The Likud: A Balance between Ideology and Religion: The First Time in the Government (1977−1984)

The election of 1977 traditionally called the Likud “upheaval.” The delicate balance between the secular and religious political powers in The State of Israel became possible. Moreover, the role of the orthodoxies and nationalists rapidly increased. As a result of this election, a right-wing party would lead the government for the first time since the State of Israel gained independence. The return of religion to the political sphere can be estimated as the phenomena of the new Israeli politics. The power of the religious parties consists of the formation and supply of coalition governments. At the same time the religious bloc was unable to maintain a central role in the state policy. The religious parties have been totally integrated into the political system of the state. Сonsequently, they achieved significant benefits for themselves. Furthermore, it was the first time for thirty years when the political parties started to represent a cultural and political variety of the entire population of the country. Thus the state can be defined as the religion-state of the religion-nation as many of the citizens did not belong themselves to a part of this religion community. In fact, the cultural war began between two segments of society − the secular “Israeli” and the religious “Jewish.” Both believed that they had to determine the character of the State of Israel. After all, such political party as Likud exhaustively demonstrated that consolidation of democratic systems could not occur without the inclusion of religious parties.