The Emergence of Militaristic Nationalism in Israel.

This paper examines the rise and entrenchment of militaristic as a most significant political development in Israel. The present analysis attempts to reach a clear understanding of the conditions under which militarism and nationalism gained ascendancy in Israel. In particular, it focuses on how the socialist potential of early class struggles, the Yishuv, and the labor movement was blocked and transformed during the first decades of the Israeli state. It has been argued that, in a swift political transition, development toward a socialist alternative and socialist hegemony under the Zionist national movement was replaced by labor etatism. The negation of socialism was the result of deliberate policy. Militaristic nationalism gained overwhelming consensual support. The Israeli statist system that has been analyzed holds definite signs, in comparative terms, to mention a few, of development in the direction of "state capitalism and a bourgeoisie order," of "economic and military dependency," " an instance of national domination," "part of an imperialist alignment of forces," etc. But what is specific is its point of origin, that is, its original socialist potential on the one hand, and the rapid and sharp subversion of this potential on the other hand.