Israel Affairs

Abstracts of articles in Issue 9.4

Israel in the Early Twenty-first Century: Challenging Internal and Global Developments by Uzi Rebhun and Chaim Waxman

This article is concerned with five major challenges facing Israeli society at the turn of the new century. Our attention is directed to behavioural patterns of the population, rather than to institutions or organizations, within different demographic, social and cultural realms. These challenges reflect internal developments as well as external influences including: inequality in socio-economic welfare and reserve military duty; the demographic equilibrium between Jews and non-Jews; Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state; Israel–Diaspora relations; and the challenge of globalization. The extent to which social and cultural challenges will penetrate into public discourse will largely depend on developments in the political sphere of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That conflict may, for a while, override domestic issues which have the potential for tension between different sub-groups and are likely to weaken the cohesion of Israeli society. Sooner or later, however, these challenges will have to be dealt with. Our analysis can contribute to the understanding of contemporary and future Jewish life in Israel, and also provides some directions for policy thinking and planning.

Other-Worldly Soldiers? Ultra-Orthodox Views of Military Service in Contemporary Israel by Nurit Stadler and Eyal Ben-Ari

This article seeks to explore the internal discussions and debates among members of the Haredi community regarding military service, participation, and the state in contemporary Israel. As such, it does not focus on the intense interchanges that have characterized the relations between Haredim and various external groups (such as secular Jews or members of the National-Religious camp). Our contentions are that while the ‘official’ view propagated by the community’s leaders rejects military service, the younger members of the Haredi demonstrate a much more complex attitude that takes into account the possibility of service and of participation in the state.

The Anti-Millennium: The Islamization of Nazareth by Raphael Israeli

NASDAQ or Nablus: Explanations for the Recent Fluctuations in the Israeli Economy by Andrew Schein

This paper reports the results of an econometric analysis of the growth rate of Israel’s GDP for the years 1994–2001. The results from the regression show that the two most significant factors with regard to the growth of Israel’s economy were the fluctuations in the peace process and the high real interest rates. The peace process affected the economy through changes in both domestic and foreign expectation for peace. Fluctuations in global demand for high tech products had some impact on the economy during the boom of mid-1999 to mid-2000 and the ensuing contraction, but changes in the value of the NASDAQ composite index had no significant impact on Israel’s GDP.

Shas: An Ethnic Religious Party by Lilly Weissbrod

This article examines the development of Shas from its birth in the early 1980s until the 1999 Israeli elections. It examines the ideological and political outlook that has underpinned the success of this party and, in particular, assesses its appeal to oriental Israelis. It also examines the close relationship between the Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadya Yosef and its political inspiration Arye Deri and gives a background history of both men’s education and religious and political views as they developed both before and after the creation of Shas.

Internal Auditing in Local Government in Israel: Status vs Effectiveness? by Zvi Haimon

The municipality environment is distinctive. Politicians, local residents, civil servants and others are all mingling together. This creates a delicate situation where the internal auditing unit has an important role to play. The check and balance system in the Israeli municipality relies heavily on the municipality internal auditor. This article explores through theoretical analysis the ability of the internal auditing unit in the municipality to perform its task. The outcome is that though municipality internal auditors have a high status in the organization their unit is weak, a fact that impedes their effectiveness. This conclusion is followed by suggestions to improve the situation and make the internal auditing in the local government more effective.

Review Article – Israel’s National Security Doctrine: An Appraisal of the Past and a Vision of the Future by David Rodman

Books at a Glance

Abstracts of articles in Issue 9.3

The Imperialist Ties that Bind: Transjordan and the Yishuv by Donna Robinson Divine

Palestine during the years 1922–48 contained within its boundaries two political creations of Great Britain’s imperialist ventures: the Jewish National Home and Transjordan. Divided by nationalist identities and loyalties, Transjordan’s ruler, the Emir Abdullah, and Palestine’s Zionist leaders were also bound together by a common framework of dependence on Great Britain and periodically by a convergence of political objectives. But shared interests evolved in the midst of counter-pressures, the latter producing antagonisms, distrust and ultimately violence. This essay explores the interactions between the Emir Abdullah and Yishuv politicians as both a by-product of international and regional political realities and as a central component of their own separate state-building ambitions and objectives.

Jordan’s Alliance with Israel and its Effects on Jordanian–Arab Relations by William W. Haddad and Mary M. Hardy

Abdullah Ibn Hussein became the first ruler of Jordan as a ‘gift’ from Great Britain as compensation for the failed unified Arab state under his brother, Faisal. Jordan was an artificial creation, was largely uninhabited and mostly Bedouin. The fledgling Jordanian army, the Arab Legion, spent its early years trying forcibly to settle the nomadic population. That the creation of Jordan lacked legitimacy was recognized by the new ‘king’ who himself viewed his territory as part of Greater Syria. This was a feeling shared by other Arab rulers and certainly the populations of mandated Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and in Palestine. It was in this setting – that the state was illegitimate, was only part of Syria, and it engendered hostility from other Arabs – that Abdullah sought links with the Zionists. He perceived this alliance as lending authenticity to his monarchy and believed it would also allow him to begin the process of recreating the Greater Syrian state destroyed by the French and British in 1920. This secret alliance, which included a failure to use the Arab Legion effectively in the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, engendered enmity from the Palestinians and opprobrium in the rest of the Arab world. As a result he was assassinated in 1951 for his perceived perfidy. Despite the death of Abdullah, Jordan’s political circumstances had not changed when Hussein Ibn Talal ascended the throne: Jordan continued to lack legitimacy, was home to a restless Palestinian refugee population, and seemingly surrounded by hostile Arab nations. Thus, despite the threats that the policy posed to his personal safety and his regime, Hussein chose to continue his grandfather’s tactic of covert relations with Israel.

Is Jordan Palestine? by Raphael Israeli

Following the June 1967 war two contenders stood on the international scene competing over rights in West Bank: Jordan, which continued to claim it by virtue of its having constituted part of the Kingdom until 1967, and Israel, which occupied it and was now its master. Following intifada, King Hussein was eager to gain legitimacy from Israel over the East Bank of the Jordan, which remained under his rule and which his grandfather had dubbed Jordan. Fearing that Israel’s grip on the West Bank would push the Palestinians to fulfil their independence in his own Kingdom, as they had attempted in 1970, he approached the eager Israelis for a settlement by which his rule was recognized and confirmed by Israel, and leaving it to contend with the Palestinians by itself. Unfortunately the West Bank could provide at the most a solution to the one-third of the Palestinian people dwelling there, leaving the rest untouched. Thus Jordan, the home of half the Palestinian people, became once again part of the solution, and not only part of the problem. Can a solution be found to the Palestinian problem, presumably in the Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine, which can satisfy both Palestinian aspirations for statehood and the Hashemite craving for a throne?

Comparing Palestinian Perspectives in the Palestinian Authority, Israel and Jordan on Jordanian–Israeli Relations by Hillel Frisch

The Palestinian Authority possesses potentially two political advantages over both Israel and Jordan. First, its population is homogeneous and its state neighbours by contrast are bi-national. Second, the ethno-national community that makes these states bi-national is part of the Palestinian people that form the majority of the Palestinian Authority. Whether the future Palestinian entity be will be able to mobilize these Palestinians to weaken the two neighbouring states, or to pursue, even more ambitiously, a ‘Greater Palestine’ at their expense, depends on the inherent compatibility over political goals between the Palestinians in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian entity. This study address this issue by analysing Palestinian perceptions on both sides of the River Jordan regarding the Israeli–Jordanian Peace Treaty of 1994 and Israeli–Jordanian relations in general. It concludes that the similarities in the positions held by the political elite in all these milieus suggest that the Palestinian Authority will be able to mobilize the elites in Israel and Jordan in future in pursuit of irredentist goals.

The Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty: Patterns of Negotiation, Problems of Implementation by Laura Zittrain Eisenberg and Neil Caplan

This study considers the achievement of the 1994 Israel–Jordan Peace Treaty within an historical continuum of Arab–Israeli negotiations. Applying a framework for analysis developed in their previous collaborative work, the authors explain why so many Arab–Israeli negotiations have failed and why so few have succeeded. Their position is that this agreement came about when it did due to the confluence of strong leaders firmly in place on both sides, the Palestinian–Israeli Oslo breakthrough immediately preceding it, and financial and diplomatic strains which drove King Hussein to re-consecrate his country’s relations with the United States with a Jordanian–Israeli peace very much to the Americans’ liking. The authors also discuss the evolution of Israeli–Jordanian relations since the treaty, the difficulties in creating the warm peace envisioned by its original signatories, and the circumstances that must change if the treaty is to live up to its original promise.

Israel, Jordan and the Masha’al Affair by P.R. Kumaraswamy

The unsuccessful Israeli assassination attempt on Khalid Masha’al in September 1997 and his deportation from Jordan in November 1999 mark two sides of the same problem: the presence of Hamas in Jordan. The opposition of Hamas to the Oslo process placed the Islamic movement at odds with Israel and Jordan as well as the Palestinian Authority. Each of these players adopted different means to contain its influence. The decision to treat Hamas as a foreign, Palestinian and non-Jordanian organization places the movement at odds with the Kingdom. Having identified Hamas as a threat to the unity and stability of Jordan, King Abdullah would be unable to bring back Masha’al without seriously undermining his authority and the stability of the Hashemite Kingdom.

Political Liberalization and Monarchical Succession in Jordan by Curtis R. Ryan

This study examines two key transitions in modern Jordanian politics: the political liberalization process and the transition in the monarchy from King Hussein to King Abdullah II. In addition to examining the surprise last-minute shift in the succession, it also focuses in particular on the 1999 municipal elections as a key measure of the state of liberalization within the Kingdom. The 1999 elections are especially important because they were the first under King Abdullah, the first since the opposition boycotted the 1997 national polls, and finally, they marked the tenth anniversary of the start of the liberalization programme itself. As such, they serve as a kind of barometer of the status and depth of democratization within Jordan. While the 1999 elections witnessed the return of the opposition to Jordanian electoral politics, Jordan’s overall political liberalization remains limited and problematic. The future of political reform may therefore depend not only on the electoral laws, the party system, and the ability of the opposition to organize, but also on the role of King Abdullah himself.

‘Normalization’ and ‘Anti-Normalization’ in Jordan: The Public Debate by Paul L. Scham and Russell E. Lucas

The Jordanian–Israeli Peace Treaty, signed in October 1994, was accompanied on both sides by high hopes of warm relations between the peoples of the two countries. Despite the fluctuations of the Israeli–Palestinian peace process and lack of the hoped-for significant economic dividends, the Jordanians reserved judgment and remained moderately favourable to Israel. However, a number of incidents from the spring of 1996, when Israel launched its ‘Grapes of Wrath’ operation, culminating in the attempted assassination of Hamas leader Khalid Masha’al in September 1997, led to a withdrawal of support of the relationship by much of the population. The ‘anti-normalization’ movement, led by the Islamic Action Front and the country’s professional associations, seems to have won the battle for public opinion.

Water in Israeli–Jordanian Relations: From Conflict to the Danger of Ecological Disaster by Bruce Borthwick

Since the Peace Treaty of 1994 between Jordan and Israel the danger of a ‘water war’ has subsided, to be replaced by the problem of a water shortage. Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians are now over-exploiting surface and groundwater to the point where these life-giving resources are sometimes being irreversibly damaged. Because water is a strategic asset for all three and because the three peoples are linked in many ways, the equitable distribution of water to all is necessary for the stability of relations. Currently, there is a race against time to avoid ecological catastrophe. The new ‘water conflict’ does not involve armies in combat and governments threatening each other; rather it involves political factions and interests inside each state, struggling over the limited water resources and trying to influence government policies.

Changing Identities in Jordan by Joseph Nevo

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is a unique phenomenon in the manner of state-building and construction of its identity. The complex territorial and demographic history of the Jordanian entity gave rise to a particular socio-political process. Instead of the gradual evolvement of one coherent countrywide national identity, several collective identities emerged, sometimes in succession, sometimes simultaneously. This essay studies and analyses that process and endeavours to explain its causes and to evaluate its impact on state and society in Jordan.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 9.1&2

Special Issue: The Palestinian Arabs

Editor: Alexander Bligh

Israeli Arab Members of the 15th Knesset: Between Israeli Citizenship and their Palestinian National Identity by Alexander Bligh

One of the outcomes of the Arab nations’ struggle for independence from Western powers was the division of the Arab National Movement into sub-ideologies, and, as a result, the establishment of separate nation states with their respective specific ideologies. At the start of the twenty-first century, it looks as though this split continues. The Palestinian National Movement is likely to witness yet another split: in spite of common Palestinian ideological and emotional obligations and commitment, the Palestinians now face quite a number of constraints, which may lead to the emergence of several new national Palestinian movements. Perhaps the first indication of such a trend is the political behaviour of Israeli Arab members of the 15th Knesset (the Israeli parliament), who have demonstrated since the October 2000 violence inside sovereign Israeli territory a new kind of Palestinian nationalism: Israeli Palestinian, unique to them. Perhaps even the State of Israel is beginning to recognise the development of a new Palestinian people – a segment of the Palestinians, with unique characteristics and a strong emphasis on its uniqueness vis-à-vis other Palestinians, the State of Israel and its policies regarding the Arab community.

Between Nationalism and Liberalism: The Political Thought of Azmi Bisharah by Abigail Fraser and Avi Shabat

MK Professor Azmi Bisharah describes himself as a liberal and a humanist but as a neo-Nasserite nationalist as well. Bisharah’s views on the solution to the Palestinian issue and the status of Israel’s Arab minority will be reviewed while attempting to address any tension that might exist between these opposed ideologies. Changes in Bisharah’s thoughts during the years will also be noted in an attempt to discover whether these changes stem from an inner change in Bisharah’s thought or from the significant developments that have occurred in the political map of the region.

Fertility Transition in the Middle East: The Case of the Israeli Arabs by Onn Winckler

The aim of this article is to examine the changing fertility trends among the Israeli Arab population, since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 until the present, within the context of the overall changing fertility patterns among Middle Eastern Arab societies during the second half of the twentieth century. The main conclusion of the article is twofold. First, the fertility rates among Israeli Muslims have been stagnating since the mid-1980s, following an initial decline in the 1970s and the early 1980s – a decade-and-a-half before the decline in most other Arab Middle Eastern societies. This is in sharp contrast to both the Israeli Druze and Christian populations, as well as almost all of the other Middle Eastern Muslim societies, in which the fertility level has been steadily declining over the past 15 years. Thus, by the end of the twentieth century, the Israeli Muslim population’s fertility rates were among the highest in the entire Middle East. The second conclusion is that the unique demographic pattern among the Israeli Muslims during the past two decades has resulted, first and foremost, from the unique Israeli pro-natalist policy that provides substantial children’s allowances and other economic benefits only from the fifth child and above. It is also attributable to the failure of the Israeli authorities to promote the socio-economic conditions of the Muslims. For them, in sharp contrast to the Christians and the Druzes, the children’s allowances and the other financial benefits given to large families have constituted an incentive for increasing their fertility and, in many cases, the best and most available option for family income.

