(Page 9 of 25) - Decentralization, Civil Society and Ethnonationalism: Arabs in Israel authored by Haklai, Oded.

and coordinate political activities or to cooperate beyond the local village. Additionally, the
Military Government had authority to enter privately-owned places, seize anything they
suspected could undermine public security and administratively detain suspects for long
durations. Military courts had authority to try suspects in closed sessions for violating
regulations of the military administration. Ultimately, the ability of the Arab minority to
independently politicize was curbed by the means available to the military administration.
This was most forcefully demonstrated in the case of al-Ard, a pan-Arab group of young
intellectuals, followers of Egypt’s Nassir, who advocated the elimination of Israel. The
Military Government backed by the Ministry of Defense managed to curtail al-Ard’s
activities until the movement was finally illegalized in 1964 (Jiryis 1976, 187-96).

A second important factor influencing the capacity of the regime was Mapa’i’s

political hegemony that enabled it to exploit the vulnerability of the Arab minority and
establish clientalistic networks with hamula elites. Two interacting variables explain
Mapa’i’s hegemony. The first was the statist nature of the economy; the second was the
lack of state autonomy from Mapa’i. Indeed, not only was the state not insulated from the
Jewish national movement, but it was also dominated by the powerful faction within this
movement. Mapa’i’s dominance in the state, with its almost undisputed capacity to regulate
and enforce, meant that it played a significant role in the distribution of resources. Partisan
considerations played a role in allocation of subsidies for investment and regulation of
capital and labor (Aharoni 1998, 132-33). Its hold on the Histadrut reinforced its capacity
to provide patronage. Indeed, many of the Histadrut functionaries occupied senior
positions in the party. The Histadrut, already very powerful in the pre-state period, owned
much of Israel’s industry, remained a major employer, and was responsible for delivering
social services, primarily health-care and pension plans. When experiencing crisis, the state
would come to the Histadrut’s rescue with grants and concessional loans. The Histadrut, in
turn, not only provided material assistance to Mapa’i, but it also played an indispensable
role in sustaining the patron-client network that Mapa’i established with the Arab
minority by offering rewards to clients in return for political support for the party. The
rewards included such things as “white collar” jobs, grants for education, subsidized
agricultural machinery and other spoils.

Mapa’i’s control of the economy enabled it to establish hierarchical relations with

clients, including the Arab minority. Utilizing the vast resources at its disposal, the ruling party
managed to coopt the few Arab elites that did not flee during the war. The preexisting, traditional
networks of extended families were particularly useful for this purpose because the hierarchical
organization of the hamulah network itself already involved dependence of members of the clan
on the hamulah heads. Thus, Mapa’i and state authorities had only to coopt some hamulah elders,
a relatively small number of people, to be linked to the bulk of the Arab population. The practice
of hamulah elders serving as intermediaries between the Palestine Arab population and the
central government was already familiar to the indigenous population from the periods of
Ottoman and British rule (Miller 1985, 32-89; Pappé 1997, 164-65). When Israel was
established, these preexisting networks of relations between the central government, the
traditional clan elites and the local population were utilized. Furthermore, the intense internal
rivalry between hamulah patrons for influence within their local vicinities made them susceptible