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In-Depth Information
isfaction with the conduct of the 1973 war, a sense that it was time for a change, and a political
upheaval in the thinking of many Mizrahim.
A generation after the mass immigration from predominantly Arabic-speaking countries —
especially North African ones — many socially conservative, traditionally religious Mizrahim
felt resentment at the predominantly Ashkenazic ruling establishment. Even before indepen-
dence, the Mizrahim had been strongly represented on the conservative side of the political
spectrum. For example, more than 50 percent of the members of the Lehi organization and a
considerable proportion of Irgun fi ghters had a Mizrahi background.
Looking back from the 1970s on the early period of immigration, many Mizrahim felt that
the Labor government had scorned them and had pressed them to conform. Their numbers,
especially those from North Africa, in top military, economic, political, and cultural positions
were still disproportionately low compared with their number in the general population. Con-
sequently, a majority of Mizrahim supported Menahem Begin's conservative nationalist Likud
Party, which won the 1977 election. Some corruption scandals in the Labor Party and the rise
of a short-lived centrist list also drew votes away from the incumbents.
For many in the dominant, secular, left-of-center Ashkenazic establishment, the Likud's
victory was traumatic. Underlying Israeli debates in the following decades was the cultural
bitterness caused by the establishment's belief that reactionary forces were transforming and
ruining the country. By the 1990s, however, the Ashkenazic -Mizrahi/Sephardic divide was
narrowing; arguably, the consensus achieved after the peace process experiment in the 1990s
mostly closed it.
The 1970s also saw the radicalization of some of Israel's Arab citizens. The military adminis-
tration of Arab areas ended in 1966. But the key factor in the shift was the rise of the PLO and
Fatah, which promoted both Arab and Palestinian nationalism among the younger generation.
The most heated moment came on March 30, 1976, the day of a general strike by Israeli Arabs
protesting land expropriations. The demonstrations turned violent, and six Israeli Arabs were
killed in clashes with the police.
Voting behavior shifted in the 1970s accordingly. There had always been a strong Arab vote
for Labor, but in the 1970s the proportion of Arabs voting for the Communist Party and other
left-wing parties grew. Yet very few Israeli Arabs joined in revolutionary activities — the most
signifi cant group was the tiny Abna al-Balad (Sons of the Homeland) nationalist movement —
and despite the turmoil often going on next door in the captured territories, few violent inci-
dents involved Israeli Arabs.
THE EGYPT-ISRAEL PEACE TREATY
Likud, the nationalist party that gained power in 1977, was generally skeptical about Arab will-
ingness to make peace and reluctant, for both nationalist-religious and strategic reasons, to
yield territory captured in 1967. Yet Prime Minister Begin concluded that his Egyptian coun-
terpart, Sadat, wanted a peace agreement. Egypt had broken with the Soviet Union and was
seeking U.S. patronage. Moreover, the loss of the Sinai oil fi elds and the closing of the Suez
Canal, fi lled with wreckage and mines from the 1973 war, was driving Egypt to economic ruin.
Finally, Sadat was a risk-taker ready to try a totally different foreign policy in Egypt.