Social and Educational Welfare Policy in the Arab Sector in Israel by Khawla Abu Baker

Studies about Arabs in Israel usually focus on political-historical issues and on legal discrimination. Little attention had been paid to social and psychological welfare discrimination that directly and intensively influence the quality of life of all Arabs in Israel. A series of interviews with Arab professionals in top positions – whose voices are not heard often – reflect the intense involvement of political affiliation and orientation of Jewish officers on the welfare of Arab population in Israel. The article sheds light on the institutions of social welfare before 1948 and the influence of that war on the well-being of the Palestinian population. The article tries to highlight the policies and the politics in the ministry of labour and social affairs towards the Arab society. It narrates the history of the development of social welfare positions in the Arab society and the influence of political decisions on this process. A proposal for socio-political change is suggested.

A Binational Society: The Jewish–Arab Cleavage and Tolerance Education in the State of Israel by Dan Soen

This article focuses on the fact that Israel is a binational society with a Jewish majority constituting about 80 per cent of the population, and an Arab minority comprising roughly 20 per cent of the population. It then explains that the country faces a deep cleavage between these two sectors. The article tries to evaluate to what extent the ministry of education has really tried to facilitate tolerance between the Jewish majority and the Arab minority through subtle manipulation of the contents of readers and primers used in Israeli elementary schools in the 1990s. Various techniques of content analysis have been used in order to evaluate these primers and readers. The article reaches the conclusion that the ministry failed in its mission to try and foster at least a common civic identity uniting Jews and Arabs living in Israel under an acceptable common denominator.

The Arabs in Haifa: From Majority to Minority, Processes of Change (1870–1948) by Mahmoud Yazbak

Due to the endeavours of Dahir al-‘Umar in the second half of the eighteenth century, Haifa developed without interruption until it became the most important town in northern Palestine. When in 1905 the Hijaz railway reached Haifa, the town became the main trade and export centre for northern Palestine, attracting growing numbers of immigrants, and continuously affecting the social fabric of the city. Haifa ranked high in British and Zionist plans during the Mandate rule. It became impossible for the Arab entrepreneurial class to compete in the new economic fields conquered by Zionist capital and protected by the Mandatory authorities bringing the Arab commerce and industry to a peripheral status. In contrast to rural areas that suffered from worsening hardships, Haifa was the scene of intense labour activity in the 1920s and 1930s, attracting a continuous flow of impoverished immigrants from the countryside. In 1946, there were more than 70,000 Arabs in Haifa. On 15 May 1948, when the Zionists proclaimed their state in those parts of Palestine of which their army had by then taken control, there were barely 2,000 Arabs left in Haifa.

Jewish Settlement of Former Arab Towns and Their Incorporation into the Israeli Urban System (1948–50) by Arnon Golan

The 1948 war resulted in a brutal and abrupt transformation of the settlement system in the territory included within the bounds of the State of Israel. Housing of Jews in former Arab urban areas induced the process of transforming the pre-state colonial urban system of Palestine into the urban system of the emerging nation-state. The development of former Arab settlements was directly linked to their location vis-à-vis the pre-1948 Jewish settlement system. Two case studies depict different problems and development prospects for former Arab towns repopulated by Jews. The first is that of the former Beisan, which became the Israeli town of Bet Shean. The second is the case of former Al-Majdal, the basis of the Israeli town of Ashkelon.

Ethnicity or Nationalism? Comparing the Nakba Narrative amongst Israeli Arabs and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza by Hillel Frisch

This article compares how the Arabs in Israel commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Nakba in 1998 with the Palestinian Authority’s commemoration. It assumed that the Israeli Arab narrative would portray the Nakba as an event related to the past and that its tone would be softer in the portrayal of the other. Basically, the narrative is similar on both sides of the former green line. Amongst Israel’s Arab citizens, however, the narrative emphasizes to a greater extent, personal return, the transformation of Israel into a state for all citizens, in additions to demanding the establishment of the Palestinian state across the green Line. Ironically, then, it was more radical than the narrative presented by the Palestinian Authority that stressed a return to the homeland rather than specifically to the places from which the refugees came.

The Israeli Newspapers’ Coverage of Israeli Arabs during the Intifada by Ilan Asya

The first intifada, which broke out in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on 9 December 1987, had an immediate effect on the Arab citizens of Israel. They announced a general strike on 21 December, which soon assumed violent forms. Only when the Arabs of Israel took up such violent protest did the Hebrew press begin covering the link between this sector of the population and the intifada. The author highlights the ‘conscripted’ aspect of the Hebrew press during the intifada – the close link between the security establishment’s demands and the editorial responses to them, particularly at moments when control over the Israeli Arabs appeared to be in danger. The press is shown to have been a willing partner on the effort to quell disturbances by means of warnings to the Arab population of Israel to use legal forms of protest only.

The Arab Citizens of the State of Israel: The Arab Media Perspective by Haim Koren

The Arab citizens of Israel have a unique status. On the one hand, their sense of belonging refers naturally to the Arab civilization and they have a lot in common with other Arab communities. On the other hand the Arabs are citizens of the Jewish State of Israel, which to a certain point is not fully accepted in the surrounding Arab world. This creates a situation that was defined by one of the former Arab MKs as ‘my country fights against my people’. In that kind of reality, the crisis of identity has grown over the years. Historical developments both domestic and regional have created enormous interest within the Arab world in the situation of Arabs in Israel. The revolution of the Arab media during the 1990s enabled a better focus on this, but this article attempts to give a perspective of more than 50 years because nothing has been written so far on this, and it reflects also on the cultural dimension within the Arab media.

Jews and Arabs in the State of Israel: Is There a Basis for a Unified Civic Identity? by Ilana Kaufman

Critics of the current ‘Jewish and democratic state’ call for its replacement with the formula of a Western-type liberal civic state, which could express the multicultural reality of Jewish and Arab existence – ‘a state of all its citizens’. This article outlines the major implications of adopting one of the Western formulae of a ‘civic nation state’ in Israel. It points to ideas in this direction that have been publicly aired by both Arabs and Jews, and assesses the possible impact of such modification on majority–minority relations. The low feasibility of their adoption under current conditions should not rule out such modifications in changed circumstances.

The Collective Identity of the Arabs in Israel in an Era of Peace by Muhammad Amara

After five decades of the existence of the State of Israel, the question of collective identity of various discrete groups, particularly the Arab minority, still plays a central role in the life of the country. It is likely that, today more than ever, Israel faces a new period of defining the country’s identity, as a result of the peace process with some of the Arab countries and the Palestinians. There is a growing awareness among the Arabs for achieving full egalitarian status with the Jewish majority, not only with regard to citizenship, but also on the national level. Add to this the need for certain circles among the Jews for reinforcement of and emphasis on Israeli identity as a way to bypass the inequities in certain sectors. This article will examine two main questions: whether, in the era of peace, conditions will be ripe for building a mutual super-identity for Arabs and Jews together that extends over citizenship (that is, a pluralistic country that belongs to all of its citizens); or whether precisely this period of peace will strengthen the collective and particular identities as part of the process of reinforcing sectoralism in Israel.

The Status of the Palestinians in Israel in an Era of Peace: Part of the Problem but not Part of the Solution by As’ad Ghanem and Sarah Ozacky-Lazar

After the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993 the issue of the possible status of the Palestinians in Israel, as a Jewish-Zionist state, have been discussed with greater frequency than in the past. Old and new ideas of broad or limited personal autonomy have been raised, along with ideas of annexation of part of the Triangle to the future Palestinian entity in the West Bank, or a more substantial integration than at present of the Palestinians in Israel, as individuals and/or as a group. This article presents theoretical options for the future status of the Palestinians in Israel, giving the perspective of the different sides regarding these options. The need for this discussion stems from the dissatisfaction with the present situation and also from the political changes taking place in the region, and especially the peace process. If a Palestinian state is established alongside Israel, the Palestinian Arabs who are Israeli citizens will have to redefine their relationship to the State of Israel as well as to the Palestinian state. This discussion is inevitably linked to the question of the nature of the state. In societies deeply divided on an ethnic, religious or national basis, there are various practices for creating the legal-institutional framework for dealing with the status of the various groups. On the theoretical level, researchers list mechanisms such as control, the development of majoritarian democracies, and consociationalism or ethnic democracy, as a means capable of ensuring stability. The failure or success of these mechanisms determines the behavior and aspirations of the minority communities.

The Final Settlement of the Palestinian Issue and the Position of the Israeli Arab Leadership by Alexander Bligh

Even at a time when the final outcome of the current political process in the Middle East is far from being clear, Arab Israeli representatives are far ahead compared with the Government of Israel. They have already begun a series of actions, which if successful would dramatically influence the outcome of the process. Yet, the government of Israel failed in declaring and implementing a coherent policy regarding the Arabs of Israel. On the Arab side, they face a double challenge: how to identify themselves as Palestinians, contributing their share to their fellow Palestinians by using the political tools available to them, and yet, not acknowledge the supremacy of the PLO? Moreover, since no Israeli Arab is interested in moving into a Palestinian state, they are keen on preserving their unique identity in a way that would not cause any loss of their rights in Israel, and yet would make them trustworthy partners in deciding the future of the Palestinian people.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.4

Special Issue: Developments in Israeli Public Administration

Edited by: Moshe Maor

Introduction by Moshe Maor

This article poses two central questions faced by Israeli political executives nowadays. Are bureaucratic structures the problem or the solution? Are civil servants the problem or the solution? It tries to estimate the direction of developments in the Israeli administrative system and the derived consequence in terms of the answers to these questions. The article argues that it is reasonable to expect, as always in the Israeli context, that different parts of the administrative system are most likely to move in different directions. Some ministerial departments may remain under the ambit of the Weberian model, others may follow the New Public Management model, and others may be moving towards a mix of mechanisms used according to circumstances. Another argument advanced here is that factors which may inhibit reforms include a weakness of mechanisms for policy control, monitoring and evaluation; and an administrative culture which is characterized by frequent infringements of moral integrity and a relatively high level of politicization. The latter is probably the problem that the success of any reform is dependent on and will be judged upon.

The Development of the Israeli Government Offices by Aharon Kfir

Israel’s civil service, in general, and the structure of its government offices, in particular, have been fraught with problems ever since the state was established. This article examines the process which led to the creation of government offices from 1943 to 1948. Based on historical and institutional analysis, it shows that a great deal of thought was given to the structure of the government service. The outcome was a well-founded structure for government offices, well able to stand the test of modern administrative challenges. The distortions in the execution of this plan stemmed, and still stem, in the main, from non-compliance with the detailed original plans owing, mainly, to political considerations. Since the establishment of the state there has been continuous criticism of the structure of government administration and there have been numerous proposals for change. Almost every one of these proposals was aimed at the elimination of three main shortcomings: curtailment of the number of government offices; reorganization of the functions of the various offices in order to maximize coordination; and development of directional planning and coordinated supervision of activities – the need for which the earlier planning had tried to obviate in its proposals.

Administrative Power in Israel by Eva Etzioni-Halevy

The power of the state administration in Israel is considerable but not autonomous. Rather, the administrative elite is dependent on the political elite through political appointments and promotions in some major parts of the state bureaucracy. By virtue of this close but unequal connection, administrative power is linked to party politics and works in its service: senior bureaucrats have been instrumental in various forms of electoral manipulation. Over the years there have been changes and developments, but there has been no fundamental transformation of these arrangements. This creates severe problems for Israeli democracy. The electoral manipulation brought about by administrative politicization has not destroyed democracy. But it has not been negligible in determining electoral outcomes. Hence it has detracted from the quality of democracy in Israel.

The Functioning of Whatever Is the Israeli State by Ira Sharkansky

Distinctive features of Israeli public administration reflect underlying traits of the nation’s history, culture and geography. The concentration of people in part of the small state produces a dominant metropolitan region. The formal structure and procedures are those of a strong national government, and there is a high incidence of former technocrats in elected positions. The image is of a tightly run, professional state. However, the formal structure provides imperfect indications of how policy-making and programme implementation really operate. Other features of the political culture, along with the high incidence of intense problems, create a messy polity where coping rather than problem-solving prevails.

Controlling Government: Budgeting, Evaluation and Auditing in Israel by Robert Schwartz

Is Israel’s government out of control? This article provides a snapshot of the state of administrative and financial control of government activities in Israel. Budgeting, evaluation and auditing mechanisms are examined in the light of changes in international approaches and practice – post-bureaucratic control and the advent of the ‘audit society’. There is no lack of control mechanisms, including a plethora of audit functions, but their implementation is weak. Bureaucratic procedural compliance dominates both budgeting and auditing practice at the expense of post-bureaucratic, results-based control. There is little parliamentary supervision. And budgeting, auditing and evaluation activities are weakly linked. Explanations of the sorry state of administrative control in Israel include: agenda overload; highly politicized coalition-type government; and a cultural tendency of lack of thoroughness.

Judicial Accountability in Israel: The High Court of Justice and the Phenomenon of Judicial Hyperactivism by Yoav Dotan

This article describes the general characteristics of the judicial system in Israel and its relationship with other institutions in Israeli society. It presents a model of society within which the courts (and, in particular, the Supreme Court) play a paramount political role by routinely intervening in the practices of the public administration as well as in the business of other governmental and non-governmental institutions, and thereby bringing about a judicialization of society. The courts intervene in decision-making processes of other institutions, and this widespread intervention brings about a process of adaptation to patterns of legal thinking and judicial decision-making by many other administrative institutions. I will call this model of highly intensive judicial intervention ‘judicial hyperactivism’.

Choosing a Regulatory Regime: The Experience of the Israeli Electricity Market by Moshe Maor

If there is a choice of institutional designs for the regulation of public utilities, how can such a choice be made between, for example, a single- or a multiple-industry regulator? This question is addressed in this paper by focusing on the design of the Israeli Public Utility Authority – Electricity, with special attention to the ways it has interpreted the requirements set by law regarding accountability, transparency and procedural fairness. The premise underlying the analysis is that regulators need to satisfy values of accountability, transparency and procedural fairness if they are to receive the approval of all parties concerned. A failure to implement choices that reflect these values implies that, whatever the substantive merits of such decisions, the subsequent regulation is unlikely to be successful. Based on institutional and historical analysis, combined with interviews with public officials involved with the design of the electricity regulator, the paper analyses the formation of the Public Utility Authority with an emphasis on the prominence, or the lack thereof, of the aforementioned values in the Electricity Market Law 1996 and the Authority’s experience gained so far. The analysis finds that a lack of balance exists between the great discretion enjoyed by the Authority over tariffs and standard-setting, on the one hand, and its weak transparency, accountability and procedural fairness, on the other. The paper recommends an urgent revision of the law. In addition, to avoid creating other regulatory agencies that will suffer from similar structural and procedural flaws, the paper recommends the design of accountable, transparent and procedurally fair, single-industry regulators.

