Society and Politics in Israel: An Introduction

 

Prof. Yoav Peled

 

JWST 3550-002

PLCP 3500-004

TuTh 2:00PM - 3:15PM

Nau Hall 341

 

Course Description

The course introduces students to contemporary Israeli society and politics. It aims to acquaint students with the key issues and debates in Israeli politics, and to provide them with knowledge of Israel’s social structure and political system. The issues discussed will include the consolidation of power in the new Israeli state, social cleavages and their manifestations in politics, institutional development and the influence of protracted ethno-national conflict on democracy.

The course is organized into four parts. Part one establishes the historical and theoretical background necessary for understanding how and why Israeli democracy was shaped in the way it was. Part two focuses on the major cleavages in Israeli society organized along the lines of nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, and class and their manifestations in the Israeli political system. Part three analyzes how societal relations shaped the institutions of the Israeli state, including political parties and the electoral system, the judicial system, and the military. The fourth part of the course explores the influence the Arab-Israeli conflict has had on Israeli democracy as well as the debate around what kind of democracy Israel is. Although this course is not about the history of Israel per se, it draws upon historical events and processes to illuminate Israel’s social structure and political institutions. This course promotes a dispassionate approach to the study of Israel and assumes no prior knowledge of Israel.

Books to Purchase:

Required

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Yale University Press, 2009.

Recommended

S. Yizhar (tr. Nicolas de Lange and Yaacob Dweck), Khirbet Khize, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.

 

Course Requirements:

1.  Active participation in class discussions (20%)

2.  Written Assignments (must be typed):

Option 1:        Take-home midterm (30%)

                          Take-home final      (50%)               

Option 2:          Term paper              (80%)

Paper proposal to be turned in at the time of the midterm.

 

Schedule of Classes, Readings, and Discussion Topics

 

Part I – Israeli Society and Politics: Historical and Theoretical Background

Week 1: Historical Background

Anita Shapira, Israel: A History, Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 2012,

 Part I, pp. 3-64.

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

            Ch. 1: “Introduction,” pp. 1-34.

            Recommended: Shapira, Israel: A History, the rest of the book.

 

Weeks 2 and 3: Theoretical Approaches

Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia: The Overburdened Polity of Israel, Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1989.

            Ch. 1: "Introduction," pp. 1-31.

Yonathan Shapiro, “The Historical Origins of Israeli Democracy,” in Ehud Sprinzak and Larry Diamond (eds.) Israeli Democracy Under Stress, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner, 1993, pp. 65-80.

Gershon Shafir, “Zionism and Colonialism: A Comparative Approach,” in Michael N. Barnett, ed., Israel in Comparative Perspective, Albany: SUNY Press, 1996, pp. 227-242.

Recommended:

Joel S. Migdal, Through the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, 2001.

            Ch. 2: “The Crystallization of the State and the Struggles over Rulemaking: Israel in a       Comparative Perspective,” pp. 25-49.

 

Part II – Social Cleavages

Week 4: Palestinian-Arab Citizens of Israel: A National Minority in the Jewish State

Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

            Part I: "The Conflict Within," pp. 19-102.

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ch. 4: “The frontier within: Palestinians as third-class citizens,” pp. 110-136.

Sayed Kashua, “Educational Experience,” Haaretz, March 26, 2009:

http://www.haaretz.com/sayed-kashua-educational-experience-1.272942

Sayed Kashua, “History Lesson,” Haaretz, November 27, 2009:

http://www.haaretz.com/history-lesson-1.3251

Sayed Kashua, “A Lesson in Arabic,” Haaretz, March 11, 2011:

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/a-lesson-in-arabic-1.348585

 

Recommended:

Yoav Peled, "Ethnic Democracy and the Legal Construction of Citizenship: Arab Citizens of the Jewish State," American Political Science Review 86 (2), June 1992, pp. 432-443.

As`ad Ghanem, The Palestinian-Arab Minority in Israel, 1948-2000: A Political Study, Albany, NY, SUNY Press, 2001.

