eastern European socialists and modeled on the socialist ideals of cooperative farms (kibbutzim) and equality (women in the army). Of course reality does not always live up to the ideal. Trouble started when orthodox Jews, many actually from th U.S., started immigrating to Israel and demanding the perks that their supposed exalted status as "more holy than thou" demanded. Couple that with the parliamentary need to form alliances, as another poster has noted, and you get a system where much of the moral authority is ceded to those who claim it as their "birthright", a very fraught concept in Israel.