The Role of State and Public Audit in Safeguarding Ethics in the Public Service: Whose Ethics? What Ethics? by Asher Friedberg

This article discusses the role of state and public audit entities in Israel in safeguarding ethics in the public service. It relates to ambiguities and complexities concerning the legal and content infrastructure in the light of which the state comptroller examines ethical issues in the public service sector, and refers to approaches of state comptrollers, past and present, to ethical issues in this sector. The article analyses a series of events and findings that were defined by state comptrollers as infringements of moral integrity, trying to identify patterns of infringements and to trace actions taken to remedy these infringements. The article mentions activities of other public comptrollers (the Labour Federation and the Jewish Agency) to moral integrity issues. It points to ethical aspects in the activities of the State Comptroller’s Office itself, and concludes by emphasizing problems stemming from the discussion in the article.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.3

Adversaries and Facilitators: The Unconventional Diplomacy of Illegal Immigration to Palestine, 1945–48 by Elihu Bergman

The issue of Jewish illegal immigration into Palestine in the years between the end of the Second World War and the creation of Israel in 1948 has been the subject of much debate and controversy. This comprehensive article, based mainly on primary sources, begins with an examination of the position of the British mandatory government on the issue of illegal immigration between 1939 and 1945. It then examines the various Jewish strategies for surmounting Britain’s limits on Jewish immigration into Palestine and the British response to these Zionist efforts in the final mandatory era after 1945. In doing so it looks at the attitude and role, in facilitating, or opposing, Jewish illegal immigration, of various western countries (most importantly the United States, Italy and France). It specifically looks at the response of these, and other, nations to the Exodus affair in 1947 and outlines the Soviet (and Soviet satellite states’) involvement in the issue at this time. All the time it clearly places the role of these adversaries and facilitators in the context of the ongoing battle of wits between the Zionist movement and the British over Jewish entry into Palestine.

Income Inequality in Israel by Pnina O Plaut and Steven E Plaut

This article examines the nature of Israeli income inequality statistically, with special attention to the roles of ethnicity and gender. There are considerable disparities among ethnic subgroups in Israel, with Arabs earning less than Jews, and with differences across groups of Jews. It is shown that once other demographic and social factors are controlled, including education and age, the disparities among the ethnic groups almost completely disappear. The main exceptions to this are a sharp earnings disadvantage for recent immigrants from the ex-Soviet Union, and a small earnings premium, in the order of 5–7 per cent, for native-born Jews whose fathers were born in Europe, America or Israel. There is no evidence that Arabs are underpaid or ‘under-earn’ for their levels of age, schooling, etc., and such ‘victimization’ of Arabs cannot therefore explain political and social tensions in Israel. While ethnic group differences are almost entirely ‘explained away’ by differences in schooling and in the distribution of other social and demographic characteristics across groups, gender earnings disparities persist even when these are taken into consideration. Indeed, the ‘residual’ disparity between men and women after controlling for other factors is about the same order of magnitude as the ‘raw’ earnings gap before any adjustments.

Two Nineteenth-Century Travellers to the Holy Land by Glenda Abramson

Despite the hazards of the region and difficult living conditions, recreational travel to the Holy Land became increasingly common during the nineteenth century. This was primarily due to the biblical appeal of the country, particularly Jerusalem. This article examines the visit by two individuals: Herman Melville, the author of Moby-Dick, and Israel Joseph Benjamin, the folklorist and anthropologist. Their motives for travelling to, and their time in, the Holy Land are examined in detail, as are their differing perceptions of the Holy sites, especially in Jerusale. There is also an analysis of the impact that these visits had on their subsequent lives and work. Most notably it looks at how Melville’s time spent in Palestine influenced his writing and thinking, not only on Jewish themes, but in general.

The Other Side of 1948: The Forgotten Benevolence of Bechor Shalom Shitrit and the Ministry of Minority Affairs by Alisa Rubin Peled

This article begins with a summary of the state of the academic debate on the relationship between the Jewish state and the Arab minority since the founding of Israel. It argues that the ‘new historians’ have almost completely ignored domestic issues, including government policy towards minority groups. It then concentrates on the frequently ignored career of the sole Sephardi minister in Israel’s first government, Bechor Shalom Shitrit, the Minister for Minority Affairs. It charts Shitrit’s early life from his birth in Tiberias in 1895, through his membership of the Palestine Policy, and his appointment by the Mandate government to a magistrate’s post in 1935. This judicial position denied him any opportunity to play a role directly in Zionist politics but with the partition of Palestine and the end of the Mandate he became involved, through his leadership of the National Union of Sephardim and Oriental Jews, in Israel’s political life. As Minister of Minority Affairs, the Arabic-speaking Shitrit was popular with the Arab community and he was tireless in his promotion of minority rights. He had a broad vision for the future of minorities inside Israel and set out concrete proposals especially in the area of Islamic affairs. This led him to clash with other government departments, most notably the Ministry of Religious Affairs. The article concludes with a study of why the Ministry of Minority Affairs was closed down in 1949.

Strategy in Debate: Arab Infiltration and Israeli Retaliation Policy in the Early 1950s by Zaki Shalom

This article examines Arab military infiltration into Israel, and Israeli military responses to this, in the early years of Israel’s existence. Most importantly, it examines the domestic debate within the political and military elite of Israel as to the best way to counter such incursions across its borders. It shows how the Israeli leadership was prepared to ignore certain incursions and was not always sure which Arab states were responsible for specific acts of infiltration. It was David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister and minister of defence, who realized that the major source of these attacks were Palestinian refugees in neighbouring Arab countries. The article also charts the changing attitude of Israel to infiltration in the 1950s. It then examines the success of Israel’s various attempts to retaliate after incursions. In particular, it considers why certain leading military and political figures disagreed over the adoption of a policy of retaliation. It also uses case studies (for example, of the Gaza Operation of 1955) to highlight the divisions among Israeli leaders, the strategic viability of such a policy, the costs to Israel of pursuing such a policy and the political constraints of that policy (such as domestic criticism, international condemnation).

The ‘Latent Function’ of the Qibya Raid: David Ben-Gurion’s Weapon Against Pinchas Lavon by Eyal Kafkafi

This article examines the concealed (latent) aims of the Israeli government in its border conflicts during the 1950s. It begins with an examination of the existing scholarly debate on the issue. It assesses the military and political aspects inherent in Israel’s policy of retaliation to Arab border raids and looks at the debate within the military and political leadership over the value of such a policy. It then concentrates on a detailed case study of the Qibya raid as a means of examining the issue of latent aims. In particular, it examines how the Qibya issue evolved, the responsibility for its initiation, the controversy that surrounded the raid, and the clash between Pinchas Lavon and the military leadership in the wake of the raid.

Explaining Systemic Failure: The Direct Elections System and Israel’s Special Elections of February 2001 by Emanuelle Ottolenghi

The February 2001 elections were conditioned and largely determined by the collapse of the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the violence which has dominated Middle East news since September 2000. Ariel Sharon’s landslide victory over Ehud Barak was largely understood against this background. Yet, however important the diplomatic crisis is in interpreting the elections’ outcomes, certain institutional factors are no less important in explaining Barak’s policies from the time of his election to his demise. In particular, this article argues that the interplay between institutional constraints and policy options is crucial in understanding Barak’s policy choices, especially in the pursuit of his peace agenda.

Books at a Glance

Abstracts of articles in Issue 8.1 & 2

Special Issue: Israel: The First Hundred Years - Israeli Politics and Society Since 1948 Problems of Collective Identity

Edited by: Efraim Karsh

Collective Identity:

Israel 1948-98: Purpose and Predicament in History by Mordechai Nisan

One hundred years after the birth of Zionism, and fifty after the creation of the State of Israel, this article examines the domestic and external position of Israeli society. It argues that despite huge obstacles, which continue even to this very day, Israel in its first half century has been a major success story. It analyses where these successes have occured and examines the pressures and strains Israeli society has faced as it has matured. It argues that the major challenge to Israel is not from within but from long-time regional foes in the Arab and Muslim world. However, while acknowledging the benefits accrued to Israel from its relationship with the West, and the United States in particular, it argues that Israel has also had to deal with a spiritual and psychological offensive emanating from Western civilization, which is symbolised by appeasement of the Arab world and which threatens the State of Israel.

The Fracturing of the Jewish Self-Image: The End of 'We Are One?' by Judith Elizur

This article examines the changes in Jewish self-perception in the years since the establishment of Israel. A primary focus is how the spectacular Israeli military success in the 1967 Six Day War influenced the Jewish self-image both in the Diaspora and in Israel itself. It shows how in the wake of victory, Israel reverberated with a new confidence and optimism in the future, while in the Diaspora community, the dominant feeling was one of pride in Israel and an increased sense of the importance of working to support the Jewish state. The author shows how television and the responses of the Jewish press and Jewish representative organizations contributed to the 'Super Jew' image. This was understandable but was a major break from the traditional Jewish self-image of victimhood. The author concludes by showing how the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Lebanon War of the early 1980s and domestic changes in Israel have all led to a fracturing of the Jewish self-image and new divides between Israel and the Diaspora community.

Shifting the Centre from Nation to Individual and Universe: The New 'Democratic Faith' of Israel by Oz Almog

This article examines the growth of a new 'democratic faith' that has instilled revolutionary fevour into the lives of educated liberal Israelis. It identifies eight focal points of democratic law, love and conjugal relationships and pyschology and emotional candour, to pop and rock music and education and science. The author places these, and other issues, in the context of contemporary Israeli society and considers the future of the 'democratic faith' in the light of current trends towards ethical revisionism.

Zionism in the Israeli Theatre by Dan Urian

This article assesses the centrality of Zionism to the Israeli theatre. It begins with an examination of the role of theatre in the evolution of Zionism from the earliest Herlian era until the birth of the State of Israel. It shows how in these early years of Zionism the Hebrew theatre was a vibrant forum for promoting the idea of Zionist settlement in Palestine. Moreover, it also analyses the Zionist content of some of the most important plays and playrights in both the Diaspora and Israel, and shows how the Israeli theatre, in its presentation of Zionist themes and issues such as identity and relations with the Arab world and the Palestinians, has highlighted the changing attitudes to Zionism in the wilder society of Israel over several decades.

Politics: To Fantasy and Back: David Ben-Gurion's First Resignation, 1953 by Yechiam Weitz

This article provides a detailed account of the resignation of David Ben-Gurion from his position as Israeli Prime Minister and Minister of Defence in 1953. It looks at Ben-Gurion's official explanations for leaving government and the response of politicians, party members, the press and the public at large to the announcement. It then examines the shake-up within the cabinet in the wake of Ben-Gurion's departure, analyses the reasons behind Ben-Gurion's departure and questions whether the official reason of fatigue was correct. It examines the contemporary political and press debate on this issue and looks at Ben-Gurion's ideology and philosophy to find a reason. It concludes by comparing Ben-Gurion's first resignation with his resignation a decade later.

Labour and Likud: Roots of their Ideological-Political Struggle for Hegemony over Zionism, 1925-35 by Yaacov N Goldstein

This article examines the critical decade between 1925 and 1935, when the ideological struggle between the two dominant political forces in Zionism – Labour and Revisionism – resulted in victory for Labour and led to almost half a century of Labour dominance over Israeli society. It examines the Revisionist movement and its leader Jabotinsky and contrasts the revisionist outlook with that of bodies such as Ha-poel Ha-Tzair and Ahdut Ha-avoda, which provided the basis for the labour movement. In particular it examines the years between 1929 and 1931, when the ideological struggle within Zionism reached a peak. The author concludes with a comparison of the Revisionist and Labour attitudes to the conflict with the Arab world in these formative years for Zionism.

Likud and the Search for Eretz Israel: From the Bible to the Twenty-First Century by Colin Shindler

This article begins with an examination of the effect that the Arab-Israeli peace process of the 1990s has had on the ideological makeup and practical divisions within the political right in Israel. It argues that at the heart of this division is a clash over the different perceptions of what the idea of Eretz Israel means. It then traces this debate within the political right from the earliest decades of Zionism. This historical examination focuses primarily on the biblical and nationalist persumptions that underpinned the right's perception on what was meant by Eretz Israel. In particular it examines how the Revisionist movement and its leader Jabotinsky viewed the term Eretz Israel and how those who followed as leaders of the right in Israel – Avraham Stern, founder of the Lehi, Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Binyamin Netanyahu and the incumbent Prime Minister Ariel Sharon – have been influenced by the perception of what they believe Eretz Israel to be.

The Delicate Framework of Israeli Democracy During the 1980s: Retrospect and Appraisal by Raphael Cohen-lmagor

The article commences with an examination of the meaning of democracy. It looks at the various definitions of the term and argues in favour of a democratic system that maximizes the participation of ordinary citizens. It then examines the democractic nature of Israeli society and political life. It argues that Israeli's democratic culture, though not perfect, is no more flawed than that of other Western democratic nations. It then analyses the central characteristics of democracy – liberalism, tolerance and the concept of defensive democracy – and assesses how these have influenced recent challenges in Israeli political and social life such as the political efforts of extremists like Meir Kahane and the ongoing intifada.

State-Religion Relations in Israel: The Subtle Issue Underlying the Rabin Assassination by Efraim Ben-Zadok

In the wake of the Yitzhak Rabin assassination the conventional wisdom, and the one that has been repeatedly discussed in the media, is that the assassination was a reflection of Israel's left-right debate over the future of the West Bank and Palestinian autonomy. This article argues that this view is only a partial explanation and that the assassination largely reflected another, more critical issue: Israel's secular-religious debate regarding state-religion relations. This tension between state and religion is the most sensitive issue facing Israeli politics today, and by placing the Rabin assassination in the context of state-religion relations, this article attempts to emphasise this vitally important but generally neglected issue.

Referenda in a Post-Consociational Democracy: The Case of Israel by Dana Arieli-Horowitz

This essay examines the role of referenda in Israeli political life. It analyses the historical, social and even cultural reasons why this political decision-making device has not been employed in Israel and sets out the main obstacles to the use of referenda in Israel. It also compares, and contrasts, the Israeli political system with others based on the Western democratic model that have rarely, or never, employed a referendum. It assesses how vital issues such as peace treaties, territorial concessions and constitutional amendments would be affected by the use of referenda and concludes by setting out the case for and against referenda in the Israeli political system.

