Fateful Triangle

Israel and Palestine: Historical Backgrounds222for Ronald Reagan, according to electoral analyses here. The leadershipis particularly disliked. While 30% of the electorate support theAlignment, only 4% support its leader, Shimon Peres, “a shockingattitude.” Among Oriental Jewish workers from the development townswho are employed in the kibbutzim, 70% voted for Likud, as comparedwith a 60% Likud vote in the Oriental community as a whole, areflection of the “servant-master” relation between the Oriental Jewishproletariat and “the two socialist institutions that serve as the showwindowof the Labor party,” the Histadrut and the kibbutzim. Thekibbutzim are hated by the working class particularly for their attitudesof “arrogance” and “bossism,” and for “the impossibility of establishingreal human relations with kibbutz members.” The hatred is in fact“increasing” (referring to the development town Beit Shean). In the lastelections, the vote for Likud increased beyond the national average inregions where there was a concentration of kibbutzim alongside ofOriental Jewish communities in moshavim (semi-collectivizedcommunities) and development towns.Another source of bitterness is memories of how the refugees fromthe Arab countries were received and treated in the Ma’abarot (transitionalresettlement camps) in Israel. One educated Oriental Jewish businessmanwho “succeeded in breaking out of the circle of poverty anddistress” (a 1951 immigrant from Libya) recalls that in his Ma’abara,“all the managerial positions were held by Ashkenazim [Europeans]. Thebosses were only Ashkenazim.” “When we arrived in the Ma’abara,” hereports, “there were many Poles and Rumanians among us, but after afew months you would see how whole communities of themdisappeared, while we remained stuck in place.” The Ashkenazim wereassociated with the Labor Party (Mapai). “They treated us like thirdclass citizens. They subjected us to extensive brainwashing, and wantedto break our connection with our culture and our traditions [a long-Classics in Politics: The Fateful TriangleNoam Chomsky