Oded Haklai, Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel, Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2011, rest of the book.

Amal Jamal, Arab Minority Nationalism in Israel: The Politics of Indigeneity, New York, NY, Routledge, 2011.

 

Week 5: The Intra-Jewish Ethnic Cleavage

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ch. 3: “Mizrachim and Women: Between Quality and Quantity,” pp. 74-95. 

Sammy Smooha, "Jewish Ethnicity in Israel: Symbolic or Real?" in Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns," Uzi Rebhun and Chaim Waxman, eds., Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2004, pp. 47-80.

http://soc.haifa.ac.il/~s.smooha/download/JewishEthnicityIsraelSymbolicReal.pdf

 

Ephraim Yuchtman-Ya`ar, “Continuity and Change in Israeli Society: The Test of the Melting Pot,” Israel Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2005, pp. 91-128.

Recommended:

Sami Shalom Chetrit, “Mizrahi Politics in Israel: Between Integration and Alternative,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2000, pp. 51-65

Ken Goldstein and Zvi Gitelman, “From ‘Russians’ to Israelis?” in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.) The Elections in Israel – 2003. New Brunswick, NJ, Transaction, 2005, pp. 245-260.

Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Yochanan Peres, Is Israel One? Religion, Nationalism, and Multiculturalism Confounded, Boston, MA, Brill, 2005.

Yehouda Shenhav, The Arab Jews: A Postcolonial Reading of Nationalism, Religion, and Ethnicity, Stanford, CA, Stanford University Press, 2006.

Yossi Yonah, “Israel as a Multicultural Democracy: Challenges and Obstacles,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 95-116.

 

Week 6: Religion and State

Charles S. Liebman, “Religion and Democracy in Israel,” in Ehud Sprinzak and Larry Diamond (eds.) Israeli Democracy Under Stress, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner, 1993, pp. 273-293.

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ch. 5: “The wages of legitimation: Zionist and non-Zionist Orthodox Jews,’” pp. 137-155.

Eliezer Don-Yehiya, “Conflict Management of Religious Issues: The Israeli Case in a Comparative Perspective,” in Reuven Y. Hazan and Moshe Maor (eds.) Parties, Elections and Cleavages: Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective, New York, NY, Routledge, 2000, pp. 85-108.

Asher Arian and Ayala Keissar-Sugarmen, A Portrait of Israeli Jews: Beliefs, Observance, and Values of Israeli Jews, 2009, Jerusalem, Israel Democracy Institute, 2012.

Recommended:

Baruch Kimmerling, “Religion, Nationalism and Democracy in Israel,” Constellations, Vol. 6, No. 3, September 1999, pp. 339-363.

Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse, Baltimore, MD, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Reuven Hazan, “Religion and Politics in Israel: The Rise and Fall of the Consociational Model,” in Reuven Y. Hazan and Moshe Maor (eds.) Parties, Elections and Cleavages: Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective, New York, NY, Routledge, 2000, pp. 109-137.

Kenneth D. Wald, “The Religious Dimension of Israeli Political Life,” in Ted Gerard Jelen and Clyde Wilcox (eds.) Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, the Few, and the Many, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 99-124.

 

Week 7: The Gender Gap

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ch. 3: “Mizrachim and Women: Between Quality and Quantity,” pp. 95-109. 

Nitza Berkovitch, “Motherhood as a National Mission: The Construction of Womanhood in the Legal Discourse in Israel,” Women’s Studies International Forum, Vol. 20, No. 5-6, September-December 1997, pp. 605-619. 

Frances Raday, “Women’s Human Rights: Dichotomy between Religion and Secularism in Israel,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2005, pp. 78-94.

Hanna Herzog, “Absent Voices: Citizenship and Identity Narratives of Palestinian Women in Israel,” in Adriana Kemp et al., eds., Israelis in Conflict: Hegemonies, Identities, and Challenges, Portland, OR, Sussex University Press, 2004, pp. 236-252.

