THE REVISIONIST MOVEMENT AND DEMOCRACY

Abstract

This article deals with the attitude of the Revisionist movement towards the idea of democracy. This will be examined by studying the attitude of the central figures of the Revisionist movement to democratic ideology. The first of these is Ze'ev Jabotinsky, founder of the Revisionist movement in 1925 who wished to present a Zionist policy that was different from the formal policy of the Zionist Organization. He adopted the rules of democracy within the organization but in 1931, during the Seventeenth Zionist Congress, he abrogated the rules after the Congress rejected his suggestion regarding the “final goal” of the Zionist movement. Consequently his movement left the Zionist Organization and in 1935 he founded the New Zionist Organization (NZO) whose aim was to replace the “old” organization. The second Revisionist leader was Menachem Begin, Commander of the Irgun and the founder of the Herut movement, established in 1948. He fully accepted democratic ideology, seeing the ballot box as the way of achieving power. His democratic vision was one of the elements that led him to become Israel's sixth Prime Minister.