Ben-Sira, Zeev

Zionism at the Close of the Twentieth Century: A Dilemma

1993 0-7734-9291-7
This study presents a theoretically justified paradigm comprising the conceptions of Zionism and the factors conditioning these conceptions, in order to answer the following questions of Zionism today: to what extent does Zionism reflect a widely assented ideology; can it serve as a mechanism for unifying the Israeli society; has Zionism, after the establishment of the State, lost its commonly assented goals, and if so, to what extent do the different ideological and political streams themselves incite and deepen the cleavage in Israeli society? The hypothesized paradigm was empirically tested by an interview study carried out among a cross-sectional sample of Jewish Israeli adults. The conclusions highlight the cleavage between two extremes: Universalistic and Particularistic Zionism.