Читать книгу The Invention and Decline of Israeliness - Baruch Kimmerling - Страница 10

CHAPTER 2

Building an Immigrant Settler State

Analyzed in terms of the state/civil-society paradigm that seeks to “bring the state back into” sociological discourse, contrasting it to civil society,¹ the Israeli sociopolitical system presents something of a puzzle, because there is contradictory evidence about the strength of the Israeli state, its capacity to govern, and its ability to make critical decisions.

On the one hand, the Israeli state has been classified, by Joel Migdal, for example, as a “strong state” with a tremendous capacity to mobilize its citizens (e.g., for wars or shaping an emergency economy).² This capacity is characterized by considerable law-enforcement power, which penetrates into almost every social formation and grouping of Jewish citizens, as well as by the ability to maintain surveillance over the Israeli Arab population and over noncitizens.³ To these characteristics, one must add the state's extraordinary role in the economic sphere: its ownership and control of enormous material and financial resources, and also its ability to control and intervene, through various agencies, in almost any economic activity. The state's ability to regulate economic activity is evidenced, not only by its high capacity to raise taxes and formulate monetary policy,⁴ but also by its ownership of over 90 percent of the land within its territory and enjoyment of an overwhelming influx of resources from external sources (loans and grants from other states and organizations such as the WZO, as well as private donations). Additionally, until the mid 1980s, the state not only owned its own economic (or business) sector, but also both closely controlled the public sector and was highly involved in the private business sector.

On the other hand, and perhaps in light of these characteristics, some have characterized the situation in Israel as “trouble in utopia.”⁵ This view implies that the autonomy of the Israeli state tends to be low, placing it at the mercy of rival groups.⁶ As these authors put it, the “ungovernable” tendencies of the system reflect an overburdened condition that stems from the state's inability to meet the contradictory political demands of certain groups and spheres, which are rooted in opposing fundamental ideological positions. These positions result from the state's dual identity, or what Hegel calls a “historically produced sphere of ethical life,” grounded in the identities of two rival civil societies (gesellschaftlich and biirgerlich)—one based on primordial ties and the other on civic orientations.⁷ In analyzing the dynamic between these rival ideological positions, like this book as a whole, this chapter takes a somewhat different approach to the Israeli collectivity, diverging from the conventional and orthodox views that have dominated the macro-sociology, social history, political science, and historiography of Israel.⁸

In order to develop this argument, it is necessary to introduce an additional dimension to the notion of the state that has been neglected by scholars of the state/civil-society paradigm. The founding father of this approach was Max Weber,⁹ and the additional dimension is collective identity, the unique “fingerprint” that distinguishes each state-society complex and is created through interaction between the state and civil society. Collective identities tend to impose explicit and implicit rules on the game, which serve to establish the perceived degree of freedom permitted by the state to its subjects from its position as “power container” and without regard to any specific value system or culture.¹⁰ As powerful and strong as it may be, however, the state cannot detach itself from the identities and mythic self-perceptions of its society's various populations.¹¹ In the case at hand, “society” refers to the population who identifies with a somewhat abstract notion of “Israel” that cuts across institutions such as the state, family, civil institutions, and voluntary associations (in the pre-state period, the Yishuv, or Palestinian Jewish ethnic community, was perceived similarly; see chapter 3). In addition, we are dealing here with the notion of a nation-state (the term “nation” indicating a generalized kind of primordial or ethnic identity with some structural implications), wherein “Israel” is primarily and ultimately conceived of as a “Jewish nation-state” (see chapter 6). In order to understand the major trend of development in this state, its strengths and weaknesses, and its degree of autonomy, it is thus necessary to analyze the diverse meanings of the term “Jewish nation-state,” together with the structural and cultural aspects of the state.

The term “state autonomy” refers to the ability of the state to prevent unsolicited interventions from, and the imposition of particularistic definitions of collective identity by, one or another segment of civil society. The intervention of a specific collective identity can determine the rules of the game or the practices of a certain distributive or coercive policy (both by making formal, constitutional impositions and by shaping informal political culture).¹² A spectacular demonstration of the social and political strength of particularistic identities powerful enough to destroy states and erect alternate strong ties and loyalties in their place can be seen in the dismantlement of powerful multinational states such as the Soviet Union and the Yugoslav Republic, in which particularistic groups associated themselves with ideologies that acted as alternatives to the officially defined identity of the state.