Society:

Kibbutz or Moshav? Priority Changes of Settlement Types in Israel, 1949-53 by Yossi Ben-Artzi

This article examines the role, and importance, of rural settlements (kibbutzim and moshavim) in the development of Zionism and the State of Israel. It assesses the reasons why one type of settlement was preferred over another in Zionist attempts to build up the Yishuv and to meet the major challenge of mass Jewish immigration into the new state. In doing so, it begins with an examination of the formation of settlement types before the birth of Israel. It then looks at the factors that influenced the choice of kibbutz or moshav in the years immediately following the War of Independence in 1948. It concludes with a discussion on the interrelationship of moshavim and kibbutzim and the future direction that both of these settlement types with take.

Mass Immigration and the Democratic Revolution in Israel by Dvora Hacohen

The massive immigration to Israel during the fifty years of existence constitutes the most remarkable aspect of Israeli society. This article examines the central role that mass Jewish immigration has played in shaping the nation's social and political life over the last five decades. It assesses the historical and domestic environment which the four major immigrant goups – European survivors of the Holocaust, Eastern Jews from Arab lands, Ethiopian Jews and Jews from the former Soviet Union – found on entering Israel, and it looks at the impact that these diverse groups have had on the political, religious and cultural organization of Israeli society.

The IDF and the Mass Immigration of the Early 1950s: Aid to the Immigrant Camps by Moshe Gat

This article examines the role of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in the immediate aftermath of victory in the War of Independence, when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered it to take control of tackling the huge problems and challenges (educational, logistical and cultural) that mass immigration from diverse parts of the world was raising. It discusses the importance of Jewish immigration to the Zionist philosophy in general, and Ben-Gurion's outlook in particular. It then examines in detail the central role played by the Israeli military in dealing with the crises in conditions in temporary settlement camps for immigrants – its preparation for involvement in organizing the camps, the political and social debate within Israel over the military role in such an important civilian issue, and the actual efforts of the military to improve the quality of life in the camps.

Public Service Broadcasting vs Public Service Broadcasting: The Crisis in the Service as the Outcome of the Clash Between State and Civil Society – the Israeli-Lebanese War, 1982 by Mira Moshe

This article examines the crisis in public broadcasting in Israel in the context of the more general conflict that exists between the state and civil society. It examines how the fundamental need to balance government responsibility with government power has raised vital issues for public broadcasting and it presents various academic arguments both for and against continued state support for public broadcasting. It then provides a detailed analysis of an episode of a documentary produced by the Israeli Broadcasting Authority about the Israeli-Lebanese War to highlight the problems inherent in public broadcasting.

The Bank-Shares Regulation Affair and Illegality in Israeli Society: A Theoretical Perspective of Unethical Managerial Behaviour by David De Vries and Yoav Vardi

The Bank-Shares Regulation Affair, which came to light in the early 1980s, is one of the most important financial and economic scandals in Israeli's relatively short financial life. This article tells the story of the scandal in detail. More ambitiously, it places the affair in its theoretical and historical context. In doing so it examines the organizational, environmental, moral and economic factors behind the scandal. In particular it argues that a socio-cultural environment that demanded ever increasing profits was a dominant factor the enabled the scheme to begin and continue throughout Israel's banking sector on such a large-scale for such a long time.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.4

Special Issue: Public Policy in Israel

Edited by: David Nachmias and Gila Menahem

PART ONE: The Institutional and Political Context

Governance and Public Policy by David Nachmias and Itai Sened

Public policy in Israel has been increasingly inconsistent and incoherent. The article analyses the institutional sources of incoherence, emphasising in particular changes in the electoral system and in coalition formation and maintenance.

Winter Policy in Israel 1948–2000: Policy Paradigms, Policy Networks and Public Policy by Gila Menahem

This article investigates water policy in Israel during the years 1948–2000. During this time it is possible to distinguish between four sub-periods of water policy, as according to each period's prevalent style of policy-making. Suggesting that water policy changed from anticipatory to incremental, reactive and finally to a period of crisis management, the research examines potential explanations for this transformation in Israeli water policy. The article's main theoretical argument is that a prevailing policy paradigm can be discerned for the four periods, each with its own definition of problems and solutions of water policy in Israel. The role of policy networks in the process of preserving and transforming the policy paradigms is also examined.

The Evolvement of Neighbourhood Activism and the Extension of Citizenship Rights by Shlomo Hasson

This article explores the construction of neighbourhood organisations over time and their role in extending citizenship rights. The study explores the structural conditions under which neighbourhood organisations develop, the socio-historical process whereby they have been constructed by purposeful human agents, their meanings and the interrelations between social actors and state agents. From a socio-historical point of view, there appears to be a gradual change in the nature of the neighbourhood organisations from independent ratepayers associations to paternalist models of social dependency then to protest organisations and finally to co-production. Each phase has been associated with a distinctive extention of citizenship rights: economic, social, cultural and political rights.

Policy Think-Tanks: The Experience of the Israel Democracy Institute by Arik Carmon

In Israel think-tanks play increasingly significant roles throughout the policy processes. Focusing on the Israel Democracy Institute, the article examines the major dilemmas involved in shaping the functions, structure and outputs of think-tanks while maintaining their autonomy and professional credibility.

PART TWO: Issues of Governance

The Transferability of New Public Management Reforms: Cavets from Israel by David Rosenbloom and Allon Yaroni During 1994–96, Israel tried to adapt and implement New Public Management (NPM) reforms in its national bureaucracy. Israel's experience suggests that the NPM may not be suitable for administrative systems which are politicized, lack strong norms of formalization and impersonality, and have a weak public service ethic. Although the reforms were well designed, they faced several barriers to successful implementation, including: weak political and public support, and unwillingness to rewrite civil service laws, and the absence of a strong change agent. Israel's experience raises cavets for administrative reformers in a wide range of nations.

The High Court of Justice and the Shaping of Public Policy: Equality and Gender by Mordechai Kremnitzer

This article examines the use by the High Court of Justice of its jurisdiction to shape public policy in relations to equality of the sexes in the light of some of its leading judgements. The author assesses the degree of creativity displayed by the Court in this area and the level of influence exerted by the judgements on norms of governmental behaviour. The author examines the development of principles and methods created and used by the Court in cases of discrimination against women in those areas dealing with appointments to religious bodies, labour law, family law, and recent cases involving questions of affirmative action and the concept of equality (the Women's Lobby case and the Miller case). The author states that the struggle for equality must be conducted on two fronts – the symbolic-conceptual-image front and the practical front. He concludes that in the legal struggle for equality of different groups in Israeli society, the differences between women and other groups should not be ignored. However, these groups should learn a lesson from the women's struggle, and make an effort to create social consensus as to their right to equality. They should also operate and use organizations that will provide the legislature and the courts with data relating to the absence of equality as well as provide creative ideas for how to improve equality.

Israel's State Comptroller and Public Administration by Ira Sharkansky

Both the state comptroller and Israel's public administration have come a long way since the comptroller's first annual report appeared in 1950. That mineographed document of 167 pages criticized, among other things, excessive spending on drinks and sandwiches offered at the conferences of state employees. There is symmetry between an agressive state comptroller and the state it is charged with criticizing. The strength of the state appears in its leverage on the national economy, its demands on citizens for national service, extensive social services, and the reach of its laws into issues that elsewhere are likely to be more completely in the private sector. The character of the state comptroller appears in its formal powers and the assertiveness of the individuals who have headed the institution in recent years. Far-reaching audits of policy goals and the political activities of policy-makers and private citizens have made the state comptroller a prominent actor in Israel's public sector, and have raised questions about the comptroller's judgement.

PART THREE: Selected Policy Areas

Social Welfare Policies in Israel: Developments in the 1980s and 1990s by Abraham Doron

Two major but sometimes contradicting trends have dominated Israeli policies since the 1980s. The dominant trend, motivated partly by economic and partly by ideological considerations, reflects the retrenchment and marginalization policies. Retrenchment, in the sense of budgetary cutbacks of social welfare expenditure and programmatic changes in social provisions. Marginalization reflects the attempts of returning social welfare issues tot he perhiphery of the political arena and transforms them into issues of private and individual concern. The secondary trend, leading in an opposite direction, indicates some wielding of governmental responsibilities in specific areas of social provision, whether a a response to urgent needs, or to pressures of public opinion. Expansion of governmental responsibilities can be found in the area of health care, children's allowances, pensions for housewifes, disabled children and others. These trends are a departure from the social-democratic, European model of social protection policies to which Israel adhered for many years. In the last two decades Israel has tended to move towards the conservative American model of social welfare protection and leaves citizens largely to become dependent on market forces. The main theme of the article is to examine these trends in the field of social security and the personal social services, and to analyse the effect of policy changes on the well-being of weaker population groups and on Israeli society as a whole.

Housing Policy in Israel: Rview, Evaluation and Lessons by Naomi Carmon

In the fifty years since its establishment, the State of Israel has turned from an undeveloped country of less than a million people to a developed country with six million citizens, whose income per capita is within the range of OECD countries. The deep involvement of the central government in the housing market has been a main factor in shaping the current housing conditions, in which about two-thirds of the population enjoy high standards and less than five per cent suffer from housing deficiencies. Int he first 20 years, governmental assistance focused on the supply side. Since then, public invovlement has been gradually reduced and has moved towards the demand side. This article reviews the governmental housing policy and evaluates its results in terms of the impact on socioeconomic and physical-spatial changes in Israel. Finally, several lessons are drawn from the Israeli experience, regarding the following concerns: the extent of desirable governmental intervention in the housing market, tenure issues, urban design, the promotion of social integration, and the prevention of neighbourhood deterioration through housing policies.

Bringing Order to Choas? Educational Policy in Israel in the Postmodern Era by Abraham Yogev

Claiming that educational policy in Israel has been profoundly influenced by the postmodern era, this article discusses the major sociological dimensions of this chaotic era. It then focuses on the influence of these dimensions on policy-making with regard to the three school levels and the growing divisions within the Israeli education system. In conclusion, the article argues that educational policies must be developed in order to provide some coherent answers to the chaotic features of postmodernity.

Turning Government Hospitals into Trusts: An Assessment of the Israeli Case by Arie Shirom

This article describes and analyses the development and early attempts to implement the policy of incorporating government acute-care hospitals during the 1990s. The first section outlines the general background to the attempted hospital reform. The next section describes the state of the reform in those hospitals that had began the incorporation process. The concluding section analyses the merits and demerits of specific policy alternatives for the continuation of the process. Public Transportation Policy in Israel: Challenges for the Decade Ahead by Robert E Paaswell and Joseph Berechman This article examines the state of the public transit sector in Israel with respect to key long-term trends in ridership and model split and the sector's major structural and operational problems. Using the case of public transport in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, the article then argues that without fundamental reforms the transit sector would not be able to meet future challenges, mainly satisfy users' needs, support evolving land use patterns and provide services effectively and economically. These neccessary reforms are an organizational reform and a regulatory reform, both of which must be components of a regional and national transport strategic plan.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.2 & 3

Special Issue: Israel at the Polls 1999

Edited by Daniel J Elazar and M Ben Mollov

Introduction: Elections 1999 – The Interplay Between Character, Political Culture, and Centrism by Daniel J Elazar and M Ben Mollov

This article serves as an analytical overview of the 1999 election, tracing its major dynamics. The record of Netanyahu’s policies in foreign and domestic affairs is evaluated along with the public’s judgement of his character. Important trends in the political culture of Israel are identified which led to dramatic changes in the party composition of the Knesset, along with other factors responsible for Barak’s prime-ministerial victory. The article suggests that the Israeli public perceived Barak as a leader with integrity who could unite large segments of the country’s population and steer a centrist course in foreign policy. It indicated, however, that over time Barak would have to prove that his modus operandi was superior to that of his predecessor’s.

The Israeli Left in the 1999 Elections by Giora Goldberg

Following three years in opposition, the Israeli Left came back to power in the 1999 elections. Barak achieved 56 per cent while his opponent, Netanyahu, the incumbent prime minister, gained 44 per cent. Barak won the 1997 primaries in the Labor party, defeating two extreme doves (Ben-Ami and Beilin) and former health minister Sneh. Barak’s success was rooted in his brilliant military career, his anti-politics image, and his centrist positions. His support from the new Russian Jewish immigrants and antagonism toward the Sephardi religious Shas party contributed to his overwhelming electoral triumph. Despite his success, Labor dropped to 26 parliamentary seats, although it remained the largest political party in the Knesset.

The Downfall of the National Camp? by Ami Pedahzur

On 17 May 1999, Ehud Barak was elected prime minister of Israel, supported by a large majority of the Israeli population. According to many political correspondents, Barak’s achievement signalled the decline of the right-wing national camp in the country. Among other matters, this article argues that indeed the Israeli public did not show its confidence in the right-wing candidate Benyamin Netanyahu by its vote. However, any conclusions regarding the decline of the right-wing camp are premature. In other words, the election results demonstrated the weariness of the Israeli public with the Netanyahu administration, but they cannot be considered as a confidence vote for the political agenda of the Left. This article first offers a definition of the Israeli Right and then gives details of the political actors of the right-wing camp in the 1999 elections. Following that, it presents an analytical perspective of Netanyahu’s defeat and the decline in support for the traditional right-wing party family, and finally it discusses the expansion of the new right.

The Shas Phenomenon and Religious Parties in the 1999 Elections by Etta Bick

This article studies the religious parties in the 1999 elections, with the main focus being the upsurge in political support for Shas, the Sephardic orthodox party. It analyses the realignment of voters in the elections, particularly the Sephardim in development towns and post-1948 cities and supporters of the NRP (the National Religious Party). It examines the salient issues that influenced voter choice as well as structural factors such as the Israeli election law and the political strategies of competing parties. It relates to the staying power of the UTJ (United Torah Judaism party) and its measured success in expanding its circle of supporters. The essay also focuses on those relations between the lay and religious leadership within each of the parties which have had an impact on their positions on the issues and on the strategies of their campaigns. Lastly, it assesses the impact of the realignment of the parties on Israel’s political system and on future issues which will be on Israel’s political agenda.

Israeli ‘Russian’ Parties and the New Immigrant Vote by Vladimir Khanin

Since the beginning of the massive Jewish immigration from the USSR and post-Soviet states in 1989, the Russian-speaking community became a major factor of Israeli politics. This article focuses on various political, social and institutional factors that promote the growth of sectarian ‘Russian’ politics in Israel, paying special attention to both the origin and activities of local new-immigrant parties and ‘Russian’ wings of the mainstream political movements. The article also analyses political and social divisions within the new immigrant community vis-à-vis the traditional cleavages in Israeli society, as well as elaborating on the ways in which all these developments impacted on the political behaviour of Russian-speaking Israelis during the 1999 Prime-Ministerial and Knesset elections.

