Power and Ritual in the Israel Labor Party: A Study in Political Anthropology: A Study in Political Anthropology by Myron J. Aronoff

Author:Myron J. Aronoff [Aronoff, Myron J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781317462323
Google: 5ZtzCQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 55495445
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1993-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Conditions during the 1973 Election

The Labor Party has undergone an unprecedented turnover at the helm of its bureaucracy. No fewer than five different individuals have served as secretary-general of the party. Pinchas Sapir temporarily resigned his finance portfolio (but remained a member of the Cabinet) while he laid the foundation for the consolidation of his dominant position in the party during his term as secretary-general and completed the consolidation of his position during the terms of his next three successors to the office. When Sapir resigned as secretary-general of the party to return to running the Finance Ministry, he was replaced by Arie (Lyova) Eliav. As I indicated in Chapter 2, Eliav sincerely pursued the official Labor Party policy of integrating the three former party factions, exemplified by his close cooperation with his two deputies representing the minority factions. However, this was in direct contradiction to Sapir’s unofficial policy of building a machine based on former Mapai loyalists. In Chapter 3 I showed that Sapir, and not Eliav, was clearly in control of the Standing Committee and the National Party Conference. Eliav even admitted this in his moving speech in the Standing Committee.

Eliav had been very closely identified with former Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. With the death of Eshkol, Eliav failed to identify himself closely with either Eshkol’s successor as prime minister, Golda Meir, or the emerging dominant figure in the party, Pinchas Sapir. In a party where patron-client relationships are all-important, and where the greatest avenue to political mobility is devoted loyalty to a top party patron, political independence is a major liability. Eliav paid a high price for his personal integrity and political conscience. He resigned as secretary-general and wrote a book (Eliav, 1973) in which he propounded his nonconformist political philosophy. This included views that at the time appeared to the mainstream party members, and particularly to Prime Minister Golda Meir, as extremely radical: the need to recognize a Palestinian entity, to make major territorial concessions, to take greater political initiatives, and so forth. However, since the October War, these views are much more commonly accepted. This began Eliav’s new career as a renegade within the Labor Party, ultimately leading to his resignation from the party in March 1975.

Eliav’s successor as secretary-general was Yisrael Yeshayahu, who had served as chairman of the Standing Committee. His tenure was brief, since when the Speaker of the Knesset died, Yeshayahu’s loyalty to the party, and particularly to its top leaders, was further rewarded by his election to this prestigious office.

Yeshayahu’s successor as secretary-general was Aharon Yadlin. Yadlin’s tenure in office was characterized by his lack of independent political initiatives. He dutifully minded the shop and carried out the policies and directives of his superiors. During meetings of national party institutions it was not unusual for Yadlin to receive a steady stream of instructions (in the form of written notes) from Sapir. During a critical meeting of the Central Committee (December 5, 1973) when a major confrontation between Prime Minister Meir

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