The Siege on Togetherness/A Note on Anxiety

On Steir-Livny's Is it OK to Laugh About It? Nikita Lobanov Is it OK to Laugh About It? Holocaust Humour, Satire and Parody in Israeli Culture. By Liat Steir-Livny. London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2017. 208 pp., ISBN 978-1910383353. US $74.95 In this book, Liat Steir-Livny engages with a series of themes in and around the controversial phenomenon of Holocaust humor in Israeli society and, by examining a variety of aspects of this genre, discusses how its role in Hebrew culture is a double-edged sword. First, she employs critical textual analysis to explore humor based on the genocide in a variety of genres, ranging from jokes and TV programs to comedic skits and political transcripts. Second, she provides a multimedia content analysis that allows for an elaborate investigation of the gathered material. The result is a convincing blend of data from different media sources found in Israel, other countries, and global online spaces. The first three chapters provide a theoretical framework of the book. Steir-Livny goes to great lengths to expand on the multilayered nature of Holocaust humor and how it touches every aspect of Israeli life, including history, activism, popular media products, and Holocaust remembrance itself. Furthermore, Holocaust humor in the online realm is addressed in all its multifarious glory—social media, blogs, YouTube, and podcasts. An important clarification is the difference between Hebrew and Israeli humor and how the latter is shaped by the conflict with the country's Arab neighbors. The author is balanced in presenting different views on Holocaust humor, sometimes criticizing with historians such as Alan Rosenfeld how comedians trivialize the tragedy, while others, [End Page 126] such as Viktor Frankl, adopt jokes as a healing tool. Steir-Livny highlights how Holocaust humor creates paradoxes, especially when politicians and common citizens from opposing camps accuse each other, with different degrees of ironic detachment, of being Nazis. The second part of the book examines Holocaust humor from multiple critical perspectives, such as generational divides and the effect on Israeli society of popular YouTube videos of Hitler's downfall. The fourth chapter focuses on the changing perception of the Holocaust, describing the presumed cross-generational saving qualities of humor. According to the author, this phenomenon is a defense mechanism, characterized by misplaced sanctification. The numerous texts discussed by the author emphasize that the memory of Holocaust trauma encompasses the whole of society blurring time, uniting past and present. This emphasis leads to the fifth chapter, which describes initiatives around alternative Holocaust Remembrance Day, where, with the help of black humor and a carnivalesque atmosphere, moments of seriousness and sadness are juxtaposed with laughter. Steir-Livny affirms that these rituals maintain respect for the Holocaust while allowing Israeli citizens to deal with the trauma through friendly gatherings, levity, and moments of intimacy. Chapter 6 criticizes the commodification of the Holocaust, highlighting how the black humor in Israeli society foregrounds the ambiguity of this transformation of the Holocaust into a product that is "just like others." The cynical attitude of Israeli reality TV and some public figures' statements regarding the Holocaust have encouraged satirists to use the tragedy to create parodies such as "The Camp," a fake audition for a show where participants are willing to become Kapos and abuse barrack-mates for their "15 minutes of fame" (110). Chapter 7 deepens the emphasis on cynicism as it addresses Holocaust satire and parody brought about by Israeli authorities, such as the speech by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on October 20, 2015, in Jerusalem that blamed the Holocaust on Hajj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Arab mufti at the time. The response of the Israeli left wing was both serious—noting the historic inconsistencies of the speech—and humorous, for example, in the creation of "The Mufti made me do it" memes that took Netanyahu's logic to absurd lengths. Both sides criticized the other for politicizing the Holocaust, increasing its traumatic effect on contemporary Israeli society. Chapter 8 provides a detailed discussion of how Israel's memory of the Holocaust is divided along ethnic lines—between Israeli citizens of North [End Page 127] African origin and those of European origin. The representations of...

The Threat of BDS

This study discusses the types of impoliteness strategies and their realization found on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Twitter account on Twitter. The idea is used to identify and categorize different sorts of impoliteness methods, as well as how they are implemented. A descriptive qualitative technique was employed for the investigation. According to the findings of this study, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu employs a variety of impoliteness tactics, which are (1) Bald on record impoliteness, (2) Positive impoliteness, (3) Negative impoliteness, and (4) Sarcasm or mock politeness. While withholding politeness was not found in the Prime Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, Benjamin Netanyahu's tweet. Imprudence is the most common category, with 11 tweets accounting for 57.90 percent of the total. Negative impoliteness is ranked second, with 5 tweets (or 26.31 percent) on the list. Next, sarcasm or fake politeness received two tweets, accounting for 10.52 percent of the total. Only one tweet, or 5.26 percent, had a positive impoliteness.