Hanna Herzog, Gendering Politics: Women in Israel, Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Ch. 6: “Women and the Political Map,” pp. 149-170.

Recommended:

Yael Yishai, Between the Flag and the Banner: Women in Israeli Politics, Albany, NY, SUNY Press, 1996.

 

Week 8: Political Economy and Social Inequalities

Michael Shalev, "Liberalization and the Transformation of the Political Economy," in Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, eds., The New Israel: Peacemaking and  Liberalization, Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000, pp. 129-159.

Zeev Rosenhek, and Michael Shalev, "The political economy of Israel's ‘social justice’ protests: a class and generational analysis," Contemporary Social Science, 2014, Vol.9(1), pp. 31-48.

Michael Shalev, “The Welfare State Consensus in Israel: Placing Class Politics in Context,”          in Steffen Mau and Benjamin Veghte (eds.) Social Justice, Legitimacy and the Welfare State, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007, pp. 193-209.

Yitchak Haberfeld and Yinon Cohen, “Gender, Ethnic, and National Earnings Gaps in Israel: The Role of Rising Inequality,” Social Science Research, Vol. 36, 2007, pp. 654-672.

Recommended:

Ben-Zion Zilberfarb, “From Socialism to Free Market – The Israeli Economy, 1948-2003,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 11, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 12-22.

Michael Shalev, Labour and the Political Economy in Israel, New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 1992.

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

            Ch. 9: "Economic Liberalization and Peacemaking ," pp. 231-259.

Shafir and Peled, eds., The New Israel, the rest of the book.

 

Part III – State Institutions

Week 9: Political Parties and the Electoral System

Asher Arian, Politics in Israel: The Second Republic, Washington, D.C., C.Q. Press, 2^nd Edition, 2005.

Ch. 5: “Political Parties,” pp. 117-165.

Ch. 7: “Electoral System,” pp. 202-232.

Recommended:

Reuven Y. Hazan and Moshe Maor (eds.) Parties, Elections and Cleavages: Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective, New York, NY, Routledge, 2000.

Reuven Y. Hazan, “Presidential-Parliamentarism: Direct Popular Election of the Prime Minister, Israel’s New Electoral and Political System,” Electoral Studies, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1996, pp. 21-37.

Gideon Rahat, “The Politics of Reform in Israel: How the Israeli Mixed System Came to Be,” in Matthew S. Shugart and Martin P. Wattenberg (eds.), Mixed-Member Electoral Systems: The Best of Both Worlds? Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 123-151.

Gideon Rahat and Reuven Y. Hazan, “Israel: The Politics of an Extreme Electoral System,” in Michael Gallagher and Paul Mitchell (eds.) The Politics of Electoral Systems, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 333-352.

 

Week 10: Social Cleavages and Electoral Behavior

Michal Shamir and Keren Weinshall-Margel, “'Your Honor, Restrain Us:' The Political Dynamics of the Right to Be Elected in the Israeli Democracy," in Michal Shamir, ed., The Elections in Israel – 2013, New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 2015, pp. 59-84.

Yoav Peled, “Towards a Redefinition of Jewish Nationalism in Israel? The Enigma of Shas,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, 21:4, 1998, pp. 703-727.

Amal Jamal, "Abstention as participation: the paradoxes of Arab politics in Israel," in Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (eds.), The Elections in Israel – 2001, Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2002, pp. 57-100.

 

Week 11: The “Constitutional Revolution” and Its Aftermath

Asher Arian, Politics in Israel: The Second Republic, Washington, D.C., C.Q. Press, 2005.

Ch. 9: “The Government, the Knesset, and the Judiciary,” pp. 263-312.

Gershon Shafir and Yoav Peled, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Ch. 10: “The ‘constitutional revolution,’” pp. 260-277.

Doron Navot and Yoav Peled, "Towards a Constitutional Counter-Revolution in Israel?" Constellations, 16:3, 2009, pp. 429-444.

“Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty,” www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic3_eng.htm

“Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation,” www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/eng/basic4_eng.htm

Recommended:

Emanuel Gutmann, “Israel: Democracy Without a Constitution,” in Vernon Bodganor (ed.) Constitutions in Democratic Politics, Aldershot, Gower, 1988, pp. 290-308.

Arend Lijphart, “Israeli Democracy and Democratic Reform in Comparative Perspective,” in Ehud Sprinzak and Larry Diamond (eds.) Israeli Democracy Under Stress, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner, 1993, pp. 107-123.

Reuven Y. Hazan, “Executive-Legislative Relations in an Era of Accelerated Reform: Reshaping Government in Israel,” Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3, August 1997, pp. 329-350

Aharon Barak, “The Role of the Supreme Court in a Democracy,” Israel Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, fall 1998, pp. 6-28.

Aeyal M. Gross, “The Politics of Rights in Israeli Constitutional Law,” Israel Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2, fall 1998, pp. 80-118.

Gad Barzilai, Communities and Law: Politics and Cultures of Legal Identities, Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 2003.

Menachem Mautner, Law and the Culture of Israel, New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2011.

 

Week 12: Militarism, Civil-Military Relations, and National Security

Uri Ben-Eliezer, The Making of Israeli Militarism, Bloomington, ID Indiana University Press, 1998.

Ch. 11: “A State Army Constructs a Nation,” pp. 193-206.

Oren Barak and Gabriel Sheffer, “The Study of Civil-Military Relations in Israel: A New Perspective,” in Oren Barak and Gabriel Sheffer (eds.) Militarism and Israeli Society, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2010, pp. 14-41.

Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy, Washington, D.C., USIP Press, 2006.

Ch. 3: “The Political Arm of the Military,” pp. 47-61.

Gil Merom, “Israel’s National Security and the Myth of Exceptionalism,” Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 114, No. 3, autumn 1999, pp. 409-434.

Recommended:

Eva Etzioni-Halevy, “Civil-Military Relations and Democracy: The Case of the Military-Political Elites’ Connection in Israel,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1996, pp. 401-417.

Yoram Peri, Between Battles and Ballots: Israeli Military in Politics, New York, NY, Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Avner Cohen, “Nuclear Weapons, Opacity, and Israeli Democracy,” in Avner Yaniv (ed.) National Security and Democracy in Israel, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner, 1993, pp. 197-226.

Stuart A. Cohen, “Changing Civil-Military Relations in Israel: Towards an Over-Subordinate IDF?” Israel Affairs, Vol. 12, No. 4, 2006, pp. 769–88.

Yagil Levy, Israel’s Materialist Militarism, Lanham, MD, Lexington Books, 2007.

Yoav Peled, “From Oslo to Gaza: Israel’s ‘Enlightened Public’ and the Remilitarization of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” in Anna Stavrianakis, Jan Selby and Iraklis Oikonomou (eds.), Militarism and International Relations: Political Economy, Security, Theory, London: Routledge, 2012.

 

Part IV – Core Issues

Week 13: The Arab-Israeli Conflict and Peacemaking

Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict, Yale University Press, 2009, pp. 109-160.

Ilan Peleg and Dov Waxman, Israel’s Palestinians: The Conflict Within, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

            Conclusion: "A Comprehensive Resolution of the Palestinian Problem," pp. 217-230.

Recommended:

Ephraim Yuchtman-Ya`ar and Yochanan Peres, Between Consent and Dissent: Democracy and Peace in the Israeli Mind, Lanham, MD, Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.

Benny Morris, One State, Two States, the rest of the book.

 

Week 14: Israel: Jewish and Democratic?

Sammy Smooha, "The Model of Ethnic Democracy: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State," Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 8, 2002, pp. 475-503.

Oren Yiftachel, "'Ethnocracy and its Discontents: Minorities, Protest, and the Israeli Polity," Critical Inquiry, Vol. 26, 2000, pp. 725-756.

Yoav Peled, The Challenge of Ethnic Democracy: The State and Minority Groups in Israel, Poland and Northern Ireland, London: Routledge, 2014, pp. 93-150.