Who Needs Solidarity? Ethnic Diversity and the Israeli Welfare State

A heated debate focused on the impact of multiculturalism and ethnic heterogeneity on welfare state generosity has emerged in recent years. At the center of the debate is the argument that ethnic heterogeneity undermines support for the welfare state for several reasons. Prominent among these is the difficulty of creating broad social solidarity in an ethnically divided society: solidarity which is allegedly necessary for sustaining public support for the welfare state. This study explores the “heterogeneity undermines the welfare state” logic in the context of welfare state politics in Israel. Israel would appear to be a near-perfect example of how ethnic and religious heterogeneity strains social solidarity and, in turn, undermines the welfare state. Quite differently from most studies, however, this work's emphasis is not on public attitudes or voting, but on the political interaction between economically disadvantaged ethnic minorities – specifically Arabs on the one hand and orthodox and ultra-orthodox Jews on the other – in the welfare field. It is argued that shared interests enable extensive cooperation among political elites in the welfare field despite religiously-and nationally-based antagonism. Elite politics combined with low public visibility facilitate such cooperation, which appears at first unthinkable. Nevertheless, interest-based welfare coalitions of this type are shallow in the sense that they tend to be ad-hoc, focus on a narrow range of issues and are particularly vulnerable to government divide and rule tactics