Social Cleavages and Political Parties
Dr. Benyamin Neuberger

My presentation will focus on Israeli parties and their relation to social cleavages and ideological distinctions. My classification of parties will combine two basic approaches. The first approach is sociological, which defines and classifies parties according to social strata and social groups such as working class parties, bourgeoisie parties, agrarian parties, regional parties, ethnic parties or religious parties. All of these parties represent certain social groups in society.

The other is an ideological approach, which focuses on ideas, rather than social groups. Examples of ideological parties include capitalist parties, socialist parties, democratic parties, anti-democratic parties, conservative parties, liberal parties, religious parties, and secular parties. Here, these approaches are combined in order to analyze the Israeli party system by looking at the sociological and ideological cleavages, as well as the differences between them.

Seven basic cleavages in Israeli society are important. One cleavage is between the left and right in a socioeconomic sense. The next is between doves and hawks, and the third is between the religious and secular segments of society. The fourth is the Ashkenazi-Sephardi cleavage, and the fifth the Jewish-Arab/Palestinian cleavage, which of course refers only to citizens of Israel, not the territories. The sixth cleavage is between Zionists and non- or anti-Zionists, and the seventh is between 'Olim' (new immigrants) and 'Vatikim' (‘established’ citizens). Israeli parties combine these cleavages, and every cleavage has, in addition, a sociological and an ideological aspect.

Most Western countries manifest only one fundamental societal cleavage, and therefore only two major parties. In Britain, for example, the socioeconomic cleavage groups on the one hand - the working class, the ethnic and racial minorities, the immigrants, the poor, the slums, and the religious minorities, all of which are represented more or less by Labor. On the other hand, the middle class, the upper class, the Anglican Church and the establishment are all represented by the Conservative Party.

Israel has not just one but several societal divisions that do not overlap. For instance, doves and hawks are found within both the poor and the rich segments of society. This gives rise to four separate parties, which are then further divided by religious and ethnic cleavages, and so on. This is the primary reason for the numerous parties within Israel. The current Israeli parliament comprises 17 factions, but some factions are a combination of several parties. Therefore, there are currently 23 parties in parliament.

Israel Ahat - ‘One Israel’ - is a faction, but it comprises three parties - the Labor Party and two smaller parties, Gesher, the party of David Levy, and Meimad, a small religious party. These three parties made an electoral alliance and form one faction in the Knesset.

Another example: Ya’hadut HaTora (Tora Judaism), the ultra-orthodox faction, is composed of two parties - Degel HaTora and Agudat Israel, which are very much hostile towards each other. They agreed to an alliance only because otherwise they would not have reached the 1.5 percent threshold necessary for representation in parliament. A final example: in the former Knesset, the Communist Party allied with Azmi Bishara’s National Democratic Alliance, existed for a time as one faction, and then split.

The first cleavage in Israeli society is the classical European cleavage between socialists and capitalists, left and right. This was the most important cleavage in the 1920s and 1930s when the Jewish parties were established, and I would call it the formative cleavage of Israeli politics. It has very much declined in importance today, but it still exists. The Labor Party is still more associated with the trade unions than the Likud. In the 1950s, a leftist party in the socioeconomic sense was a party that promoted social equality, expanded social services, supported progressive taxation, a large public sector, state intervention in the economy, and a utopian just society in the form of the kibbutz and the moshav.

The right emphasized that inequality is normal and natural, and that equality is utopian and unrealistic. They promoted the private economy, private initiative and competition, and opposed the welfare state, the unions, the kibbutzim and moshavim. The rightist party of the early days was called the General Zionist Party, which was later swallowed by the Likud. The labor parties have traditionally represented the left.

Today the situation is completely different, as all parties have moved toward the center in a socioeconomic sense. The Likud, for instance, has accepted the trade unions, which it did not 50 years ago. Labor has accepted privatization, and the market economy. Therefore, the division is no longer as strong as it was before.

Still, research that I conducted during the 1999 election reveals that the differences have not completely evaporated. I examined all the platforms of the parties and singled out traditional code words for leftist and rightist ideology. The code words of what I call ‘rightist philosophy’ are: free economy, private sector, privatization, competition, efficiency, initiative, reduction of public involvement in the economy, reduction of taxes, and a reduction of foreign workers. The code words of the left in the public platforms were: social justice, solidarity, human sensitivity, equality, equal opportunity, struggle against unemployment, reduction of unemployment, government plans against unemployment, support for old people, for pensioners, for homeless people, for students.

According to the results of my code-word tally, I found that one party, Shinui, included only rightist code words, while Hadash, the communist party, is completely left in its codes. This division does not refer to foreign policy, only social and economic issues. Likud, the National Religious Party (NRP), and the Russian parties are centrist in terms of their code-word use, while the Labor Party and Shas are slightly left of center.

The sociological aspect of the left and right refers not to ideology, but to the social groups that support each party. For instance, some parties are supported by the working class and the poor, others by the middle and upper classes. Things have changed over the years, however. In the 1950s, Labor, which was called at that time Mapai, had some support among the middle class as well as the working classes. Herut, the forerunner of the Likud, had very strong support among the proletariat, even though it endorsed capitalist ideology.

Today, the Likud is sociologically more of a working class party than Labor, since more of the working class support Likud. Labor is regarded as the party of the left in terms of politics and foreign policy, but currently has very little basis in the working class or the poor sections of the population. When I speak of leftist parties with regard to sociological stratification, I am referring to parties that represent poor people. Parties that are clearly sociologically right-wing, however, represent only middle and upper class and have no support in the working class.

