ABSTRACT
Up till the year 1925 the Zionist political system lacked a right wing. The majority of Zionists embraced liberal national views. The minority, which in course of time would become the dominant political force, had a national, socialist and constructivist outlook. 1 The right wing consisted of a conservative national religious party, the Mizrachi, founded at the beginning of the century, as well as various groups representing the ‘middle classes’ in Eretz Israel. Mizrachi was considered a clericalist party, whereas the bourgeois circles were leaning towards liberal social values. Actually, as early as the 1920s two kinds of social orientation could be discerned within this bourgeoisie, which went by the name of ‘Civilian Bloc’: a conservative and a liberal-progressive tendency. The first was represented mainly by village farmers (the inhabitants of the moshavot) and citrus growers, whereas the second group was composed of the urban intelligentsia and professionals. This last group showed a positive and supportive attitude towards the Labour movement, whereas the first fought its growing influence, particularly in the areas of local economics and labour relations. Prior to 1925 only one attempt was made in Eretz Israel to establish a political coalition with a well-defined ‘rightist’ political signature. Its founders included descendants of ‘veteran’ yishuv members, such as Itamar Ben-Avi (the son of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda), and representatives of the second generation from the old-established agrarian settlements, the moshavot, including Alexander Aaronsohn, the brother of the noted agricultural researcher Aaron Aaronsohn. Their group, the Benei Benyamin (‘Sons of Benjamin’), failed to become a political force, nor did it succeed in generating a practical ideology. 2 There existed no formal or effective links between the ‘rightist’ organizations which emerged under the particular circumstances prevailing in Eretz Israel prior to and following the British occupation — except that they represented the interests of the well-established groups in the Jewish Palestinian society and economy — and the ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’ Eastern European Zionist public. Although these ‘liberal’ groups shared several principles (among which a fear of the growing strength of the Left!), a common ideology or organization was not one of them. They faced many difficulties in their efforts to formulate a general ideology and to gain political power in Eretz Israel. The leading force in the Zionist movement was the ‘Liberal Zionists’, but they lacked a defined ideology.
