ROBERT WISTRICH
451
represent today over ten percent of the entire Jewish population of the
country. Although there are many problems relating to the integration of
the Russian
aliya,
it has nevertheless had a considerable impact, contrib–
uting to the consumer boom in Israel. The Russian immigration may
even have a decisive impact on the outcome of Israel's upcoming elec–
tions. These elections wil be determined not only by the peace process,
the level of the terrorist threat posed by the Hamas and the Hezbollah,
but also by bread-and-butter issues which are the normal stuff of politics
in the Western democracies.
Obviously, questions relating to the territories, war and peace, and
personal security are of overriding importance. The quality of leadership
and the respective strategies offered by the leaders of the two main parties,
Shimon Peres, the Prime Minister, and his Likud opponent, Benjamin
Netanyahu, will certainly influence the electorate. So, too, will the per–
spectives on offer for enabling Israel to maintain its national unity, to
conduct an all-out war on suicide terrorism, and at the same time to con–
tinue on a path that can guarantee its prosperity and economic integration
in the Middle East.
I believe that despite the violence, enmity, and fanaticism with which
Israel has to contend, this economic factor will play an increasingly im–
portant role in the consciousness of Israelis, in their perception of their
own country and its future, and in understanding and defining their own
identity. Despite or because of the boom, disparities of income in Israeli
society have in fact been growing fast over the last decade. Analysts of Is–
raeli society sometimes see this as one of the symptoms of the
"Americanization" of Israel, which, in tum, provokes a great deal of in–
ternal polemic. Some people, including intellectuals, often see this as a
bad thing. For them, Americanization implies a materialistic, consumer–
oriented society which will be in danger of losing its coherence, its value
system and core beliefs - the Zionist ideology and the myths that sus–
tained it in the early years of the Jewish state. Others are more sanguine
about the effects of the new individualism, the technological sophistica–
tion and economic liberalism which are freeing the country from the
tyranny of outworn ideologies and dogmas. For them, an Israel which has
outgrown its mystique of "heroic," self-sacrificing patriotism seems at
once both more modem and more mature.
The optimistic view has much to recommend it, though it ignores
the accelerating social gap between haves and have-nots, the latter left
behind and rendered obsolete by the rapidity of technological change.
This is a serious problem in all Western societies, including the United
States, but in Israel it is potentially explosive, given the crucial role played
by social cohesion in maintaining national unity and purpose. This brings
