ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the importance of long-term demographic change—particularly how generational replacement can alter the balance of partisan forces, and the complexity of demographic change in a society with strong ethnic differences. Israel's political future depends on many factors other than demographic change. Between 1969 and 1988, the number of Israeli Jews of Asian and African origin increased substantially through generational replacement. In 1988, the relationship between age and support for Labor-Mapam was negligible; the support would have been virtually the same even if there had been no generational replacement. The chapter analyses the relationship of age and ethnicity to attitudinal differences; it seems unlikely that the ethnic differences result from attitudes toward a single issue. The impact of ethnicity has varied from election to election, and was clearly higher in 1977, 1981, 1984, and 1988 than in earlier elections.
