From labour Zionism to New Zionism

Abstract

The evidence in this article suggests that the appeal of New Zionism is due at least in part to its ability to breach the gap between the excessively routinized ideology and current events in Israel. Labour Zionism had provided its adherents with a new, secular national identity, the core value system which consolidates a society.1 It remained accepted and served to legitimize the political center as long as it fulfilled this function. But once it failed to do so, it lost all appeal. The state and, consequently patriotism for its own sake, had become the only remaining value. Without further justification, the young regarded this patriotism as “sounding like slogans from a Zionist book.”2 By equating patriotism with Zionism, routinized Zionism was identified with what it had itself rejected. And, indeed, without a value system delineating national identity, patriotism is meaningless. The events of the Six Day War did not create the crisis of identity, but precipitated it by making Israelis aware of it. These events also favored New Zionism above all other attempts to formulate a new Israeli ideology as a basis for a renewed national identity. An ideology based on Jewish religion may not have been as successful under different circumstances. Under the given ones, it furnished the best answer to questions existential to Israelis.