This article presents a dual analysis of the Israeli TV series Our Boys and its media reception in Israel. Co-produced by HBO and Keshet Broadcasting, the series portrays the 2014 kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian youth by young Jewish boys in Jerusalem. It sparked significant debate in Israeli society, particularly in terms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The research reveals how Our Boys reflects and influences societal attitudes, and highlights the media’s role in reflecting public discourse in a conflict-ridden context. The article also explores the series’ portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, emphasizing in a subversive way the asymmetry between Israelis and Palestinians. Analysis of newspaper commentaries and X (formerly Twitter) posts by influencers underscores the significant impact of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the societal divide between Israeli ‘right’ and ‘left’.

This study discusses the political thoughts of the Revisionist Zionists after the First World War, with a special focus on the Iron Wall Doctrine mooted by its eminent leader, Vladimir Ze’ev Jabotinsky, in 1923. Subsequently, this discourse will examine the extent to which the Iron Wall doctrine and Jabotinsky’s political idealism are embodied in the current Israeli government’s stance towards Palestine, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Based on historical methodology analysis, the essay asserts that Netanyahu’s government is acting according to the Iron Wall Doctrine constructed by Ze’ev Jabotinsky, particularly in the recent Gaza genocide campaign. The most important historical sources analysed in the study are the writings of Jabotinsky himself - The Iron Wall and The Ethics of the Iron Wall, published in 1923. In the Iron Wall Doctrine, the revisionist Zionists believe that a Jewish majority state could be achieved and maintained in Palestine through the will of the Zionists and the repression of the indigenous population, in other words, the Palestinians. Currently, the political ideology of the Likud government and Netanyahu can be interpreted as the prolongation of the right-wing weltanschauung established by Jabotinsky in the 1920s. The finding of this study concluded that the Iron Wall Doctrine and radical political idealism propagated by Jabotinsky are adhered to and practised by the current Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu in addressing the Palestine uprising.

The public discourse over Israel’s unprecedented political crisis in 2019–2021 (four general elections in only two years) has focused on the personality and actions of one person: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Relying on a series of public opinion polls during Netanyahu’s second term (2009–2021), we examine the triadic relationship between the following components: (1) sentiments toward Netanyahu, (2) affiliation with ethno-class Jewish status groups, and (3) political attitudes along the liberal-conservative continuum. We show that while there are real socio-political divisions behind the controversy over Netanyahu, the conflict around his public image reflects and shapes the boundaries between various Jewish ethno-class status groups and enables alignments along these boundaries. The centrality of Netanyahu’s image in Israeli politics, we argue, substitutes substantive political discussions and has stemmed from the failure of some political actors, and especially the Secular Ashkenazi group, to articulate a coherent political vision.

This chapter discusses civilizational populism in Israel. The chapter shows how leading Israeli politician and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud Party, incorporates civilizationalism into populism by using the notion that Jewish civilization predates all others in the region to establish the legitimacy of the state of Israel. It describes how Netanyahu portrays the Israel-Palestine conflict as a battle between the forces of civilization and barbarism, and furthermore argues that Israel is akin to protective wall that protects Western civilization from the Islamist barbarians who wish to destroy it, and therefore on this basis calls for Europeans and North Americans to support Israel in its battle for civilization and against the forces of barbarism. The chapter also shows how Netanyahu divides Israeli society into three antagonistic groups: “the People” or all the Jewish people, who are authentic, civilized, and morally good, “elites” or the left-wing parties and secular Jews who abandoned Jewish culture and help Arabs destroy civilization, and “others” or non-civilized Arab-Muslims who desire the destruction of both the Jewish people and Western civilization.KeywordsPopulismReligionCivilizationCivilizationalismTransnationalismPure peopleEliteEmotionsJudaismJewsIsraelLikudNetanyahu

The Centre Party 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 321system 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.

Some 30 years of alternative fuels and feedstocks research based on methanol has garnered Nobel Laureate George A. Olah and his colleague G. K. Surya Prakash a new $1 million award presented last week by the State of Israel. Prakash accepted the inaugural Eric & Sheila Samson Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation in Alternative Fuels for Transportation on behalf of himself and Olah during the Bloomberg Fuel Choices Summit, held on Nov. 12–13 in Tel Aviv. The prize is part of an Israeli initiative, supported by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to reduce that country’s dependence on foreign oil. This year’s award recognizes Olah and Prakash’s work on the methanol economy, which proposes to use methanol to replace fossil fuels and petroleum-based feedstocks. Olah and Prakash are both professors of chemistry at the University of Southern California. Olah is a professor of organic chemistry, and Prakash is a professor of hydrocarbon ...

