Fighting for the Right's Last Bastion: Municipal Elections in Tel Aviv during the 1950s

• In Event: New Perspectives on the Right Wing in Israel

Abstract

The municipal - local political system formed an essential factor in the development of the Yishuv during the late Ottoman and the British Mandate periods. With the rise to power during the 1930s of Zionist – socialist parties in the national level, the municipal system became the bastion of right wing Zionist parties. The most vital political stronghold of right wing Zionists was Tel Aviv, the metropolis whose population included about a third of the Jewish community in Palestine.
Following the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, MAPAI Israel’s major socialist party that dominated the Israeli national politics sought to strengthen its power through gaining control of the municipal political system, as well. Tel Aviv formed the first priority in this context. Despite the efforts made by MAPAI, it took more than a decade and three election campaigns to win the municipality of Tel Aviv. In retrospect, this was a Pyrrhic victory. The effect of local politics on the national level seemed rather insignificant and the victory in Tel Aviv did not prevent the strengthening of the Israeli right in the 1960s nor its coming to power in the 1970s.

author

• Arnon Golan, University of Haifa