A. Lord:
Jewish self-denial:
Kurzweil and Mordechai Shalev already noticed in the early 1950s, the destructive role that Marxism plays in the life of the youth in the country, in the negative impact it has on the personality of the sabra. "The extreme left [referring then to Hashomer Hatzair and the unity of labor. A.L.] has a very real, very practical idea, though also very foreign to the spirit of our people and its tradition," Kurzweil wrote in his famous essay (1953) on the Canaanites: "... As for Marxism and its chances, there is no exaggeration. In the Israeli adaptation, it is consistent to the point of suicide. And it is so realistic and very alive among the youth." Even today we would say "to the point of suicide." So, in the early fifties, it was an adherence to the very end, a deep identification with Stalin's leadership, with the world of Soviet of tomorrow. Today, it is the psycho-political dependence on the PLO's mouthpiece and the provision of automatic ideological theoretical protection for every act of murder and every occurrence within the Jahiliyah of the Palestinian Authority.
If we trace the ideological thought of the left in Israel, we find that there is a second thread that runs from the days of Stalinism at its peak to the present day. First, it is the intellectual mechanism that enables people to identify with their oppressor to the end. Second, and most specifically, Stalin's curse on Zionism has driven the anti-Zionist and anti-Israel flywheel that generates hatred of Israel in the Western world to this day. This, of course, connected with the curse of Hitler, which was very popular and well-liked by the Arab national movement, and especially the Palestinian one. Since then, endless "Prague trials" have been conducted against Zionism, and only the language is constantly updated. The interesting question, to which there is no absolute answer, is: to what extent did the intellectual-political patterns of behavior of the Communists permeate the left as a whole.
Translated at DP, Poisonous Stalin's anti-Zionist Marxism at radical left minority in Israel
thanks for the article
the big thing about the initial socialized communities in Israel was.... that membership and participation was voluntary.
a second important consideration was that successful community development did depend a lot on “everybody pitching in” — a largely-shared effort, in other words. Thus, there was a strong reason for people to volunteer to join socialized communities like Israeli kibbutzim
As the years went by, these advantages of joining into a socialistic township wanted. The communities voted to create capitalistic enterprises to manufacture goods for export. Most of the initial socialistic communities became mostly-free-market oriented towns and cities.
Strong vestiges of socialistic organization continued in the government for several years beyond that. A significant unraveling of same eventually happened, but even now the government remains ... well, how to approximate it? Sort of along the lines of a western European country, more or less, with some sectors and activities largely released for free market enterprise while others remain pretty much regulated, for better and for worse.
IMHO, housing and community development need to be released from under the central government’s thumb. The restrictions on home building have created an extreme housing shortage. Also, Tel Aviv is now the world’s MOST EXPENSIVE city to live in (!!! can you imagine that!!! Not Honolulu, not Paris, but T.A...a nice enough city but REALLY!!), a condition that really stinks, frankly, and is so very, very unnecessary.... This grossly-distorted market is driven up largely by the governmentally- created housing shortage. No other people on earth would tolerate such abuse, imposed hardships, by their central government in the most essential aspects of their daily lives.
Socialism only works at all when it is voluntary, as Israel’s socialism largely was 75 or 100 years ago. Forced socialism does NOT work, not anywhere, and certainly not over the long run. It is a failed political system.