The Centre Party by Efraim Torgovnik

This article analyses the rise and fall of the hopes of a group of salient political leaders to capture the post of prime minister under the new system of direct popular elections. The Centre party emerged ad hoc in response to the negative political environment created by then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the first prime minister elected under the new system, who had failed to maintain his coalition. The article focuses on the changing social and political conditions that emerged on the eve of the 1999 elections, and the response of the leaders of the new Centre party, who were public figures from various parties, notably Netanyahu’s own Likud party. The Centre party believed it had a great opportunity to capture the post of prime minister because of Netanyahu’s waning political support. The party’s candidate, Yitzhak Mordechai, argued that he was better able to defeat Netanyahu than Ehud Barak of the Labor party, but while he had received strong initial support in public opinion polls, this began to wane as the national elections approached, and Mordechai withdrew his candidacy just before the elections.

The Arab Vote in the Israeli Elections: The Bid for Leadership by Hillel Frisch

The 1999 Knesset elections underscored once again the marginality of Israel’s Arab citizens. Despite voting en masse for Ehud Barak, no Arab was appointed Minister, and the Arab parties which secured the overwhelming majority of Arab votes were not even invited to the coalition talks, let alone to join it. The electoral system characterized by the split ticket encourages the Prime Minister to stick to the political center, and, therefore, to maintain Israel’s ‘republican’ nature as a state of the Jews if not a Jewish state. The strengthening of the executive then leaves the Arabs on the periphery of Israeli politics.

Foreign Policy in the 1999 Israeli Elections by Gerald M Steinberg

The ‘peace process’ and the resulting conflict with the USA were major themes during the campaign, and contributed to the outcome. Netanyahu lost support from the religious right after he agreed to territorial concessions at the Wye summit in October 1998, leading to early elections. In the campaign, Netanyahu returned to the 1996 themes, including the unity of Jerusalem, while Barak emphasized his military achievements, and kept his views on negotiations with the Palestinians and with Syria very ambiguous. In contrast, Barak’s explicit campaign pledge to withdraw the IDF from Southern Lebanon within a year marked a significant departure. However, the evidence shows that these issues did not, by themselves, determine the election results.

External Factors in Israel’s 1999 Elections by Barry Rubin

Israel’s 1999 election prompted more discussion, debate, and serious analysis in the Arab world than any previous Israeli election. For the first time, many – though by no means all – Arab journalists and opinion-makers conceded that there was some difference between the candidates and that the results would affect Arab interests. The Palestinian Authority tried to some degree to shape the results, though with limited success. Meanwhile, the United States was very interested in the outcome but was careful not to become involved in the issue, though this stance is often misunderstood since everyone was aware that President Bill Clinton favoured a victory by Ehud Barak.

The Media Campaign: The Shift to Alternative Media by Eytan Gilboa with Yaron Katz

This study suggests that critical decisive elements of the media campaign in the 1999 Israeli elections have further moved from the public sphere and the mainstream media to multi-cultural ‘sphericules’ and the alternative media. It systematically explains why candidates for prime minister and parties have preferred to use media that directly target ethnic and religious minorities, including satellite technology, the Internet, radio, videocassettes, telemarketing, and direct mail. Several factors combined to produce this trend: the new double vote system – one for prime minister and the other for a party in the Knesset, the ethnic and religious make-up of the electorate, limitations of the mainstream media, availability of new communication technologies and alternative media, lessons learned from the previous 1996 elections, and unique characteristics of the 1999 elections.

La Bell(e) Epoque? A Comparison of Party Platform and Television Propaganda Ideology in the 1999 Israeli Elections by Atara Faran-Frankel and Sam Lehman-Wilzig

This study analyses and compares party platform and television propaganda during Israel’s 1999 election campaign, for four parties: Israel One, Likud, Centre, and MERETZ. The platform variables investigated were: general format, issue range, order of appearance and length. The (three-week) television spots were analysed quantitatively, by number of subject appearances, and qualitatively (to elicit finer points). Our findings: (1) the major platform issues (security, society, economy, education) were highly prioritized by all four parties, while other issues had wide variance; (2) On television, issue priority had wider variation; (3) in 40 per cent of the issue areas, the rank-order priority of the party for a specific issue differed markedly between its platform and its television propaganda. The article concludes with a broad discussion of ideology’s place in contemporary politics and possible reasons for our surprising findings (especially point 3).

Polls, Opinions and Political Decisions – An Information Theory View of the 1999 Elections by Dov Te’eni, Nachshon Margaliot, and Yaacov J Katz

The 1999 elections highlighted two converging trends: the voters moved towards the centre of the political map, and the media of the political discourse converged to the national mainstream media. Modelling polls and politics as a system, we use information theory to explain how these two trends increased (1) the difficulty of predicting the election outcome, (2) the consequent popularity of polls, and (3) their impact on political behaviour. Despite these effects, there remained widespread threats to the validity of the polls. We describe a new method for polling that builds on voters’ previous voting patterns. Interestingly, this method revealed systematic biases in the responses to polls.

Economics and the 1999 Elections by Manfred Gerstenfeld

The 1999 elections were held against the background of economic stagnation. They demonstrated, once again, that there are no ideological tensions between the major parties with regard to economic issues. There was almost no economic debate between Likud and One Israel throughout the campaign. Their initial, rudimentary slogans were not developed further. Neither party presented a coherent economic platform, nor were there indications of programms which would quantify the impact of the promises made and the measures proposed. Analysis of the role of economics in the campaign must thus be based mainly on secondary elements, news fragments or circumstantial evidence.

Women in the 1999 Elections, Still a Glass Ceiling? by Yael Yishai

Women’s representation in the 1999 elections for the 15th Knesset markedly increased. Despite this achievement, women were disappointed because more women were expected to be elected and because those elected were not recruited to the Government. These ambiguous outcomes reflect the dual nature of women’s status in Israel in the political and economic domains. Women gained power but nevertheless inequality persisted, and in some cases became more accentuated. At the same time women have markedly improved their organizational skills, a fact which may have contributed to their electoral relative success.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 7.1

Between Terrorism and Emigration: The Case of Iraqi Jewry by Moshe Gat

This article examines the position and fate of the Jews of Iraq in the first half of the twentieth century and after the creation of Israel in 1948. It begins with an historical account of the integration of Jews into Iraqi society and the success with which this occurred in both the social and economic spheres. It then examines the 1930s when various factors including the rise of Zionism and the Arab revolt in Palestine and the spread of Nazi propaganda in Iraq all made life for Jews more difficult. This peaked with a pogrom against the Jewish community in 1941. As the author shows, the response to this was the founding of a Jewish underground body which promoted Jewish defence, and Zionist education. This section is followed by a detailed analysis of the increasingly precarious situation of Iraqi Jews after the birth of Israel. It concludes with an in-depth analysis of the official Iraqi claims that explosions in Baghdad in 1951 were detonated by Jews in an attempt to increase Jewish emigration from Iraq. The author rejects these claims and offers alternative reasons for this bombing campaign.

Responsible Power, Irresponsible Power: Israel and Vietnam According to Hans J Morgenthau by M Ben Mollov

The article compares, contrasts and attempts to explain the difference in the attitude of Hans J Morgenthau, viewed by many as the father of classical realism in international relations, to America's involvement in Vietnam and Israel's quest for security in the 1960s and 1970s. In doing so it begins with an analysis of Morgenthau's attitude to the Soviet-American confrontation and the Vietnam War. The author argues that Morgenthau's opposition to the Vietnam War did not contradict his belief in the need to take a firm stand against the spread of Soviet communism. The article then concentrates on Morgenthau's recommendations for Israeli foreign policy and his defense of the moral legitimacy of Israel and its security policy and places this stance in the context of his concerns over the harsh power realities and the rejectionism that Israel faced in the region at the time.

Democratization and the Palestinian National Authority: From State-in-the-Making to Statehood by Hussein Sirriyeh

This article examines the Palestinian National Authority. More specifically, it analyses the PNA in the context of democracy and the desire for, and role of, democratisation in Palestinian government and society as statehood appears to be looming. It argues that, despite some positive exceptions, at present undemocratic aspects are more prevalent than democratic ones in the PNA policies. To support this argument the author analyses the position of the Palestinian Legislative Council, the role of the security forces in Palestinian society, the treatment of opposition groups and censorship and human rights issues. The article attempts to explain the underlying reasons for this lack of democracy and concludes with a general assessment of the likelihood of a Palestinian state adopting thoroughly democratic procedures and policies.

Poetry and History: The Case of U Z Greenberg by Yehuda Friedlander

This article examines the poetry of Uri Zvi Greenberg, whom the author argues is the greatest Hebrew poet after Bialik. In particular the article attempts to highlight the extent that the history of the people of Israel from the patriarch Abraham until modern times has influenced Greenberg's poetry. In order to show this the author expounds on Greenberg's vision of history in his poetry and shows how such central historic (and spiritual) events as the exile and redemption of Israel are presented in his poetry and can be viewed as evidence of his deeply held, and highly original, historical and philosophical outlook.

Ideology, Identity and Language in Modern Hebrew Literature by Risa Domb

This article examines three issues – ideology, Jewish identity and language – which, the author argues, have dominated both Hebrew and Israeli literature in the modern era. Specifically, the author attempts to show how ideology, identity and language have mirrored each other in their development in Jewish, Zionist and Israeli society and literature. Most importantly, the role of language, specifically Hebrew, in the Jewish national movement is emphasised by way of a short summary of the literary development of Hebrew in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the nineteenth century. In addressing these issues from an historical and literary perspective the article raises issues that are at the heart of both Israeli and Jewish society such as the relationship between secular and religious Jews, the conflict and cooperation between Israel and the diaspora and the future path of Israel.

Village with a Split Personality by Lydia Aisenberg

This article examines Barta'a, a small Arab Muslim village in the Wadi Ara region of Israel. Its geographical position, and the fact that its population is divided by the Green Line, has resulted in its inhabitants being divided into Arab citizens of Israel and Palestinians. The author attempts to show how this divide allows for a fascinating examination of the two communities within the village and explains the differing attitudes that both communities have developed as a result of the artificial boundaries. In doing so one sees the contradictions, confusion and insights that result from the village's split personality.

Israel's China Policy 1950–92 by E Zev Sufott

This article examines the political and diplomatic relationship between Israel and China from the early Cold War era until the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states in 1992. In doing so it analyses the official and non-official relationship in these four decades and sets the mutual relationship in the context of seminal events such as the Korean War, domestic political change in China, Sino-Soviet rivalry and the Arab-Israeli conflict, all of which played a large part in determining the relationship over the time frame examined. In this manner the article clearly highlights the reasons behind the gradual shift from friendly relations in the early cold war era to hostility and back again to a renewal of cooperation which culminated in the 1992 opening of diplomatic relations.

Israel: Born in Sin? by Elihu Bergman

Books at a Glance

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.3&4

Special Issue

Israel The First Hundred Years Volume II: From War to Peace?

Edited by: Efraim Karsh, King’s College London

The Forgotten War: Jewish–Palestinian Strife in Mandatory Palestine, December 1947–May 1948 by David Tal

This essay examines the Jewish–Palestinian struggle that preceded the 1948 War. In doing so it analyses the key developments that ultimately led to conflict between the opposing parties. It argues that the defining event was the Jewish acceptance of the United Nations Partition Resolution of 1947, as this determined the strategy that was adopted by the Jewish forces in the initial stages of the conflict. It then argues that, though determined to prevent the creation of a Jewish state, the Palestine Arabs, divided as they were by internal conflicts and disagreements within the governments of the surrounding Arab states, were neither prepared nor equipped for the task they undertook.

Shall We Go to War? And If We Do, When? The Genesis of the Internal Debate in Israel on the Road to the Sinai War by Motti Golani

This essay attempts to analyse the process that ultimately led to Israel’s entry into a joint offensive with Britain and France against Egypt in 1956. In doing so it assesses the centrality of various senior figures in the decision to go to war, focusing in particular on the roles of three individuals: Moshe Dayan, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Sharett. It shows the antagonism between Prime Minister Sharett on the one hand and Defence Minister Ben-Gurion and Chief-of-Staff Dayan on the other, in the years preceding the Sinai War, and argues that it was the latter two who guided Israel’s security policy in the face of opposition from within the political establishment and the government.

The 1956 Sinai Campaign: David Ben-Gurion’s Policy on Gaza, the Armistice Agreement and French Mediation by Mordechai Gazit

This essay seeks to highlight several ignored aspects of David Ben-Gurion’s conception of the 1956 Sinai Campaign. Thus, for example, it demonstrates that, contrary to the received wisdom, Ben-Gurion did not rule out Israeli control of the Gaza Strip. While in 1949 he expressed his willingness to incorporate the Strip into Israel and to integrate its entire Arab population, after the capture of this territory in 1956 he opted for maintaining a hold over the Strip without its annexation. The essay also highlights the role played by the 1949 Armistice Agreement in the ‘Understanding’ of 1 March 1957 ending the crisis caused by the Suez Campaign. By way of doing so it details the political manoeuvres of US Secretary of State Dulles, including the orchestration of French mediation as a means of bringing about an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula.

The ‘Tranquil Decade’ Re-examined: Arab–Israeli Relations During the Years 1957–67 by Menachem Klein

This essay takes issue with the claim that the period between the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Six Day War was the ‘tranquil decade’ in regard to the Arab–Israeli military conflict. In doing so the author looks both at the relationship within the Israeli political–security elite throughout these years, and at the military and political interaction between Israel and several Arab states. Its conclusion is that the notion of the ‘tranquil decade’ was a conscious attempt to hide Israel’s failure to achieve its long-term political objectives in the 1956 War.

Israel’s Nuclear Programme, the Six Day War and Its Ramifications by Shlomo Aronson

The main thesis of this essay is that Israel’s initial effort to acquire the ultimate deterrent, aimed at driving the Arabs to accept the Jewish state within its 1949 boundaries, was accompanied by a strategy of conventional pre-emption which was eventually implemented during the May 1967 crisis. The essay then proceeds to argue that following the Israeli conventional pre-emptive operations in June 1967, the Arabs adopted conventional war aims leading to the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Combined with Israel’s nuclear option, which survived the 1967 crisis unscathed, the peace negotiations between Israel and its neighbours following the 1973 War, the active regional role played by the United States, and changes in the Arab world and in the former Soviet Union, may explain the current peace process.

