Are we really as divided as we keep telling ourselves? Supposedly, this is an unnecessary question when one hears the pounding of the "tribal drums," calling on each of us to go to war against any "them": against Arabs, Messianics, secularists, ultra-Orthodox, slaves and liberated women.
The face distorted by hatred, which was reflected to us from the demonstration of the "secularists" in Bnei Brak, is only one of the manifestations of the group psychosis that is sweeping our society. Let's hope this murky current doesn't develop into violence.
In such a situation, is there any point at all in talking about an Israeli political collective, about a human kibbutz capable of standing up for its life against an external enemy, and no less important – to set itself a vision that will guide it for the future?
It must be understood that there is no uniform modern human society. All human societies, and certainly the most developed ones, are very diverse societies. All of them have minorities – national, identity, religious, linguistic. Nationalism (and in our case Zionism) is a very important winning force. But contrary to its image, nowhere – neither it nor its main political tool, the nation-state (and in our case the Jewish state) – has created a unified society devoid of shades. The more successful nationalism was, the more it created a political grouping of men and women whose unity transcends the divide.
So does the hatred that conquers hearts and minds within us prove that we have failed to create such a grouping? It takes historical observation to calmly examine this question. If we introduce a kind of historical thermometer into Israeli society in the 50s to examine the degree of cohesion in that society, we will find that it was so fragmented that it is doubtful whether it was possible to speak of a single Israeli society at the time: a society whose population doubled in two and a half years; that the immigrants to it came from other continents, with foreign languages, such separate life experiences; that the ultra-Orthodox belong and do not belong to it; that it has defeated Arabs who certainly do not belong to it; Even after the 50s, it continues to absorb waves of immigration one after another with short breaks. Israeli society in previous decades was, therefore, much more fragmented than it is today.
The various groups in Israeli society are actually undergoing very strong processes of Israelization. It is difficult to discern this in the emotional experience that we have all been going through in recent years, and it is possible that the reason for this gap lies precisely in the processes of Israelization: the more the various groups undergo such processes and leave their enclaves, to a certain extent at least, the greater the real friction between them and the greater the mutual threat. Conflicts increase precisely because intergroup boundaries are blurred.
This can be seen in the clear case of Mizrahi-Ashkenazi relations. It would be absurd to talk about the "Israelization" of Mizrahim, because Israelis of full or partial Mizrahi descent are one of the obvious bases of Israeli identity. But it is precisely for this reason that an "Ashkenazi" backlash is emerging. We see it at the Kaplan demonstrations in Tel Aviv, and for that matter, the exact ethnic origin of the demonstrators is not at all important. It is the giver: conflicts increase precisely as groups mix. We thought that "intermarriage," and in general the involvement of groups in each other's lives, would bring social peace – and we were wrong.
How to explain this paradoxical process of polarization precisely because of mixing? Many explain it with incitement. They point to politicians like Avigdor Lieberman, who threatens to throw ultra-Orthodox Jews into a landfill, and like the provocateurs who sent demonstrators to Bnei Brak in the hope of a violent outbreak.
But why are the manipulations of the instigators successful? After all, Lieberman is only exploiting a social disease, he has no power to create it. The scholastic psychosis that attacks us must be explained by structural explanations. One of the main ones is the simple, but emotionally difficult explanation to accept: precisely the more our lives are woven into one tissue, the greater the friction and the greater the intergroup threat.
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