From reconciliation to confrontation: Menachem Begin and the Kibbutz Movement 1968–1981

Abstract

The Zionist-Israeli Right and the Kibbutz Movement have shared a longstanding and powerful historical rivalry, but their interrelationships were more complex than presented in historiography and recollected in public consciousness. This article seeks to systematically lay out, for the first time, the interfaces between Menachem Begin, the parties under his leadership and the kibbutzim. The discussion will focus on two periods: the first, which has received almost no attention in historiography – the late 1960s and early 1970s – a phase characterized by rapprochement and reconciliation between the leader of the Israeli right-wing party and the Kibbutz Movement. The second, the stage following the political ‘upheaval’ (1977) is better-known but has not yet been thoroughly researched. This period is characterized by an escalation in the relationship between the Likud, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the Kibbutz Movement. The article examines the contribution of both sides to this escalation, as well as the various economic, social, and political contexts within which it was manifested and its place in Israel’s political history at large.