Towards a Paradigm Shift in Israel’s National Security Conception by Uri Bar-Joseph

This essay examines the shift in Israel’s national security conception in the face of new internal and external factors. The author argues that various developments such as the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Arab–Israeli peace process and the new attitudes of Israelis to their society and state as they enter a ‘post-Zionist’ era are making the old preconceptions regarding national security obsolete.

Patterns of War Initiation in the Arab–Israeli Conflict: A Note on the Military Dimension by David Rodman

Six Arab–Israeli wars have been fought over the past 50 years. Each side has initiated three of these wars. The Arabs began those of 1948–49, 1969–70 and 1973, while the Israelis began those of 1956, 1967 and 1982. This essay argues that each side’s decisions to initiate these wars rested in part on its perceptions about its chosen military strategy. Specifically, the Arabs initiated the 1948–49, 1969–70 and 1973 wars in part because they perceived that their chosen strategy of attrition was favoured at these times. Likewise, the Israelis initiated the 1956, 1967 and 1982 wars in part because they perceived that their chosen strategy of manoeuvre was favoured at these times. This relationship between war initiation and military strategy, however, has not been consciously explored in the literature about the Arab–Israeli wars. Hence this essay is a first attempt to fill a lacuna in that literature.

Israel’s Nuclear History by Edwin S Cochran

Beginning with the earliest years of the state, this essay provides a detailed, historical account of the development of Israel’s nuclear-weapon capability. Dividing the development of Israel’s nuclear programme into five distinct chronological phases, the author investigates both the debates within the state’s political, military and scientific elite in each stage and the actual efforts to build up the human and scientific resources needed to pursue the nuclear path.

Jewish–Non-Palestinian-Arab Negotiations: The First Phase by Eliezer Tauber

Negotiations between Zionists and non-Palestinian Arabs from the beginning of the Young Turk rule until the start of the Mandatory era are the subject of this essay. It assesses the various organizations that looked to negotiate with the Zionist Movement and shows the complex, and at times contradictory, motivations behind Arab sympathy and hostility towards the Zionist project. It also looks at various (fruitless) efforts to foster possible Arab–Zionist negotiations in the final years of the Ottoman Empire.

Transition from Conflict: The Importance of Pre-Negotiations in the Oslo Peace Process by Ilan G Gewurz

This case study of Israeli–Palestinian peacemaking efforts in Oslo concentrates on the role and inherent importance of the pre-negotiation process (especially in the early stages of the secret channel between January and March 1993) in determining the way that negotiations evolved. It argues that this first period enabled the parties to learn more about one another, evaluate the other party’s needs, interests and intentions and helped bring the process to a point where it could enter into mainstream foreign policy. The essay concludes by drawing lessons from the experience in Oslo regarding the nature of pre-negotiations in general.

Unambiguous Ambiguity: The Opacity of the Oslo Peace Process by Nadav Morag

This essay analyses the Oslo peace process. In doing so it concentrates on the ambiguous nature of the agreements at the heart of Oslo. While explaining why the Oslo process needed to be of an open-ended, non-committal nature, the author argues that it is this ambiguity, nowhere better seen than in Oslo’s avoidance of specific issues vital to a final settlement between parties, that is the most damaging aspect of the agreement. Issues such as demography and borders are analysed in the context of the Oslo process to highlight the extent to which the process has ignored, or is unsuited to dealing with, some of the most critical issues at the heart of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

The Netanyahu Era: From Crisis to Crisis, 1996–99 by Neill Lochery

During the Netanyahu era the Israeli political system was in a period of transition, caused to a large extent by the adoption of a new electoral system in 1996 which was designed to reduce the level of political horse-trading that had characterized Israeli politics during the 1980s. In reality, as Netanyahu was to find to his cost, the new system severely constrained the Prime Minister’s room for manoeuvre, making him ever more vulnerable to his own party, the cabinet and the government coalition. This, in turn, had an adverse impact on the Arab–Israeli peace process, as Netanyahu vainly sought to navigate between Likud’s ideological precepts and his own pragmatic disposition.

Jerusalem: Partition Plans for a Holy City by Elisha Efrat

Because of strategic location and religious importance, Jerusalem presents formidable challenges to politicians. Israelis and Palestinians each have different perspectives on the city, but neither has so far been entirely successful in prescribing a solution that would benefit the two peoples. Different partition plans and spatial alternatives have been proposed for Jerusalem during the past half-century, based on the city’s geographical and demographic position. None of these plans has thus far been approved or accepted by both sides to the conflict; meanwhile Jerusalem has been losing its urban fabric as a planned and rational capital.

Arab–Israeli Coexistence: The Causes, Achievements and Limitations by Efraim Inbar

This essay analyses the military, political and domestic reasons that have resulted in the increased Arab acceptance of Israel. Having shown that Israel’s relationship with the Arab world has improved greatly in the last few decades, the author attempts to place this new state of affairs in its proper context and cautions against unrealistic optimism or expectations given the possible barriers to further relations. He argues that the Arab–Israeli peace process cannot be expected to achieve more than the limitations of the regional situation allow.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.2

Special Issue

Parties, Elections and Cleavages: Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective

Edited by: Moshe Maor and Reuven Y Hazan

Parties, Elections and Cleavages: Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective by Moshe Maor and Reuven Y Hazan

This article looks into the triangle of studies dealing with party system change, which consists of political parties, electoral systems and societal cleavages. It points out that the trigger for changes in party systems, and each of their components, might come from anywhere in the political system. Methodologically, this perspective implies that each of the aforementioned parts can be treated as either dependent or independent variables, depending on the questions asked. The article then outlines the dramatic electoral and political reforms that were adopted in Israel in the 1990s, and delineates the studies which make up the special issue.

PART I: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE:

The Party-Effects of Electoral Systems by Giovanni Sartori

This article refocuses the debate on the causal chain between electoral systems and party systems. It argues that the electoral systems ‘cause’ the party system, and challenges the prevailing view that electoral systems are not a fundamental causative factor in the development of party systems. The article concludes with an analysis of the new electoral system in Israel and its faults. It posits that Israel is the worst case of multidimensional competition, which has produced a dysfunctional system, and hence Israel cannot afford to maintain its electoral system that has misperformed. The article raises a provocative suggestion on how to improve the contemporary predicament in the Israeli party system.

Party Systems and Issue Dimensions: Israel and Thirty-Five Other Old and New Democracies Compared by Arend Lijphart, Peter J Bowman and Reuven Y Hazan

This article build on Lijphart’s previous work, and that of Taagepera and Grofman, on the relationship between the degree of multipartism and the number of issue dimensions. It extends the analysis to Israel and 35 other democracies during the period from the end of the Second World War to the late 1990s. The article finds an extremely strong correlation between the two variables, and examines both the influence that the two variables have on each other and their link with the electoral system. Israel turns out to be a ‘normal’ case in one sense: Its number of parties and the issue dimensions of its party system are almost exactly in line with the broad comparative pattern. But it is highly unusual in the strength and persistence of one of the issue dimensions: foreign policy questions. Moreover, in the 1990s, the article finds that Israel has an especially high number of parties and, thus, more substantially defined issue dimensions than in any other time period. This increase, despite the electoral system variable being constant, is due to the direct election of the prime minister.

Changing Conditions of Party Competition: A New Model Party? by Gordon Smith

This article addresses, on theoretical terms, aspects of issue politics and examines Britain’s New Labour as a test case – a significant transformation that is similar to the one currently taking place in the two major parties in Israel. Stressing the relative autonomy of political parties, it sketches the forces affecting the trend toward ‘issue politics’ in relation to the diversity of inputs and the changing balance among them. The article then discusses the various strategies available to parties in dealing with issues and elaborates on ‘maverick issues’ which have the greatest potential for a significant transformation of a party system. It argues that despite the increasing issue-basis of politics, the core parties still retain control of political power, which at the same time can lead to a decline in the legitimacy of the party state.

PART II: RELIGION AND STATE:

Religion and State in Europe and Israel by Benyamin Neuberger

This article delineates the main religion–state models and applies them to both Europe and Israel. It argues that there is a process of convergence of the various models. The two ‘extreme’ models, the established church model and the strict separation model, are becoming less pure, while most of Europe is converging towards two ‘moderate’ models, the recognized communities model and the endorsed church model. The article stresses the commonality of all four democratic models, and places Israel within the comparative context.

Conflict Management of Religious Issues: The Israeli Case in a Comparative Perspective by Eliezer Don-Yehiya

This article addresses the specific systems of conflict management in the religious area and elaborates these models by comparing the resolution of religious conflicts in Europe, the United States and Israel. It then expands this analysis by comparing the patterns of conflict management applied to religious issues in Israel with those that are applied to other controversial issues. The article outlines and compares the extent and circumstances of particular methods that are actually used in dealing with religious conflicts, and discusses the conditions for their effective and successful use.

Religion and Politics in Israel: The Rise and Fall of the Consociational Model by Reuven Y Hazan

This article elaborates the presence and subsequent decline of the institutional mechanisms in Israel that have helped overcome religious conflicts. It places Israel within a comparative theoretical construct of consociational democracies, and argues that the literature has failed to classify Israel properly because the consociational methods have transformed over time. The focus of the article is the most central aspect of consociationalism in Israel, namely, the role of the parties and the party system. It discusses the impact of the recent electoral reforms in Israel on the methods of religious conflict management in the party system, and examines how the reforms have undermined the ability to produce agreements and successfully manage religious issues.

PART III: PARTY SYSTEM CHANGE:

Rethinking De Swaan (1973): A Note on Closed Coalitions, Uni-dimensionality and the Role of Sectarian Political Parties by Abraham Diskin

This article addresses the trade-off faced by scholars of coalition formation, between their wish to develop simple and elegant models and the need to take into account the fact that few relatively weak parties can complicate such models. It examines de Swaan’s famous coalition findings concerning ‘closed coalition’ theory and produces a considerable improvement in its predictive power. Whereas in the original model, 24 per cent of the formations examined by de Swaan are not closed, in the modified model presented in this article, only 2.5 per cent of the coalitions examined remain open. In the Israeli case, the number of open coalitions drops from 44 per cent to nil.

Political Change and Party System Transformation by Gabriel Sheffer

This article describes two systemic changes that have transformed Israeli politics since its creation and substantially influenced the party system. The first transformation occurred gradually, during the late 1960s and the 1970s, and was essentially a structural shift from consociational to corporatist political arrangements. This change took place against the background of changes in the social cleavage system. The second transformation is much less clear cut, and its direction is still to be agreed upon. While traditional cleavages still linger, the waning of collective identities, on the one hand, and the absence of a developed ‘new politics’ alternative, on the other, imply the emergence of an unstructured and almost chaotic political pluralism, the weakening of the state and a shift of power toward single-issue groups, as well as special interest groups.

From Government by Party to Government Despite Party by Peter Y Medding

This article uses Lijphart’s models of consensus and majoritarian democracy to analyze the evolution of the Israeli political system via an analysis of changes in the pattern of party government, but arrives at radically different conclusions. According to Lijphart’s seminal analysis, in the past 50 years Israel has moved toward majoritarian democracy and has become less clearly consensual. This article suggests that the Israeli political system has instead moved from majoritarian democracy to consensus democracy. It argues that since 1967, party government in Israel has presented a paradox: steady movement in the direction of consensus democracy toward a situation of government without party despite, and perhaps because of, the introduction into the system of a powerful majoritarian element – a directly-elected Prime Minister, yet one who remains subject to the confidence of a majority parliamentary coalition. As a result, party, and parliamentary, government, and collective responsibility have all been weakened fundamentally, whilst the power and authority of the Prime Minister have not been strengthened correspondingly.

Books at a Glance

Abstracts of articles in Issue 6.1

Special Issue

Revisiting The Yom Kippur War

Edited by: P R Kumaraswamy

Introduction by P R Kumaraswamy

Even quarter of a century later the Yom Kippur War remains the most traumatic phase in Israel's history. Despite its military successes and subsequent peace dividends, the war does not evoke pride and satisfaction. The coordinated Arab effort in initiating the hostilities and breaching the 1967 cease-fire line still haunts many. It is remembered and debated primarily for the initial Israeli 'unpreparedness' and far less for the subsequent military successes. The death and destruction was physical as well as psychological and for many the war extracted a heavy personal price.

Israel's 1973 Intelligence Failure by Uri Bar-Joseph

Despite the immense number of warnings prior to the outbreak of hostilities, Israel's Military Intelligence (Aman) failed to provide sufficient warning. Because of its inability to properly interpret the wealth of intelligence information, Israel was taken by surprise on 6 October 1973. By creating an artificial consensus within the Aman, its head Eli Zeira presented a biased 'research opinion' to policy makers. By deciding against disseminating certain critical information to appropriate parties, he prevented the military leadership from the early mobilization of the reserve forces.

The 1973 Arab War Coalition: Aims, Coherence and Gain-Distribution by Avraham Sela

The 1973 war witnessed an unprecedented rallying of Arab states in active support of Egypt and Syria. Contributions by the Arab states included expeditionary forces and arms, financial aid and the use of oil as a political weapon against Israel’s western allies. This was mostly resulted by the emotional rallying force of war against Israel rather than by early efforts of President Sadat, the leader and architect of the war, to forge a formal inter-Arab war coalition. Despite its initial success, the Arab war coalition rapidly weakened by differences of interests and constraints, mutual suspicion and Israel’s maneuvers. Sadat effectively maintained his autonomous decision-making and, while fully employing his advantage as a pivotal Arab actor toward the Superpowers to reap the lion’s share of the war spoils for the sake of Egypt, left his Arab partners no choice but to follow him.

Operational Limitations of Reserve Forces: The Lessons of the 1973 War by Stuart A Cohen

The range of faulty 'conceptions' associated with the war was extended to incorrect estimate of the ease with which the IDF's existing force structure could cope with whatever military challenges it might be called upon to face. In many respects, the success of the IDF to recover from the shock of the outbreak of the war and initial run of defeats was achieved despite the reserve system and not by virtue of its application. The outcome of the war reflected far more credit on the reservists as individuals than on the framework of which they formed a part.

The Yom Kippur War: Diplomacy of War and Peace by Simcha Dinitz

His apprehensions over possible impeachment and removal from office did not inhibit President Nixon from taking decisive actions in support of Israel and ordering the largest airlift of military supplies. These supplies initially delayed due to Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, played a critical role in the out of the war and in the ensuing peace with Egypt. At the political level, the airlift acted as a deterrent to the Soviets against contemplating intervention in the war, signaling that the US was able and willing to carryout massive movement of equipment even amidst domestic difficulties.

