In 1954, for example, tuition fees
in secondary schools in Israel were
about 20 Israeli pounds. As the aver–
age salary was 60 pounds, working
people and new immigrants could not
afford to send their children to high
school. In the 1920s and 1930s the si t–
uation was exactly the same.
Nevertheless, Ben Gurion and other
government members did not hesitate
to pay high fees for their own chil–
dren. I claim that by 1977, the year of
Labor's fall from power, Israeli society
as a result of an ideological decision
lagged far behind countries like
France, or Britain under Labour. That
is why the Israeli underclass still votes
for the Right and sees the "Left" as
the hated establi shment. In fact, our
Left was never social-democratic, but
nationalist: the kibbutz never repre–
sented more than 6 or 7 percent of the
population. Even at the peak of its
power in the 1940s, it was an instru–
ment of nation-building rather than
the prototype of an alternative society.
I also ask in the Zionist context a
general question: is a national move–
ment aiming at a cuI tural, moral, and
political revolution, and whose values
are by their very nature of a particular–
istic character, capable of coexisting
wi th the universal values of socialism?
My conclusions are different from
apologetic interpretations and are
linked to the very nature of our
nationalism.
Last but not least, it was not bad
leadership but a general agreement to
pursue the tradi tional Zionist policy
ofJait accompli
in the occupied territo–
ries, based on our historical rights and
on the traditional organic nationalist
argument, that has caused the cata–
strophic si tuation on the West Bank.
It was an ideological decision, not a
product of political weakness. It took
Rabin over twenty-five years after the
Six-Day War to realize that a Pales–
tinian national movement existed, and
a few years more, from the beginning
of the Intifada, to understand that we
will not be able to "break the bones"
of the Palestinians fighting for their
rights of liberty and independence.
H is assassination calmot change the
historical record.
Zeev Sternhell
Hebrew University
oj
Jerusalem
