Hegemony Struggles in Israel: 1920s–2020s

As a background for understanding the constitutional crisis of 2023 in Israel, this chapter offers a brief examination of the history of Israeli political culture from the 1920s to the 2020s. This, through a Gramscian analysis of four ethoses that have competed for hegemony in Israeli-Jewish politics: the pioneering ethos of the settlers of the labor movement, before the establishment of the state; the etatist ethos (Mamlakhtiyut) of the early state period; the liberal ethos (sometimes referred to as a post-Zionist ethos) that arose in the 1980s; and the recently emerging Jewish ethno-religious ethos (sometimes referred to as a neo-Zionist ethos). Each of these ethoses had to confront competing residual, subversive or opposing ethoses, and managed to establish its hegemonic position only after subordinating elements of them. But the internal contradictions and tensions created by this did not dissipate, and with the change in social and historical circumstances, and with the addition of new factors, renewed hegemonic struggles broke out.