In contrast, the term “state strength” refers to the state's ability to enforce law and order, to mobilize the population for war, and to manage distributive and extractive fiscal policies, as well as to its ability to impose its own definition of collective identity on all segments of society.¹³ The first dimension of the notion of the “state” adopts the traditional Weberian concept. This concept views the modern state as a corporate body that has compulsory jurisdiction and claims a monopoly on legitimate means of violence over a territory and its population, a monopoly that extends to all action that arises in the territories under this entity's control.¹⁴

The state must have an institutionalized organizational structure, minimally including military and police forces, some sort of tax-collection and resource-redistribution apparatus (the state bureaucracy), some rule-making institution (parliamentary or otherwise), a decision-making institution (rulers and their delegates), and a judicial body (courts that act on the basis of a written code). These traits, however, constitute only one dimension of any state.

The second dimension is what makes each state cognitively and culturally different from the next, that is, its collective identity, collective memory, and culture. This body of collective knowledge is the core that tends to persist in the event of changes of government or even of the state's regime.¹⁵ It is not a mere matter of convenience that each state has its own name, banner, symbols, and anthem. The question of what makes the French state “French” and the Swiss state “Swiss” is much more essential. The collective identity determines, not only the geographical and societal boundaries of the collectivity,¹⁶ its basic credo or political culture, its specific “civic religion,”¹⁷ and its civil society, but also the implicit and explicit rules of the game.¹⁸

Finally, “state's logic” is understood to mean the basic codes, traditions, rules of the game, and practices that are unaffected by changes of government, administration, or even entire regimes. This “logic” is imposed by geographical constraints rooted in the human and material resources possessed by the state, its identity, collective memory, traditions, historiography, and political culture. This logic is employed mainly in the state's bureaucracy and in other state agencies, which represent particular intrastate agency identities and class interests. Thus, the degree of change when a Tory government in England is replaced by a Labour government, or when a Democratic administration in the United States gives way to a Republican one, is basically limited and restricted. Even after the Russian Empire became the Soviet Union and then returned to being the Russian state, some basic practices and perceptions of the Russian state persisted through the “revolutions” and were even protected and amplified by the new regimes. This is not to say that the “state's logic” and the practices derived from that logic cannot be objects of change. These changes, however, do not necessarily overlap with changes in government or even regime. Some changes in regime can even be connected to previous changes in the state's logic, which are by and large influenced by the state's position as an actor in the international arena.

Nonetheless, a state is not a homogeneous and harmonious entity; it includes several branches and institutions, based on different values and power foci. The very doctrine of “checks and balances” among different state agencies presumes the conflicts of interest that are built into the state. These power relations are evident, not only between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, but also within them, such as among the executive agencies of the military, the central bank, and the office of the prime minister or the president. When one part of the executive branch gains power or greater autonomy, the others may lose power or prestige, but the state as a whole does not become weaker or stronger.

THE COLONIAL STATE OF PALESTINE

It is generally assumed that what is officially titled the “State of Israel” directly originated in the Zionist movement.¹⁹ In addition to the political mobilization of persecuted Jews and encouragement of their immigration to “Zion,” however, the establishment of a Jewish state on the soil of the “ancestral homeland” was enabled by the support of the great powers. Although the Zionist idea and movement constituted a necessary condition for the creation of a Jewish polity in Palestine, the British mandatory or colonial regime established after World War II was an equally important factor.²⁰ While it was intended to maintain and guarantee British interests in the Middle East, the British administration was also intended to lay the foundations for the establishment of a “national home” for the Jewish people in Palestine.²¹

Mandatory Palestine was a typical colonial state. Its residents (a Palestinian Arab majority and a growing Jewish minority) did not have the right to determine policies and could only exert influence through negotiation and bargaining. Bargaining included the use, or threat, of both controlled and uncontrolled violence against the colonial power, Great Britain, and its local agencies and representatives.²² Like any other state, colonial Palestine maintained a regime of law and order through the mechanisms of a local police force and other security agencies. The colonial state was also responsible for:

 Establishment of a judicial system and passage of laws applying to the area within the colony's territorial boundaries

 Creation of a modern bureaucracy

 Issue of coins and stamps, development and implementation of monetary and fiscal policies, and systematic tax collection

 Funding typical state activities (road construction, telephone, telegraph, postal services, and radio broadcasting) through state revenues

 Provision of education and health services; facilitation of normal civilian life and minimal welfare; and

 Granting concessions, including rights for the establishment of an electric company, which brought about the rapid electrification of the country.

In addition to its support of both limited agrarian reform (mainly by encouraging the Palestinian Arab peasantry to redistribute their communal lands among households and register them as private lands) and a cooperative marketing system for agricultural products, the mandatory regime also provided partial protection to infant industries, loaned money for economic development, and extended credit for agricultural production. Passports and identity cards attesting to Palestinian citizenship were issued. Thus, in the brief span of thirty years, the regime created, not only a legal “Palestinian identity” and a limited notion of citizenship, but also a potential political identity for at least some of its Arab residents, who constituted a large majority of the population until the end of the colonial regime.