The religious cleavage divides parties and population groups as Haredi (ultra-orthodox), national-religious, traditionalist, liberal and secular in the Jewish sector and Islamist and liberal-secular in the Arab sector.

There are some parties whose programs, politics and leadership are Haredi but their supporters, voters and members are not all Haredi. Again, this represents a gap between ideology and sociology. The best example is Shas. The leadership of Shas is Haredi; all their members of the Knesset are clearly Haredi as is their platform and program. However, empirical research reveals that only 25 percent of those who vote for Shas are Haredi, while the rest are either national-religious or traditional. This explains why Haredi are only 10 percent of the population but ho20 percent of the Knesset seats, and the national-religious are 20 percent of the population but only 10 percent of the Knesset. Another party without a clear overlap between sociology and ideology is the Mafdal (National Religious Party or NRP). 20 or 30 percent of those who vote for the NRP are traditionalists, not national-religious people. The only party to demonstrate complete overlap is the Ya'hadut HaTorah, which is a Haredi party, supported 100 percent by Haredim. In this case, there is no difference between ideology and sociology.

Most of the voters for Madfal (the NRP) are national-religious, as are some of the voters for Likud and the rightist Ihud Leumi (National Union). From the Arab sector, the Islamic party gets the religious Arab vote. Parties that are overwhelmingly liberal or secular are Shinui, Meretz, the Communist Party, and Sharansky’s party.

With regard to the Sephardi-Ashkenazi cleavage, no party ideologically supports Sephardi separatism. The ideology of the Sephardi parties claims that communalism is very important, that they want equality, and that there is a need for a separate Sephardi party to preserve their culture and identity. We have always had communal parties: the Yemenites and the Sephardi parties in the 1950s, a party called Tami in the 1980s, and Shas today. Shas is a party based on communal origin, meaning that its people come from the Maghreb and other Arab countries, and regard themselves as Sephardi.

Some parties are based on countries of origin such as the Russian parties, which are also in a sense communal. There are three Russian parties currently holding seats in parliament. All the other Jewish parties besides these reject party grouping on the basis of origin, because they say it is contrary to Jewish unity.

Interestingly, the previous analysis was ideological, rather than sociological. Sociologically, there are far more communal parties than those who explicitly present such ideology in their platforms. Shas is a communal Sephardi party whose ideology and sociological basis overlap, as are Gesher and the three Russian parties. The Ya'hadut Ha’Torah and Meretz are ideologically not Ashkenazi parties, but most of their voters are. Likud, Labor, and the NRP are mixed sociologically, but the majority of Likud is Sephardi, and the majority of Labor Ashkenazi.

The Arab-Jewish cleavage can also be analyzed according to the sociological and ideological approaches. Many people in the past talked about the difference between the Arab parties and the Zionist parties. I think that was never a good classification because it did not take into account the Communist Party, which was mixed, and the ultra-orthodox, which were not Zionist. I prefer to differentiate between parties that emphasize their Arab and Islamic identity (the Arab Democratic Party of Daraw-sheh, the Islamic Movement, and Azmi Bi-shara’s National Democratic Alliance) parties that emphasize their internationalism (like the Communist Party) and Jewish parties whether Zionist or not. In the 1950s and today the Communist Party emphasizes that they are not an Arab but an internationalist party, even though most of their voters are Arabs. They always make sure to have Jewish as well as Arab members of parliament; even today one of their members is Jewish.

To obtain a sociological analysis, I classify parties according to the number and percentage of Arab-Palestinians voting for each. Some parties, such as Azmi Bishara's, are entirely Palestinian. Furthermore, all the voters for the United Arab List are Palestinian Arabs; no Jewish, Druze or Christian voters. The next category includes parties that are overwhelmingly Arab, such as the Hadash (Democratic Front of Peace and Equality). The Communist Party of the 1950s was equally balanced between Arabs and Jews, although this is no longer the case today. The fourth group contains parties that have a meaningful number of Arab voters, such as Meretz and the Labor Party. The parties for which only a small percentage of Arabs vote are the Likud, Shas, and the NRP. Some parties, such as Ya'hadut Ha’Torah, the Russian parties and the Ihud Leumi have no Arab voters.

It is also possible to analyze and classify parties as one-issue parties, two-issue parties, or multi-issue parties. Shinui is a one-issue party in that it emphasizes only religious issues.

Shas is a multi-issue party. They emphasize the religious issue, the Sephardi-ethnic and the social issue. Another distinction is between parties of integration and parties of representation. Parties of representation are simply political parties who compete every four years for election but do not do anything else, such as Likud or Shinui. Parties of integration run schools and kindergartens, and have housing projects and cultural institutions, like the Haredi parties or the Islamic movement. Additionally, some parties are based on organizations or on personalities, like Azmi Bishara's, Raphael Eitan's, David Levy's, and Lieberman’s party.

The historical classification distinguishes between old-established parties who in one way or another emerged in the 1920s and 1930s such as Labor, Likud and the NRP, new parties such as Shas and Meretz, and ‘seasonal’ parties that exist for three or four years and then disappear, such as the Third Way of the previous Knesset, or the Center Party in this Knesset (which I predict will disappear in the next election). The final differentiation is between system parties and anti-system parties. System parties such as Labor, Likud, NRP or Meretz are those that accept the current system, and anti-system parties like Ya'hadut Ha'Tora or the Islamic Movement are those that want to change it.