Israeli Politics and Political Leaders

Abstract

Israeli politics has been characterized since the 1990s as both overloaded with social schisms that undermine existing political arrangements and suffering with a governance and leadership crisis reflected in the difficulty for elected politicians to make decisions and implement them. In the late 19th and early 20th century the visionaries of Zionism led European Jews to immigrate to Palestine and establish what would later be the State of Israel. The Labor Party that came to dominate the Zionist movement continued to dominate the young state from its inception in 1948 until the 1970s. In the wake of the Yom Kippur War, the party rapidly lost its hegemony and political power. Its successor, the right-wing Likud Party, was unable to replicate its hegemony and dominance. Growing schisms in Israel were manifested in the decline of the large parties and the emergence of small parties that have made coalition building difficult and rendered the decision-making process and policy implementation all but impossible. Since the early 1980s many governments have not been able to complete their terms and, more importantly, to contend with the major challenges the country faces.