Mandatory Palestine was a minimalist state, which directly intervened in only a limited number of areas, preferring to extend wide-ranging autonomy to the two major national communities (Arab and Jewish) under its territorial jurisdiction. Prima facie, both communal entities can be defined, following Charles Taylor's definition, as civil societies in the maximalistic meaning of the term.²³ They were based on free association and were not under the tutelage of state power, yet by structuring themselves as complete systems, they were able to significantly determine or affect the course of state policy. If, however, we consider Hegel's conception of civil society as the societal space in between the family and the state, both communities in colonial Palestine were much closer to imagined familylike associations based on primordial ties than to the rationally based secondary groups that its theoreticians implicitly or explicitly presume to constitute civil society.²⁴

Prior to and during the initial stage of the creation of mandatory Palestine, the British and Zionist movements operated in accordance with two latent but jointly held assumptions, on the basis of which Great Britain agreed to assist in the establishment of a so-called Jewish national home. The first assumption was that the creation of necessary political preconditions would bring about massive Jewish immigration, measured in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions. This immigration presumed a radical change in the demographic and sociopolitical character of the territory under the British mandate, rapidly making it an entity with a Jewish ethno-national majority population. The second assumption was that Palestine's Arab population would not express firm, organized resistance to the process of massive Jewish immigration, or, alternatively, that it would lack the political and organizational ability and skill required to mold such resistance into effective political action. Strong Palestinian Arab opposition to mass Jewish immigration and to intercommunal Arab-Jewish land transfers subsequently confronted the British colonial regime with unacceptably high economic and political costs.²⁵

Thus, within a short period of time, the assumptions upon which the British pro-Zionist policy was based were proved wrong. First, it emerged that the Zionist movement's ability to recruit Jewish immigrants was limited, and that a fundamental and rapid demographic transformation of Palestine's Jewish population would not take place. Second, once they learned of the content of the Balfour Declaration, Palestinian Arabs began to organize themselves into a political protest, and even active resistance, movement in order to sabotage the British policy's declared aim of creating a “Jewish national home” and turning the country's Arab majority into a minority within a Jewish state.²⁶ This resistance movement shifted into high gear with the outbreak of the Arab revolt of 1936-39.²⁷ Palestinian Arab demands centered on the issue of the transfer of power, and ultimately sovereignty, to the national majority in Palestine. In order to attain this goal, Palestine's Arabs formulated interim demands, including the establishment of a legislative council, which would be elected democratically by the country's residents, that is, with an overwhelming Arab majority. They demanded, at the least, drastic restriction of Jewish immigration and legislation that would prevent the transfer of land-ownership from one community (the Arabs) to another (the Jewish).²⁸

When the British realized that their two basic assumptions were not, in fact, valid, they adapted their policy to suit the reality they confronted. The principal objective of British policy in Palestine became ensuring political stability in the area with the aim of continued control at a lower cost. In the wake of the Arab revolt of 1936-39, and in view of the heavy economic and political burden of quelling it, the option of abandoning Palestine became an actual alternative. The outbreak of World War II, however, forced Britain to defer decisions about the future of the mandate and of Palestine. Eventually, British departure would lead to one of two probable scenarios: either transfer of sovereignty into the hands of the Arab national majority or territorial partition of Palestine. The Peel Commission first proposed the latter.²⁹ The Palestinian Arab community rejected partition as a viable option, while the Zionists tended (until the 1942 Biltmore Convention) to accept partition in principle but not the specific plan suggested by the Peel report.³⁰

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN PALESTINE AS A “STATE IN THE MAKING”

Beginning in the mid 1920s, the Jewish immigrant settler community in Palestine became well aware of the possibility that within a relatively short period of time, in accordance with the worldwide decolonization process, sovereignty over the colonial state would pass into the hands of the territory's majority population (that is, its Palestinian Arab residents). In order to prevent such an eventuality, the Jewish community had to establish a parallel framework to that of the colonial state. In other words, there was a need for a Jewish “state in the making” that could provide the territory's Jewish residents with most of the essential services offered by any state. Defense, administrative machinery, education, welfare, health, and employment services were absolute neces-sities.³¹ The state in the making could also mobilize the exclusive loyalty of the Jewish community's members without risking a (premature) head-on collision with the colonial state.

