ABSTRACT
This approach can also clarify the relation between ideology and the institutional organization of the Yishuv. For the most part, this organi zation was not the product of the social and historical heritage of an established community, but the outcome of conscious action on the part of different movements which joined on a common ideological basis. The most comprehensive ideological framework was the concept of “Zionism” in its broadest sense: the drive to establish a national center for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel through a process of immigration and settlement, and to form an autonomous community possessing its own political and cultural distinctiveness. Beyond this broad consensus, Zionism split into a number of political and ideological movements which differed from one another regarding “minimalist” or “maximalist” approaches, different visions of the new Jewish society to be created, and different views about the appropriate means for the realization of Zionist goals. The fact that the fulfillment of Zionism depended upon the construction of a new society made Zionism an ideology of radical change, although its adherents included conservatives. It also explains the importance of ideological factors in determining the balance of political forces in the Yishuv and the extent to which different groups in the Yishuv could be considered as central or peripheral.