Hindu nationalism has permanently altered the state of Indian politics, a nation once hailed as the world’s most populous democracy. The alarming erosion of India’s democratic institutions, under the guidance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and India’s longest-serving prime minister, Narendra Modi, holds far-reaching implications for the future of Indian society. The nation’s egalitarian mission is likely of a bygone era. India’s descent into authoritarianism mirrors similar political developments in the State of Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s religiously fundamentalist and ultranationalist coalition. As the two countries enter a new era in their once-obscure partnership, their history of collaboration deserves further exploration. Though India incorporates the world’s largest Muslim minority population, existing research has not sufficiently confronted whether India’s illiberal domestic policies, framed within the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, conform to the global trend against Islamic extremism or are explicitly Islamophobic in nature. Nor has existing research adequately addressed India’s official stances post-October 7th, as the consequences of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war have reverberated throughout the multiethnic state. This paper will argue that the sudden development of India’s support for Israel is a manifestation of the rise in anti-Islamic Hindu nationalism that has consumed Indian politics and which continues to push the country in a Westward direction.

In Israel, the representation of religion and the use of the horror genre on film and, particularly, television has been fraught. However, two recent television shows, Juda (2017–2020) and Malakh Mashchit (Malevolent bride, 2021), set in a specifically Israeli social and cultural context, also feature specifically Jewish monsters grounded in religious tradition. At the nexus of nascent Israeli cultural trends and unusual in their combination of elements new to Israeli popular culture, these shows speak to changes and new developments in Israeli society and cultural representation. At the same time, their strong grounding in a national context evidences the persistence of certain ideological norms within Israeli culture and society, even in generically innovative and creatively unique work, and reflects the continuing influence of Zionist tropes and politics on Israeli television and culture more broadly. While these shows challenge some of the historical imperatives of Israeli culture, particularly in their representation of women and certain minorities, as well as their frank and often sympathetic depictions of religious characters and themes, they simultaneously reveal the entrenchment of Zionist norms and their continuing role in the construction of a national culture through television, using religion as an element of their horror stories in order to reinforce certain nationalist claims about Israeli identity and society.

If the United States Attacks Iran: Possible Consequences for Israel In the past month, it has looked as if the Israeli-American dialogue on Iran and its nuclear activity has reached an impasse. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly demanded that the administration translate into practice its commitments to prevent Iran from going nuclear. In a concrete way, he has demanded that the administration set out “red lines” that will lead to U.S. military action if Iran crosses them. Administration officials have stated publicly that they are not happy with this demand, and that the United States does not believe it has an interest in limiting its room to maneuver by defining red lines vis-a-vis Iran.

This article examines the role of Jewish Diaspora considerations in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy towards the states of Central and Eastern Europe. Israel has traditionally sought to attain both its state-centred national goals and those of the Jewish Diaspora. Under the Netanyahu governments (2009–21) a major change took place whereby the Diaspora’s existence was viewed as dependent on Israel’s continued survival and success; hence only a strong Israel can help the Diaspora. The security and wellbeing of the Jewish Diaspora thus remains a central Israeli goal, but it is to be pursued via Israel’s strengthening on the one hand, and the deepening of Jewish identity and awareness among Diaspora Jews, on the other.

This article, a literature review of Israel`s economic miracles, examines the secrets behind the transformation of Israel, a Start-up Nation slightly smaller than New Jersey or Wales born in 1948 with a population of around seven million, to become an Innovation Nation with more companies listed on the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) outside the United States of America. The article further examines the unique conditions existing in Israel which are luring technology companies and global investors. On the whole, it was established that Israel has managed to achieve economic development through its innovativeness that has come as a result of many factors some of which are discussed in this article. The author broadens the context of his conclusions by taking into consideration some of the concluding remarks by Israel `s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu`s 2014, Davos World Economic Forum address. This article will go a long way in influencing government policy implementation. This article has therefore business and academic value.

Visiting the United Nations in early 2018, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the occasion to pronounce, “We are changing the world. We are changing Israel’s position in the world.”1 Was this i...