The lack of substantial political organization in the Oriental Jewish population in the first decades after Israel's independence meant that its method of expression was by casting votes for, or withholding them from, the major established political parties. This seemed to reach a plateau in the 1981 Knesset election (see also KNESSET [PARLIAMENT]), when the Oriental Jewish vote for Likud led the Israeli media to speak of an "Oriental revolt," and the Jewish ethnic issue became more public during the campaign. It seemed to suggest full-scale Oriental Jewish efforts to be heard in the electoral process and to follow the pattern foreshadowed in the 1977 election and replicated in the 1984 election, although the ethnic issue was all but eliminated from the latter campaign.
See also Second Israel.
Historical Dictionary of Israel. Bernard Reich David H. Goldberg. Edited by Jon Woronoff..