The Declining Roles of Labor Zionism in Modern Day Israel

Of all the political forces that have driven and defined the formation of both the Yishuv and the state of Israel, the Labor Zionism movement has undoubtedly been one of the most influential. Formed by utopian socialist thinking made popular especially during the second and third aliyot, what started as small labor federations among new settlers in the region eventually blossomed into a movement that controlled many of the most vital institutions of the state, including the Prime Minister's office, all the way into the late 1970's. Given the widespread appeal of both socialist ideas in general and their own idealistic vision of a country born from labor revolution, self-sufficiency, and the indomitable pioneer spirit, the Labor Zionists were able to attract - and hold - a great deal of enthusiastic support for their cause. Yet, ultimately, Israel settled into a state of social or "liberal" democracy, leaving behind much of the socialist fervor of its earlier days, and abandoning the dreams of the early Labor Zionists for a socialist utopia in historic Palestine. Thus, the ultimate goals of the Labor Zionists have not been realized in modern day Israel, though it certainly seemed for a time they might be, given their widespread success in earlier years, especially those before the establishment of Israel.

In the beginning, the ideals behind the principles of Labor Zionism that would later come to build the very foundations of Yishuv society from the ground up were but a whisper. At heart, these ideals rejected the class divisions of an increasingly Industrial western world, embracing instead the "harmonious and egalitarian" dream of socialist communities with no private ownership (Gelvin 67). In a more practical sense, they were also largely a response to what Labor Zionists would come to see as a flawed practice of the first aliyah: to rely heavily on the "cheap and plentiful" labor of indigenous Arab populations (Gelvin 67). This kind of dependence was widely seen to be counterintuitive to the greater goals of the Zionist movement, undermining any possibility of creating a strong, self-sufficient Jewish nation with its own strong, self-sufficient economy, and even deterring potential investors and immigrants by causing a significant depression of labor wages.

One of the first key manifestations of these Labor Zionist ideals in the apparatus of a Yishuv state was the formation of the Histadrut, a labor federation that was to provide for its members "credit, health care, and education," and was even able to "regulate the size of the labor market by pressuring Jewish employers to hire its members exclusively" (Gelvin 68). The settlers of the second and third aliyot complimented such labor organization with political parties to support their interests, namely the Poale Zion (Workers of Zion) and Hapoel Hatzair (Young Worker) groups, who would join to form the powerful Mapai, or Labor Party of Israel, in 1930 (Gelvin 68).

These institutions were instrumental in helping the Yishuv to grow and function as the Labor Zionists intended, as was the paramilitary force they developed, the Haganah, which formed the early basis for what would become the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) after the establishment of the Israeli state. In terms of the organization of their actual laboring, the Labor Zionists imagined and experimented with communal and cooperative farming settlements called kibbutzim and moshavim, which, as noted Israel scholar James Gelvin observes, "combined the social laboratory so dear to utopian socialists with the Romantic obsession with nature and territoriality" (69). Though only a small minority of the Jewish population in Palestine at the time actually belonged to any such community, they would become powerful symbols for the central ideals of the Labor Zionism movement: unrestricted community and self-reliance, and the conquest of new land.

Though the majority of immigrants of the second and third aliyot did not remain in Palestine, the determined presence of those who stayed, whose numbers were still relatively formidable, ensured the dominance of the principles of the Labor Zionists in the region for many years to come. But their interests certainly did not go unchallenged. The hands-on secular values of the Labor Zionists had long been challenged by the more religious Zionist parties like the Mizrahi, and, most successfully, by the Revisionist Zionists, initially followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky. The Revisionists largely came to be composed of immigrants from the fourth aliyah, who identified themselves more as refugees than as pioneers, like those from the second and third. They were not, as Gelvin asserts, "young, idealistic, middle-class student types," but "businessmen and shopowners," who identified more with urban localities than rural ones, settling largely in Palestinian cities (72).

Just as Labor Zionism was a response to western social organizations, Jabotinsky's particular brand of Zionism, which came to be called Revisionist, was largely a response to Labor Zionism itself. Jabotinsky and his followers believed that the socialist ideals of the Labor Zionists were irrelevant to the true goal of Zionism itself: "the establishment of an independent Jewish state in (all of) Palestine," and that their unrealistic and ineffectual ideologies and organizations only divided Zionists further in pursuing this cause (Gelvin 74). Thus, Revisionist Zionism proved to be far more militant and nationalist in its aspirations than its socialist rival, and came to form the modern Likud Party, which still forms the primary opposition in Israel to the spiritual successors of the Labor Zionists, the Mapai Party (Gelvin 74).

Though they remained in power for quite some time - every Prime Minister of Israel was a proponent of Labor Zionism until 1977 - rapidly changing political conditions would begin to force the Labor Zionists to reconsider, and if possible, adapt, their ideologies to protect the interests of a new Israeli state. Tax reforms, military reorganization, and a relinquishing of Histadrut's control over educational institutions to the state were among the earlier reforms of the Labor Zionist governments in Israel, which attempted to centralize government power in order to stabilize internal discord and strengthen Israeli autonomy, locally. Ultimately, however, Labor Zionists were unable to effectively adapt to the economic and political stresses that became increasingly urgent after the 1967 war. Gelvin attributes some of these stresses primarily to two factors: "international financial crisis," and "the rigidity of Israel's political and economic institutions," as they had been developed by the Labor Zionists (188). As a response to both these conditions and a lack of any clear, effectively unified response from Labor Party governments in recent years, popular political favor began to fall increasingly to the Likud Party, who advocated such strong-arm, militant-expansionist tactics in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the continual creation of numerous new settlements, or "facts on the ground," with unprecedented zeal (Gelvin 188-189). Since then, several Likud candidates have been elected Prime Minister of Israel.

It is difficult to discern whether Labor Zionism's problems adapting to more modern conditions result more decisively from a lack of action or effective political strategy, or simply from some deeper impracticality of adapting its socialist ideologies to a modern political climate its early champions could not have foreseen. Either way, it seems that government institutions in modern day Israel have begun moving gradually and permanently away from socialist principles in an increasingly contested and increasingly urban landscape. This is not to say that the Labor Party has no place in modern day Israel, certainly they still hold a great and necessary influence over Israeli politics, and their vital role in forming, refining, and controlling Israel's government institutions throughout most of the last century is unmistakable. It does, however, seem rather unlikely by this point that Labor Zionism could ever become an uncontested majority, certainly to the extent it would require to uphold not only the main goals of Zionism, but those imbued with their own socialist sentiments.

Works Cited

Gelvin, James L. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War. (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 67-189.