The colonial regime provided the Jewish immigrant settler society mainly with the security umbrella needed for the community's growth and development in the face of the Arab majority's opposition. Although the Jews were not always satisfied with the pace and extent to which British security was supplied, in the long run, they were the major beneficiaries of the regime. The accumulation of institutionalized power and the formation of an organized machinery of violence by the settler society, together with the ability to mobilize Jews in Palestine and in the Diaspora for political ends, constituted two necessary conditions for the existence of Palestine's Jewish community as a viable political entity regardless of its size. Furthermore, the so-called organized Yishuv provided an immediate alternative to the colonial state that was destined to disappear together with the British colonial regime. In creating an entity with such considerable political potential, the Jewish community was forced to concentrate most of its institutions and manpower into the autonomous “state in the making.” Thus, the boundaries between “state” (i.e., the central political institutions) and “society” (nonpolitical but exclusive ethnic institutions) were completely blurred, as institutionalization of political organizations and leadership intensified internal social control and surveillance.

“Knesset Israel,” the quasi-governmental institution of the immigrant settler community in Palestine, overlapped, to a great extent, not only with the leadership of the Zionist parties,³² but also with the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency, the local operational branch of the World Zionist Organization. Within this political complex, the Histad-rut, or General Labor Federation of Jewish Workers in Palestine, was founded in 1920. This organization itself amounted to a quasi-statist mechanism. In addition to performing the usual functions of a trade union, the Histadrut owned manufacturing plants and construction firms (Solel Boneh and later the Koor consortium), marketing and purchasing cooperatives, a comprehensive health and hospitalization system, a bank, an employment bureau, a newspaper (Davar), a publishing company (Am Oved), and a competitive and mass-oriented sports organization (Ha'poel).³³ An entire subculture based on symbols—a (red) flag, anthems, ceremonies, parades, and festivals and holidays (May Day)—was also developed.³⁴ Owing to its vast economic and profit-oriented involvement and its status as a major employer in the system, the Histadrut was never regarded solely as a union movement that protected workers, but rather as an additional nation-building organ with its own economic and political interests vis-à-vis the other state-and society-building institutions, on the one hand, and the workers, on the other.

Not all the Jews in Palestine were part of this “state in the making.” For example, in the eyes of the local Orthodox Jewish community (including branches of Agudat Israel, the largest religious party in the Jewish world at the time), the colonial state was the sole recognized political authority.³⁵ The state in the making also excluded members of the Communist party, and to a certain extent, parts of the long-established Sephardi Jewish community, who were culturally and politically linked with the previous Ottoman regime, as well as the small Yemenite Jewish community. An issue that produced much controversy in the Jewish community of Palestine was the communal position of the Revisionist Zionist movement, which opposed the socialist-led coalition in the World Zionist Organization, arguing for a more assertive Zionist policy and for a bigger share of power, positions, and material resources. Another highly crystallized and institutionalized portion of the Jewish community in Palestine, the municipalities, held a central position in the polity. Even so, they were not fully integrated into the state in the making, mainly because they enjoyed the advantage of independent financial resources. The municipal councils, primarily those with nonsocialist petit bourgeois majorities, such as the municipalities of Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, were autonomous to some extent both from the British and from the central Jewish political centers. They played a mediating role between the colonial state and the Jewish ethnic community.³⁶ It should be emphasized that the very presence of these excluded groups indicates how clearly the boundaries of the state in the making were demarcated.

Although the organized Jewish community was not without its internal struggles and tensions, it had evolved unique mechanisms that could serve as safety valves to prevent the intensification of confrontations. One mechanism was a coalition of benefactors who raised external capital through “national funds” collected by various worldwide Zionist organizations and distributed by the local leadership. This was needed because the Zionist venture was a uniquely nonprofit and noneconomic settler movement,³⁷ which had chosen its target territory, not with a view to wealthy and abundant land, natural, and human resources, but instead at the behest of a nationalist utopia, driven by religious and primordial sentiments (see chapters 3 and 6).

THE STATE

With its declaration of independence in May 1948, in the course of what it refers to as “the War of Independence,” on part of the territory originally included in the British colonial state, the State of Israel set two primary goals. The first was to establish clear-cut boundary lines between the state and society and to achieve a dominant symbolic status for the state, or what might be called a “high stateness.” The second was to obtain an optimal level of dominant state institutions vis-à-vis other historical power foci in society. In the pre-state era, the boundaries between these foci and those of the state in the making were blurred or, in some cases, nonexistent. The Israeli state carried out its boundary-establishing activities in a gradual and systematic manner in order to prevent the creation of instability and the weakening of its own position in relation to the prestate power centers.³⁸ At the same time, it was in the state's best interests to maintain its alliance with groups that could ultimately assist it in penetrating new areas and peripheries and establishing a hegemonic order (see chapter 3).