The Soviet Union and the Yom Kippur War by Galia Golan

Throughout the war the Soviet policy underscored the two contradictory natures of its objectives, namely to maintain détente and prevent confrontation with the US; and to maintain and if possible improve its traditional relations with the Arabs. Its unwillingness to arm Egypt with offensive capability partly contributed to the hostilities and its efforts to achieve an early cease-fire in the interest of preventing escalation or need to intervene further angered the Arab leaders. While it made significant effort to remain a player in the region, its relations and standing with the Arabs declined as the US became increasingly dominant after the war.

From Crisis to Change: The Israeli Political Elites and the 1973 War by Gabriel Sheffer

If the June 1967 war constituted a critical turning point in the social, economic and political development of Israel, the 1973 war caused a critical major shift in the nature of the Israeli polity, including its political, bureaucratic and military elites. The Mapai/Labor dominated political and military elite which shaped and governed Israel since 1948, bore the brunt of the war. The old regime gradually gave way to the emerging Neo-Corporatist arrangement that was based on and nurtured by a new breed of political, economic and military leaders.

The Domestic Fallout of the Yom Kippur War by Susan Hattis Rolef

Except for the immediate psychological effects and longer term economic effects, the war was much more of a catalyst for various domestic developments which would have occurred even if had not taken place, than the perpetrator of these changes. It speeded up the arrival of certain social and political changes in Israel. If the Six-day war of 1967 placed Israel in a certain optimistic day dream, the Yom Kippur War constituted an unavoidable awakening from that dream.

Perception, Image Formation and Coping in the Pre-Crisis Stage of the Yom Kippur War by Gabriella Heichal

The pre-crisis stage of the war was underscored by the misperception of the military that an alarm of at least 48 hours would precede any Arab attack. This did not materialize because of the false alarms in the past and the credibility of the warning depreciated in direct correlation with the number of alarms which were proved to be false. With hindsight it is apparent that the intelligence community did not distinguish 'signals' from 'noise.' Above all, as the only center for the evaluation of intelligence, the Aman enjoyed a complete monopoly over the flow of information and assessments.

The Air Force and the Yom Kippur War: New Lessons by Shmuel L Gordon

The IAF made a dominant contribution to halting the invasion of the Arab armies, defending the civilians, mobilizing the reserves to the front lines, launching an offensive campaign against the Arab Air Forces’ infrastructure, and engaging in air-to-air warfare. The paradox is that, despite its accomplishments, the IAF has a deep feeling of frustration because of its failure to achieve air superiority over the SAM systems. This failure was caused by instructions of higher echelons which did not take IAF doctrine into account.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.4

Special issue

Israel: The First Hundred Years Volume One: Israel's Transition from Community to State

Edited by: Efraim Karsh

Sacred Territories and National Conflict by Anthony D Smith

The conventional historical and political explanation for national conflict and loyalties is that it is born out of the administrative acts and decisions of colonial states and European powers. While accepting that this presentation has some positive factors, particularly in placing national conflict in the political domain, this article also argues that this analysis has certain drawbacks. It underestimates the relationship between common ethnicity and modern political nationalism. It fails to give adequate importance to symbols of ethnic past and, most notably, it does not account for the role of the land itself in creating conflict and loyalties among ethnic groups. The article shows how land becomes, through historical, religious or mythical experience, both part of the consciousness of the ethnic group and sacred to the ethnic group. It concludes with the argument that although by no means all conflicts involve the notion of sacred territories one should not underestimate this force in the development of national conflicts and loyalties.

From 'State within a State' to State by David Vital

This article examines the transition of the Jewish community of Palestine, the Yishuv, from a communal grouping under British mandatory rule to the State of Israel in 1948. It asks how this transformation was achieved and maintained with surprisingly few setbacks, in the face of general scepticism, war and the crisis within the Jewish world still shaken by the Holocaust. In doing so it addresses the historic relationship of Diaspora Jewry to its communal institutions and leadership and places the development of representative institutions first within the Zionist movement and then the Yishuv into this framework.

From Civil Society to Sovereign State: The Israeli Experience and the Palestinian Quest by Donna Robinson Divine

This article examines the organizations critical to Israel's establishment in 1948 and those institutions now dominating Palestinian society in the post-Oslo era, with a view to explaining the dynamic between state and civil society. It argues that there are many common links between the Zionist state-building experience half a century ago and the present situation facing the Palestinians. For example, it draws parallels between the role of the Histadrut - the General Federation of Workers in the Yishuv and the State of Israel – and the role of Hamas and other voluntary bodies in the Palestinian entity at the present. The article concludes by arguing that by placing the Zionist and Palestinian experience in the context of civil society, one can get a new perspective of state-building and political sovereignty in both cases.

The Jews in Eretz-Israel/Palestine: From Traditional Peripherality to Modern Centrality by Ruth Kark and Joseph B Glass

Beginning with a brief consideration of the historiographical trends in the study of Jewry in Palestine in the nineteenth century, this article examines the position and role of the Jews of the Yishuv from the late Ottoman era and through the era of British mandatory rule. It looks at the relationship between the Jews of the Yishuv and Diaspora Jewry as well as with the Arab population in Palestine. It also considers the relationship between different groups within the Yishuv – the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews and the members of the Old Yishuv (who lived in Palestine before 1882) and those of the New Yishuv. It also analyzes the continuity and change between different generations of the New Yishuv. By placing all these relationships into their economic, cultural and political context the article highlights the many changes within the Yishuv in this timeframe, most notably the shift from Sephardi to Ashkenazi dominance and the economic development of Jewry in Palestine.

The Boundaries of Mandatory Palestine: How the Past Influences the Future by Gideon Biger

This article examines one of the most complex, delicate and antagonistic aspects of Britain's post-First World War presence in the Middle East: the negotiations over Palestine's borders. It examines the arguments and claims of the primary parties to the negotiations – the British who held the mandate, the French who had the mandate of the adjacent territories of Syria and Lebanon, and the local players: the Zionist Movement and the Arab states. It looks at the strategic, historical and geographic factors, all of which played a part in the final decision on the border lines. However, by analyzing the claims of the various participants in negotiations and comparing them with the final boundary lines for Palestine, the author concludes that by far the most significant factor in determining these borders were neither historic nor strategic, but geographic.

Zionism and Jerusalem: The Conflict of Priorities: Changes in Zionist Settlement in the Jerusalem Vicinity, 1937–48 by Yossi Katz

Until the 1930s, Jewish agricultural settlement in Eretz Israel was concentrated in the plains and valley areas and the towns of Tel Aviv, Haifa and Tiberias. By contrast, Jewish settlement over the same period was quite sparse in the Jerusalem vicinity. This article examines the change that took place in the effort of the Zionist settlement bodies to strengthen the Jewish foothold in the vicinity of Jerusalem from the latter half of the 1930s up to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. It examines the reasons for the paucity of Zionist activity prior to this date, the causes that prompted the policy shift and the manner in which the shift found practical expression. It then attempts to assess the significance of this turnabout by comparing it to the settlement activity undertaken by World Zionist Organization bodies in other areas of Palestine in the same timeframe.

Railways in Israel: The Past and the Future by Walter Rothschild

This article looks at the development of the railway system in Palestine from the nineteenth century through the First World War, the inter-war era, the Second World War and through the British Mandate and the creation of Israel in 1948. It also examines how the new State of Israel approached the issue of a viable functioning rail system for the emerging nation. In doing so the article places the issue of Palestine railways in the context of general developments in railway building in the Near Eastern region during the same timeframe. It argues that regional railway development was not primarily a function of perceived economic opportunities but was motivated by political considerations. As such the investment in railway infrastructure depended on the political situation facing the powers on the ground and this was as true for the Ottomans as it was for the British. Palestine was no exception. The article concludes by assessing the possible future of the railway system in Israel given the move towards a general peace in the region and the domestic attitudes within Israel towards rail as a viable alternative to road transportation.

The Hebrew Absorption of German Literature in the Yishuv by Na'ama Sheffi

German culture had a strong and multifaceted influence on modern secular Hebrew culture, from Bauhaus architecture to German classical-music repertoire, to the ever-growing literary corpus of German works translated into Hebrew and the direct influence of German models on modern Hebrew literature. This essay will focus on the Yishuv's attitude to German culture - mainly its literature – throughout the Nazi era. By way of portraying this particular approach, it will also examine literary translation and its significance, and sketch the unique literary bond between Germans and Jews, from the inception of a Jewish state in the late eighteenth century up to its establishment in 1948. Finally, it will suggest guidelines for understanding Hebrew-German literary connections from Israel's independence up to the 1970s.

The Ideological and Political Background of the Israeli Defence Forces by Yaacov N Goldstein

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) has been a central factor in Israel's success in ensuring its existence since its founding in 1948. This article examines the historical, sociological and political roots of this military force, placing the IDF in the historical context of the early Zionist desire to create a military defence force. Its main argument is that it was the predominant influence of socialist Zionist thinking that defined the development of defence bodies before 1948 and that this had the greatest influence on the IDF after the State of Israel had been founded.

Jewish Armed Struggle in Palestine in the 1940s: Its Impact on British Morale and Public Opinion by Shaul Zadka

This article examines the Irgun's armed campaign against the British forces in Palestine in the last years of British mandatory rule. Even now, this subject is controversial within Israel where the question of how important this action was in finally bringing about a Jewish state is still hotly debated. This article concentrates on one aspect of this debate, the influence of Jewish underground actions on the morale and public perception and attitude to the Palestine issue in Britain. By assessing the press and political response to Irgun actions it argues that these had a great effect, at least in psychological terms, on public opinion in London. It also addresses the effect of the Irgun's struggle on the morale and perception of the British military. The article concludes with the opinion that while the Irgun's military strength was always a subject of contradicting claims, the military difficulties which the British armed forces faced in Palestine resulted not only in a severe blow to its prestige, but also in a low degree of morale which affected the psychological well-being of the soldiers, both individually and collectively.

The Other Side of the Coin: Arab Propaganda and the Battle Against Zionism in London, 1937–48 by Rory Miller

This article examines the Arab propaganda effort over the Palestine question, which occurred in London from the time of the Palestine Royal Commission of 1937 to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In doing so the article looks at the specific organizations and propaganda bodies involved in promoting the Arab case during this era – the Palestine Information Centre, the Arab Centre and the Arab Office. It looks at the Zionist attitude and response to what they saw as the Arab propaganda challenge and it analyzes the relationship between Arab propagandists in London and the Foreign Office and members of the pro-Arab British elite outside of Government. Through all this it argues that contrary to the arguments of the time, which exist up to this day, the Arab propaganda effort in London in the final decade of the British Mandate for Palestine was not isolated, disorganized or inconsequential, but a serious and credible challenge to Zionist aspirations.

The Jewish and Arab Lobbies in Canada and the UN Partition of Palestine by Eliezer Tauber

This article examines the attempts of Arabs and Jews to influence the Canadian position towards the creation of a Jewish state at the very end of the British mandatory era in Palestine. It argues that Canada was one of the main initiators of the partition plan at the United Nations and that without Canadian mediation the plan would not have been adopted. It then analyzes the role of lobbying, both Jewish and Arab, in this critical Canadian involvement in the partition proposals, showing that while the Zionist efforts met with some success the Arab propaganda campaign met with none at all.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.2&3

Special issue

Israel: The Dynamics of Change and Continuity

Edited by: David Levi-Faur, Gabi Sheffer and David Vogel

Change and Continuity: A Framework for Comparative Analysis by David Levi-Faur, Gabi Sheffer and David Vogel

Courts as Hegemonic Institutions: The Israeli Supreme Court in a Comparative Perspective by Gad Barzalai

This article deals with the hegemonic power that supreme courts may have in democracies. From that comparative perspective, I analyze the change that the Israeli Supreme Court has experienced from being a rather secondary political institution in the 1950s, and 1960s, to being a major political institution, even a hegemonic one, since the 1970s, and principally in the 1980s and 1990s. I exhibit that this change has many similarities to growing adjudication in other democracies. Based on a theoretical analysis and exploration of the institutional and public status of the Israeli Supreme Court until nowadays, I raise two explanations as to its prime role in Israeli politics. The first explanation focuses on fragmentation and polarization of other political power foci. The second explanation focuses on cultural and social changes in the Israeli society, especially its Americanization and more prevalence of liberal norms among several segments in Israeli society. I show how the Court has transformed public sources of legitimacy and has become hegemonic. This article concludes by exploring the costs of broad adjudication for judicial legitimacy, and the social costs concerning judicial legitimacy for segments like Arab-Palestinians and ultra-orthodox Jews who do not enjoy the liberal discourse.

Consociationalism and Ethnic Democracy: Israeli Arabs in Comparative Perspective by Alan Dowty

The case of Israeli citizens who are ethnically Arab is of special interest because of Israel's commitment to democratic institutions and the intensity of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The position of the Arab minority in Israel is the weakest aspect of Israeli democracy, but this can be explained in part by security considerations; in part, it is also a function of Jewish political experience and traditions. Comparison of this experience to other cases suggests that 'consociational' democracy is, as observers have generally claimed, better equipped in general to cope with serious divisions within a country. There are, however, clear limits in its application to ethnic minorities not identified with the dominant ethos, at least where a tradition for sharing power with other national groups does not exist.

Changing Places: Jerusalem's Holy Places in Comparative Perspective by Roger Friedland and Richard D Hecht

This essay challenges the essentialist interpretations of sacred places which deny the historical transformation of the meanings attributed to those places and the role of politics in the constitution of those meanings. Here we compare the conflict between Hindus and Muslims in the destruction of the Ram Temple and Babri Mosque in Ayodhya in 1992 and conflict between Jews and Muslims over Jerusalem's Temple Mount and Noble Sanctuary, especially in one violent confrontation in 1990 between Israelis and Palestinians. In both cases we attempt to show the long history of conflicts in both sites. We argue that control over sacred sites like Ayodhya's Ramjanmabhumi/Babri Masjid and Jerusalem's har ha-bayit/al-haram as-sharif proves the avenue and mechanism for challenging and transforming the definition of citizenship in the modern nation-state. In both cases, this represents a continuation of the ancient function of sacred sites, to centralize the polity. But, it also means that changing the constituent elements of the nation-state, in this case citizenship, through the center accelerates the rapidity of that change. Sacred real estate becomes a highly productive and potentially violent venue for the articulation of change. In this comparative analysis we are able to determine five factors involved in the social construction of physical territory and the symbolic map of the nation-state. First, sites like these are contested within the traditions which hold them to be sacred. Second, access to ritual space and time in sacred sites is conditional upon the exercise of state power. Third, the sacrality of the site cannot be separated from the historical exercise of state power in general, and the nation in particular. Fourth, the religions anchored in these sites have been essential to the formation of modern nationalist movements. Fifth, since the legitimacy of the state is grounded in claims to these sites, they also become the battlegrounds for those who wish to challenge and ultimately transform the state itself.

