Reds,white and blue: The dialectical construction of Zionism through the communist other in the Israeli press,1948-1976

Abstract

For many years, the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) has been seen as the political other of the Israeli parliamentary scene, due to its radical views on Jewish—Arab relations, its non-Zionist stance, and its socioeconomic ideology. This article analyzes the ways in which the Israeli mainstream press utilized these characteristics of the CPI in order to dialectically confirm the moral superiority, historical inevitability, and ideological cohesiveness of Zionism over the first three decades of Israel’s existence. By portraying the CPI as treacherous, irrational, dogmatic, violent, and passive, Zionism was shown to be patriotic, logical, pragmatic, peaceful, and active. By focusing on the CPI’s support of Arab interests, Zionism became reduced to its nationalistic components, at the expense of the socialist ideals supposedly embraced earlier. The implications of these findings for the role of the media in the construction of collective identity and the exclusion of marginalized social groups are discussed.