Israeli agriculture.