Israeli Constitutional Politics: The Fragility of Impartiality by Menachem Hofnung

The power of courts to engage in constitutional politics and to apply judicial review derives, in most countries, from a provision of formal authority and from extension of that authority by the courts. Is it possible, though, that a formal provision of judicial review may lead to a consequent reduction in judicial power to engage in constitutional politics? The powers of judicial review are currently used more frequently than before in striking down laws and administrative actions. European governments, parliaments, and administrators interact differently as a result of this judicial activity.

Warfare, Polity-Formation and the Israeli National Policy Patterns by David Levi-Faur

This paper offers a comparative analysis of the interaction between warfare, polity-formation, and the consolidation of national patterns of policy making in Israel. The comparative perspective offers the American pluralism, the French etatism, and the Dutch corporatism as a framework of reference for the study of polity-formation, for the institutionalization of national policy patterns, and for the extent of change. War and war preparations resulted in the formation of a strong and centralized military machine on the one hand, and an autonomous and strong Israeli state on the other. In addition, they contributed to both the consolidation of the Jewish labor movement and the political decline of the Jewish middle class. Without denying the importance of change, this paper contends that continuity in the basic characteristics of the Israeli policy pattern will prevail over the normative tendency of dominant social groups to adopt a more ,American' type of pluralism in Israeli policy making and will constrain the converging effects of globalization over the Israeli political economy.

The Social Organization of the Israeli Economy: A Comparative Analysis by Daniel Maman

The social organization of the Israeli economy has been shifting, since the mid-1960s, from a pluralist to a dual economy, in which a multitude of small firms coexist with big business. At the top of the Israel's big business are several business groups, a feature that is shared with many other countries both developed and developing. This paper studies the factors which have contributed to the emergence and dominance of business groups in the Israeli economy. Studies on other societies where business groups prevail suggest several explanations. These include market imperfections, cultural heritage, and political economy. This paper suggests that in the Israeli context a combination of political and economic factors has led to the emergence and dominance of business groups. State organizations have played a decisive role in these processes. The Israeli state apparatus itself, as in other newly industrializing countries, directs the economic development; it was responsible for the industrialization in the 1950s onwards, the emergence of the military-industrial complex in the mid 1960s, and the privatization policy in the 1980s. The economic processes which have strengthened the concentration trend and the central role of business groups are the business collapse after the recession of the 1960s, the hyper-inflation of the late 1970s, the economic crisis in the mid 1980s, and the rapid growth from the early 1990s.

Imported Problem Definitions, Legal Culture and the Local Dynamics of Israeli Abortion Politics by Noga Morag-Levine

Through analysis of the evolution of Israeli abortion politics, this study examines the impact of interconnections between legal culture and local policy problem definitions on the reception of imported policy paradigms. Despite efforts to infuse Israeli abortion politics with American-derived pro-life and pro-choice formulations, these definitions remain at the margin of relevant Israeli debates. The article attributes this phenomenon to two related factors: (1) dissonance between the absolutist, individualist, and universalist underpinnings of the American problem definitions and contextual, collectivist, and particularistic Jewish understandings of the issue in Israel; and (2) incompatibility between American limited government and related constitutionalist framing of the legitimacy of abortion regulation on the one hand, and salient Israeli political- and legal-cultural traits on the other. Especially important in this regard is the place of traditional Israeli deference to the state as an embodiment of shared values, and a systemic reliance on circumvention mechanisms, termed here de facto legalism, as an alternative to explicit articulation of these increasingly contested values. In abortion, as in many other domains where conflicts between Israeli Jewish and democratic commitments are implicated, the avoidance of law has served to deflect what Israelis increasingly fear may be irreconcilable differences. American-inspired conceptions of what is at stake in abortion ultimately failed to alter the course of Israeli abortion politics because they were incompatible with the terms of this increasingly fragile compromise.

Business in Politics: Globalization and the Search for Peace in South Africa and Israel/Palestine by Gershon Shafir

This paper seeks to understand the reasons behind the politicization of the white South African and Israeli Jewish business communities expressed through their support for peacemaking with Africans and Palestinians repectively. Positions taken by the business communities and their allies converged with security concerns and underwrote the redefinition of the white-black and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts as obstacles to economic modernization. The new perspective resonated with an acute consciousness concerning the difference between 'winning' and 'losing' countries.

Have Globalization and Liberalization 'Normalized' Israel's Political Economy? by Michael Shalev

The cold winds of economic liberalization appear to have chilled the longstanding dominance of the state in Israel's political economy. This is notable, given the continued relevance of ideologies and practices associated with Zionism and the Arab-Israeli conflict, the essential underpinnings of the state's remarkable record of economic interventionism. Following a brief historical introduction, this paper presents an empirical survey of the scope and significance of changes since 1985 in critical loci of potential liberalization: internationalization (flows of goods and capital); public expenditure; concentration and control of capital; privatization and deregulation; and labor market transformations. It concludes that Israel's political-economic regime is in the advanced throes of policy reforms, institutional shifts, and structural changes that are directly at odds with its long record of embedded illiberalism. Yet, liberalization has not occurred evenly, consistently, or completely. Despite dramatic changes in the public sector, "normalization" of the Histadrut and the ascendancy of market-oriented culture, the legacy of Zionist collectivism persists. The role of the state – especially its management of the national conflict – remains crucial to the political economy even though it is less obvious. From a comparative standpoint, the broad outlines of the Israeli story are similar in essence to trends elsewhere, yet the Israeli case also supports the generalization that politics of liberalization are to some extent nationally specific and potentially contradictory to global economic "imperatives."

The Promised Land of the Chosen People is Not all that Distinctive: On the Value of Comparison by Ira Sharkansky

Ideas about the Promised Land and Chosen People may deter accurate self-assessment in modern Israel by emphasizing the uniqueness of the nation and its homeland. A consideration of three issues on the national agenda shows that Israel is not clearly distinctive from other countries on these traits. On the dimensions of income inequality and traffic deaths, some measurements challenge the conventional wisdom: they show Israel scoring more desirable than international norms. By implication to other fields, the findings put the burden of demonstration on those who would claim that Israel or any other country has special traits that distinguish it from others. Parochialism may have serious consequences if it leads to distortions of resource allocations to fields where policymakers think there are shortfalls, but where the country actually does well by international standards. In Israel's case, moreover, a parochial insistence on land thought to be promised by the Almighty may get in the way of agreements that would increase a measure of worldly peace.

Structural Change and Leadership Transformation by Gabi Sheffer

This article examines the nexus between political structural change and leadership development in Israel. It also demonstrates that the development of Israel's regime and political leadership is in many ways comparable to other western democracies. Third, it contributes to the largely neglected comparative study of leadership in democratic and democratizing states. The Israeli case is pertinent since Israel has experienced a movement from a collectivist and elitist, to a pluralist and corporatist, and, more recently, to a democratic regime in which individuals are more assertive and freer from the state's bonds. This analysis assumes that political culture and arrangements answer social needs. I suggest that, due mainly to shifting social loyalties and inclinations, Israel's consociational arrangement carried over from the pre-state period was replaced in the late 1960s by neo-corporatism, and that the latter is now being transformed into a multicultural private-liberal arrangement. The transition from a neo-corporatist to liberal-private market regime in Israel and other democratic states has been marked by the emergence of transactional, meteoric, and bargaining leaders, whose strengths are pragmatism, a cautious and flexible reformism, and clever use of the media.

The Gender and Pacifism Hypothesis: Opinion Research From Israel and the Arab World by Mark Tessler, Jodi Nachtwey and Audra Grant

This research report replicates, extends, and adds a longitudinal dimension to several recently published analyses, one of which appears in a volume on Israel in comparative perspective. Focusing on the relationship between gender and attitudes toward international conflict, and specifically on the gender and pacifism hypothesis which asserts that women are more peace-oriented than men, the present report analyzes data from two public opinion surveys in Israel and from additional opinion surveys in Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine. The dual and interrelated goals of this study are (1) to incorporate the Israeli case into an on-going effort to test a social science hypothesis purporting to have explanatory power in diverse social and cultural contexts; and (2) to compare findings from Israel and other Middle Eastern societies in order to determine whether aggregate societal circumstances affect the applicability of this hypothesis.

Israeli Enviromental Policy in Comparative Perspective by David Vogel

This article explores Israeli environmental policy and places it in comparative perspective. While Israel's policies were roughly similar to those of other nations at comparable levels of development through the early 1970s, since the mid-1970s, Israel has accorded environmental protection a lower priority than other rich democracies. After a number of explanations for Israel's status as an environmental 'laggard' are explored, the paper concludes by noting that as Israel has become a more "normal" post-industrial nation, the attention it has accorded to environmental protection has gradually increased. From What Edah Are You?: Israeli and American Meanings of 'Race-Ethnicity' in Social Policy Practices by Dvora Yanow 'Race', 'ethnicity', and their equivalents are social constructions, created and used by states in social policy and administrative practices to establish and maintain status and power hierarchies. In the US they are, however, commonly understood and treated as universal, objectively observable, and measurable scientific facts. This enables their usage in policy and administrative contexts. I argue here that edah has been understood and used in similar ways, contributing to silences in public discourse that impede social change.

Interest Politics in a Comparative Perspective: The (Ir)regularity of the Israeli Case by Yael Yishai

Systems of interest groups constitute complex configurations that are subject to cross-cultural and cross-national variability. This article attempts to place interest politics in Israel in a comparative perspective in order to reveal in which respects it resembles, or alternatively differs from, other democratic societies. Cross-national studies of interest group systems have centered on three fundamental theories: pluralism, corporatism, and elitism (partyism). The paper shows first how Israel fits into these models. The paper focuses on the changes taking place in interest group politics. The scope of the change, its pace, its direction, and its determinants are analyzed. Changes are noticeable in every aspect of interest group politics: groups are no longer mobilized to the national cause or attached political parties. State power is gradually shrinking; organizational concentration of interests group has weakened; the associational arena has turned more diverse, and access has widened. These changes are evoked by alterations in the economy, in society, and in the polity.

Abstracts of articles in Issue 5.1

In the Name of G-D and Our Rabbi: The Politics of the Ultra-Orthodox in Israel by Rebecca Kook, Michael Harris and Gideon Doron

The purpose of this article is to explore the origin and electoral behaviour of the ultra-orthodox parties. We argue that this analysis will facilitate a better understanding of the Israeli democracy. We argue that while the ultra-orthodox originally established their movement on an anti-Zionist premise and ideology, reality and interests led them to gradually modify their position and to become active political participants. The first part provides information concerning the foundation and evolution of the ultra-orthodox parties. We examine their origin, structure and goals. Against this background we evaluate their impact on the 1996 elections. We conclude with a discussion on the meaning of the growth in the orthodox electorate power and the impact it has on the fragile balance of the Israeli society and the democratic nature of the state.

The US-Israeli Relationship after 50 Years by Robert J Lieber

The US-Israeli special relationship is the product of a complex mixture of causal factors and incorporates historical memory, religious values, societal ties, regional stability and American national interest. Domestic politics within the United States have sometimes been an important contributory factor, and the choices of individual leaders in Washington or Jerusalem can and do impact significantly, but over the years it is these longer-term causes that have tended to matter most.

Israeli Policies towards Argentina and Argentinean Jewry during the Military Junta (1977–83) by Joel Barromi

With the use of previously classified official documents this article analyzes the Israeli-Argentinean diplomatic relationship during the era of Argentina's rule by the Military Junta. By way of specific case studies, the author reconstructs the three-way relationship that existed between the large Argentine Jewish community, the Argentine government and the Israeli foreign policy establishment, and examines whether the Israeli role and efforts in helping to free and save victims of the regime's policies of repression were a success or failure.

Israel and Turkey: Deepening Ties and Strategic Implications, 1995–98 by Neill Lochery

The post-Oslo era has witnessed a new stage in relations between Israel and Turkey in the form of an increasingly strong bilateral military, economic and strategic links. By dividing this article into three self-contained time periods the author analyzes the issues at the heart of this invigorated relationship and assesses the strategic implications that this alliance will have for the Middle East.

Israel and the Reform of the UN by Emmanuel Mréjen

Israel has experienced a turbulent and, at times, bitter relationship with the United Nations, the international organization that provided the mandate for its birth. This article addresses the UN-Israeli relationship in the context of general considerations on the 'reform of the UN'. It charts the various attempts at reforming the body in the past and presents an Israeli perspective on the major issues that are central to any general reform of the UN, including collective security and institutional reform.

Improving Israel-European Union Relations: The European Economic Area as a Possible Model by Eyal Inbar

In November 1995 Israel and the European Community signed a new bilateral agreement. This article explores the costs and benefits, from the Israeli perspective, of further developments in this relationship. It sets out a possible model on which future economic co-operation can be based and argues that Israel must move assuredly, but carefully, in increasing its economic ties with the European Union.

The European Union and Israel: The Customs Union Alternative by Tal Sadeh

Israel's relations with the EC are overshadowed by their assertions that unfair European treatment is behind at least part of their trade deficit. The article argues that Israeli producers find it harder to comply with the Federal Trade Administration's (FTA) rules of origin than their competitors from the EC and the US, so that the FTA agreements tend to increase Israeli imports much more than its exports. The article studies the economic desirability to Israeli of a customs union with the EC, as a substitute to the existing FTA. The two main effects on Israel in the wake of a Euro-Israeli customs union, are the adoption of the EC's trade policy, including the dismantling of the American-Israeli FTA, and the final removal of tariff between Israel and the EC. It is found that a customs union may be more economically efficient to Israel than the current FTA, by reducing the effective tariff for Israeli exporters, and increasing it for European exporters.

History and Peace: Revisiting Two Zionist Myths by Adam Garfinkle

Historical myths are as central to the Arab-Israeli conflict as they are to all conflicts that are drawn out over a long period of time. Two myths whose origins date back to the earliest Mandatory era – the claim that 'Jordan is Palestine' and that 'the Golan is Israeli' – have influenced much of the historical and political debate on the Arab-Israeli conflict. By addressing these myths, and by comparing them to the historical facts, this article will show that neither myth is valid and argue that acceptance of this reality can only aid the advancement of peace in the region.

After the Arab Rebellion, Part II: The Defence of Mandatory Palestine in British Strategy 1941–42 by Martin Kolinsky

This article analyzes the motivations behind and the development of British strategic thinking considerations regarding Palestine in the context of the general position facing Britain in the Near East and Mediterranean at a crucial time early in the Second World War. Specifically it addresses the influence that events on the Greek, Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian fronts had on the development of a strategic and defence policy for Palestine. It also looks at the German threat to the Yishuv and the attitudes of leading British military and diplomatic figures towards the creation of a Jewish army in Palestine to support the British war effort in the region.

Books at a Glance

Chronology