Summary
Grinberg’s term for the repertoire born at the Wadi Salib Riots: ethnic misrepresentation through the subtle, manipulative channeling of collective feelings of fear, hostility and vengefulness to prevent direct political debate on ethnic claims, identities and conflicts (Moments of Resistance, PDF p.119).
Details
-
In 1959 Mapai mobilized the great majority of Ashkenazi voters through this repertoire while suppressing the uprising, transforming itself into the “political protector” of the Ashkenazi veteran population (PDF p.118-119).
-
The pattern was further refined and expanded after the second ethnic resistance mo(ve)ment of 1971-73, the Black Panthers (Israel) (PDF p.119), and after 1967 the “left”/“right” national myths legitimizing the occupation institutionalized polarized tribal politics of mutual incitement (PDF p.159).
-
In Chapter 4, tribal channeling of ethnic fears is named beside Condensation as the two repertoires by which political space was closed, first to ethnic and then to working-class representation (PDF p.150).
-
In Chapter 5 the repertoire is completed by Likud: Menachem Begin channeled Mizrahi revenge against the Ashkenazi elites through the Greater Israel myth — equality with those above and integration of Palestinians below under continued military discrimination — mobilizing Mizrahi votes from 1973 without opening political space for Mizrahi representation, at best co-opting local leaders in the development towns (PDF p.175-177).
-
Since the 1981 elections, Grinberg adds, everything was channeled into dichotomous “left”/“right” tribal mobilization — belonging and hatred of the Other rather than political ideas — which Arian (1998) calls a parties’ “cartel” tacitly cooperating to close political space to new actors; “dichotomous polarization” and “cartel cooperation” are two further repertoires beside condensation and tribal channeling (PDF p.180).
-
The long route from the Black Panthers (Israel) through Likud to Shas — which reconciled Mizrahi identity with a legitimate language of power, Jewish religion, while legitimizing the dual regime — was, given that regime’s power structure, misrepresentation rather than representation (PDF p.180-181).
Related pages
Moments of Resistance, Wadi Salib Riots, Condensation, Political Space, Movements of Resistance