By Abraham Doron
The Paul Berwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The political parties affiliated with th e Labour Movement, that held power in Israel during the first decades of statehood, were faced with the enormous task of dealing with the difficult social and economic problems of the period. The dilemmas in the social policy field were strongly related to the leadership's Zionist-Socialist ideology that had crystallized during the earlier Mandatory period of the yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine. T he intransigent ideological positions adopted by the movement leadership hampered their efforts to deal effectively with the changed circumstances following independence.
This ambivalent position of the leadership was particularly obvious with regard to the provision of assistance to the needy. The political leadership was not sufficiently conscious of its obligation to provide for the disadvantaged, particularly in the case of new immigrants. It ignored the fact that every society, regardless of its social or ideological nature, must provide a safety net that assures the necessary means of existence to all. W hen in power, the Labour Movement failed in its obligation to introduce an adequate social assistance policy.
Political and social pressures reflected in the revelation of poverty, growing inequality and the appearance of protest movements – such as the Black Panthers in the late 1960s and 1970s – brought about some changes in the rather rigid approach of the Labour Movement parties towards social policy issues. During that period, there was a growing readiness among some of the leaders of the movement to change their position regarding social welfare policies. However, despite the fact that basic welfare state and social security provisions were introduced by the Labour parties while in power, the Labour Movement failed to translate these policies into achievements in its own eyes and as well in the eyes of the public as a whole.