As I outlined in Part I of an overview of the origins of Israel’s current privileged class, I maintain that that “class” is an extensive network of political, economic, academic and cultural power that developed from the early 1930s and then entrenched itself in Israel society’s non-elected spheres. These institutions include the governmental bureaucracy; the juridical branch, which encompasses the investigatory and prosecuting arms as well as the courts; cultural bodies in their broadest sense; the media; and academia.
Following the Likud electoral victory in 1977, when the Labor Alignment declined by 19 seats, it became obvious to certain leading figures of that class that they faced a conflict, finding themselves confronting an altered demographic and political populace then that of the 1950s through to the 1970s. A very typical and even natural reaction was that of Yitzchak Ben-Aharon.
A former Knesset member and government minister representing the Ahdut HaAvoda faction with Mapai, he served as Histadrut General-Secretary in the early 1970s. Reacting to the victory of Likud under Menachem Begin, Ben-Aharon pronounced: “The people made a mistake.” And, he added, “If this is their decision, I do not respect it.” It was inconceivable that the policies of the left-wing governments could have been perceived as wrong, ill-suited to Israel’s new reality and acceptable in a democratic election to a majority of the voters.
The Sheli Party, a bloc of radical left-wing groups such as Moked, Uri Avnery and a Black Panther representative, published a call in the Davar newspaper of May 22, 1977, calling to turn the Histadrut national labor union into an instrument to “block the right” and “fight … to defend democracy in the country.” Whatever power they presume to possess is irrelevant to the idea that the Histadrut was viewed as a main anti-Likud weapon.
It needs to be understood that as a result of Israel’s pre-state and early state periods, its economic system was dominated by the Histadrut, itself dominated by deeply ideological Socialist parties. The Histadrut not only served as a trade union, representing the rights of workers, but also employed many tens of thousands, thereby creating for itself a contradictory agenda. It was a closed but self-generating money-making apparatus, as the Mapai-led governments up until 1977 exploited the situation to assure not only economic dominance but much more. The key to understanding its success is to realize, as many have observed, that it caused its members to be dependent on it for many of their essential services—from their birth to their graves.
From their ranks in the Histadrut, outstanding managers and leaders became political party activists, and many continued their “movement service” as members of the Knesset and ministers, some of them in charge of labor affairs and economic matters, if not the Israeli Treasury itself. They became director generals of ministries. They were appointed ambassadors and in charge of outreach programs to foreign countries.
Those with talent went into academia and the legal system, as well as the police, and, of course, the army. Moshe Dayan, for example, while on senior command active duty, as a Histadrut member attended meetings of Mapai’s Central Committee. The army not only eased the entrance of commanders in chief into the political realm—i.e., Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, Gaby Ashkenazi, Gadi Eizenkot, Benny Gantz—but they and other senior officers moved over to run state-sponsored industries, Jewish Agency departments, as well as positions in the World Zionist Organization.
All of these interlocking relationships created what I term the privileged class, with the white, secular and Socialist-leaning political and cultural elite at its core. From the early 1930s and on, this particular elite remained overwhelmingly in the hands of the founding generation’s progeny—the grandchildren and now the great-grandchildren. They are at the core of the current revolt of the elites over the past two decades.
As any sociologist will attest, interlocking relationships promote cohesion, coordinated action and unified political-economic power. The group power thus created significantly increases influence as well as an advantage over other groups, especially unorganized or disorganized elements. Moreover, eventually, the community of interest formed will fashion an elite.
There is an additional aspect, seemingly minor, to what I have described above, and that is in-built advantages that can be wielded to achieve compliant discipline among such elites. For example, there is the system of a budgetary pension. In 2023, a coalition crisis threatened the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett as then-Israeli Defense Minister Gantz demanded, and then received, an addition of NIS 1.1 billion for pensions of officers in the Israel Defense Forces.
As The Jerusalem Post made clear, that decision “gives the chief of staff the ability to increase future pension rates for officers currently serving in the army by up to 11%.” What follows from this, however, is that to continue to serve longer, it would seem logical for rising senior officers to be less of a bother for their superiors and less independent in their thinking. Ultimately, as Efraim Karsh has pointed out, a leading factor of the military failure during the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, was a process by which political ideological thinking led to an “emasculation” of the IDF and the ability of a clique to dominate, even such an institution as the IDF. It exemplifies the rot that has set in.
Similar “minor”, relatively unnoticeable underpinnings exist in all the foci of the elite’s power spheres. Consider recent academic articles framing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing spirit as well as the judicial reform program as populist ideas that lead to “illiberal tendencies.” Painting the Likud as a negative entity based on questionable and quite debatable interpretations not only of the Likud and its leaders, but the very themes they select, and thereby assigning an academic glow to it all, again illustrates the influence value of the interlocking system I observe.
The elites see themselves as the “true” owners of the state. They are mostly the progeny and those appointed by the founding generation establishment, the secular Ashkenazi veteran Israeli left of Tel Aviv, and surrounding kibbutzim and moshavim, whose former agricultural lands are either worked by foreign laborers or have been sold for shopping malls. Their bases are in the Supreme Court, senior bureaucracy (with singular powers awarded to the attorney general), and the senior security establishment (the Shabak and the Mossad), along with ex-generals who fill the auditoriums of various conferences that seek, though the mobilized media, to dictate to the public and the government what to do and how to act.
A stark example are the words of Amiram Levin, who wrote this week, “We’re getting close to disobeying an order … Netanyahu’s government is dragging us into a situation in which obeying orders would be much more dangerous and harmful, and would destroy the ideological basis on which the army was built.” He added, in a direct call to serving military personnel: “Chief of staff and staff generals, you must refuse to continue a pointless war … whose real goal appears to be warfare for warfare’s sake.”
Levin sets himself up, together with his fellow retired insubordinates, to define ideology—his ideology—which would have overcome democracy and the law.
Levin reached the rank of IDF major general, commanding the Northern Command, and served as deputy chief of the Mossad. And true to the elite’s old-boys club arrangements, after his retirement, he became director and chairman of the National Roads Company of Israel, a rather cushy job placement.
Not only is there rot in the “privileged class” reality of Israel’s Old Guard, but a serious danger to society as well.