Divided Nation of 10 Million

During the Israeli elections, I was very surprised to learn that it has a huge number of political parties (50+), and that coalition governments have been the norm for a long time. Imagine that: a country with a population of less than 10 million has more than 50 political parties!

 

I was reminded of that as I was reading Tim Marshall’s book, Divided. Jews make up 75% of the population, Muslims 17%. Jews fall under two categories: Ashkenazi and Sephardi. The former are mostly European origin, the latter from the Arab world. The Ashkenazi dominated Israeli politics because they were better educated, and they came earlier to the areas that became Israel. But the Sephardi have grown in power since then, and religious parties make or break coalitions, so their clout is disproportional.

 

The Jews are split into secular (49%), traditional (29%), religious (13%) and ultra-orthodox (9%). The last group is called Haredim. More on them later. Many neighborhoods are actually divided along these lines, though they’re all Jewish and they all speak Hebrew. Entire areas of cities like Tel Aviv are exclusively secular or religious. The most religious, the Haredim, are the poorest. They have far more kids than the rest, and they choose to stay unemployed, preferring to dedicate their time (and life) to reading the holy scriptures. Unsurprisingly, these groups hold diametrically opposite views on matters like marriage, divorce, and gender segregation:

“The religious parties tend to dominate matters of education and religion.”

The Haredim insist on enforcing the Sabbath on everyone, including measures like blockading roads in their neighborhoods to prevent cars from being driven!

 

Next up, the Arab citizens of Israel. They have full citizenship, with social and religious rights guaranteed by law. They have their own newspapers, broadcast outlets and yes, political parties. Yet most of them are educated in Arabic schools, and live separate parts of cities. And like the Haredim, they generally lie at the bottom of the earnings pyramid.

 

I was also surprised to learn that the Palestinian nation, should it be formed, would be like East and West Pakistan! The two parts, West Bank and Gaza, would be separated by 25 miles of Israeli territory. To make matters worse, the West Bank is ruled by the relatively moderate Fatah whereas Gaza is under the control of the far more aggressive and virulent Hamas. Did that make the comparison with Pakistan and Bangladesh even more apt?

 

All of which is why Marshall writes:

“We often use over-simplified, broad-brush descriptions such as “Israelis”, “Arabs” and “Palestinians”. This can be useful shorthand for understanding politics and geopolitics at the macro level, but scratch the surface and you find complexity.”