Israel – a multicultural state?

Abstract

In terms of religious/ethnic/cultural/national diversity, Israel can be defined as a multicultural society. Yet, when considering a variety of policies devised and implemented by the Israeli government to defuse potential conflicts arising from this diversity, we might realize Israel is not well placed to describe itself as a so-called, liberal multicultural Western democracy. Our paper reviews some of the ways in which the state of Israel manages intra-group and in-group–out-group relations as these are reflected in a variety of theoretical and empirical sources of economic and education policies and raises serious questions about Israel’s intentions towards non-hegemonic sectors of the Jewish collective and towards the Arab Palestinian minority in its refusal to support their minority cultures or to allow them autonomy over their communities in all matters concerning family, personal law, and education. Israeli society is shown to have traditionally endorsed homogenizing policies for its Jewish citizens, in the hope of creating a strong collective, shaped by ethno-cultural principles while sustaining a policy of systematic exclusion towards its non-Jewish minorities.