Israeli Democracy Research Articles

Education in a Troubled Democracy: Voices from Israel

Democracy offers no automatic principles for a decent and civilized life. Its principles require interpretation and compromise, and must be balanced between the welfare of individuals, groups, and the state. In Israel, the situation is made even more complex by the fact that Israel defines itself as a Jewish state. Surrounded by hostile forces, Israel must attempt not only to maintain peace and security but to offer democratic rights to its Jewish, Moslem, and Christian citizens. Jewish and Arab Israelis’ lives are woven together against this difficult background through complex patterns of commerce and trust. These patterns have been disrupted during the recent hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians. This article presents a window on the Israeli democracy in this turbulent time through in-depth interviews with six Israeli educators, two Jewish and four Arab. They analyze the Israeli democracy and discuss the problems of their own population sectors in particular, giving special attention to the role of education in closing gaps between different groups, increasing trust and understanding, and improving the state of the nation. John Dewey’s ideas on democracy and education are used as a framework for analysis. The level of individual interactions between citizens is suggested as significant for the building of trust and the ground-up strengthening of democracy. Suggestions are made for how education can contribute at this level. The author, an immigrant to Israel, adds her own voice as she struggles to balance objectivity with authenticity in this passionately felt arena.

Envisaging a peace referendum in Israel: The legitimisation of peace or a legitimation crisis? Lessons from Northern Ireland

In order to garner the necessary legitimacy to enact a future final status peace agreement with Syria or the Palestinians, Israeli politicians from the Left and the Right have endorsed the concept of a peace referendum. This article examines the potential consequences of a peace referendum in Israel by drawing on the referendum experience in Northern Ireland regarding the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In the case of Northern Ireland, the legitimisation of the agreement required not only a clear majority of votes cast but also a clear majority among Protestants: an ‘ethnic majority’. Given the similarity of the discourse surrounding a peace referendum in Northern Ireland and in Israel, it is clear that a referendum in Israel would similarly require an ethnic Jewish majority to legitimise a peace agreement. Under these circumstances, rather than legitimising peace between Israel and its neighbours, a referendum would be more likely to result in a broad legitimation crisis for Israeli democracy by deepening the ethnic tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and its Arab minority. Hence, in contradistinction to the conventional wisdom, Israel would be well advised to avoid the use of a peace referendum.

Reforming Parliamentary Committees: Israel in Comparative Perspective. By Reuvan Y. Hazan. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2001. 216p. $50.00.

This book is the result of a five-year research project that had as its goal the reform of the committee system in the Israeli Knesset. It had the full support of the leadership and members of that legislative body, and was conducted under the sponsorship of an important Israeli think tank, the Israel Democracy Institute. In undertaking this investigation, Reuvan Y. Hazan quickly discovered an additional reason for devoting so much time to this subject—the challenge of addressing “a flagrant deficiency in the political science literature” (p. 2), the dearth of comparative literature on parliamentary reform of committees.

The peculiarities of Israel's democracy: some theoretical and practical implications for Jewish–Arab relations

The peculiarities of Israel's democracy: some theoretical and practical implications for Jewish–Arab relations

Religious Politics and Israel's Ethnic Democracy

What is the significance of Yosef s statement? Is it simply another example of the ongoing chain of hostility between the leaders of the secular and religious parties dating back to the earliest days of the pre-state Zion ist Movement, or a sign of more serious conflict that is not manageable within the existing political framework? When is the antagonism between religious and secular politicians an actual threat to the democratic system? These questions take on greater significance in the wake of the Rabin assas sination by an extremist religious Zionist in 1995, and the unprecedented 27 seats gained by religious parties in the 1999 election. For the social scientist, the problem is not religious politics of one kind or another, but the theoretical framework we use for determining the significance of Yosef 's statement, or, for that matter, the significance of the actions of other religious political actors for Israeli democracy. Several dated works provide overviews of the historical development, theological positions, and political behavior of the religious political movements.1 To date, however, no theoretical paradigm exists to enable an informed debate about the consequence of particular religious actions for the larger political system. To build a paradigm for the study of the interaction between religion and democracy requires us to grapple with the meaning of both concepts

Policy think‐tanks: The experience of the Israel democracy institute

Policy think‐tanks: The experience of the Israel democracy institute

Extremism and violence in Israeli democracy

This article was written under the impact of the two most violent acts in Israeli recent memory, the February 1994 massacre of 29 praying Palestinians by Dr Baruch Goldstein in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, and the November 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The article explores the role of extremism and violence in Israeli politics since the 1948 foundation of the Jewish state, and tries to resolve the seeming contradiction between Israeli's success to establish the only viable democracy in the Middle East, and the unexpected rise of Jewish violence. Like other writers in this volume, I conclude that democracy does sometimes produce violence, and oddly that violence may on some occasion strengthen the foundations of civic politics and democracy.

Israeli Democracy, Religion, and the Practice of <em>Halizah</em> in Jewish Law

Israeli Democracy, Religion, and the Practice of <em>Halizah</em> in Jewish Law

Israel's democracy at fifty: From resilience to residue?

Israel possesses a strong democratic tradition, and one that predates the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. Universal suffrage, freely contested elections, freedom of the press, of assembly and association are hallmarks of a pluralism that proliferates throughout a political landscape that sets Israel apart from the more draconian systems of its Arab neighbours. Even so, the June 1967 war and the capture of the Occupied Territories marked a watershed in the democratic development of the Jewish state. Aside from the normative concerns over occupying another people's land, the recrudescence of religious‐inspired nationalism, as well as the extent to which Judaic piety should determine national identity, have radicalized cleavages over ethnicity and religion that have long informed Zionist discourse. In exploring these issues, this account concludes that present trends in Israel suggest a slow erosion of its democratic culture, not least because its very identity as a Jewish state, and therefore the legitimacy of what Israel can and should lay claim to be, has become a contested issue among Israelis themselves.

Executive-Legislative Relations in an Era of Accelerated Reform: Reshaping Government in Israel

Israel's democracy is in the midst of a dramatic and comprehensive restructuring, a so-called constitutional revolution. Because it lacks a written constitution, Israel turns to its parliament, the Knesset, as both the source and the target of most governmental reforms. As a result of these reforms, the 13th Knesset (1992-96) behaved very differently from its predecessors and changed the existing patterns of executive-legislative interaction. The reshaping of government in Israel presents an institutionally unique and developing political laboratory in which evolving executive-legislative relations can be analyzed while the composition and construction of the regime continues to unfold. This article has three primary aims. I first describe the reforms that were enacted toward the end of the 12th Knesset (1988-92) regarding the two branches of government. Then I analyze the evolving executive-legislative relations in the 13th Knesset. And third, I assess the significance of these changes for the stability and governability of Israeli democracy in general and the 14th Knesset in particular.

Has Israel really been a garrison democracy? Sources of change in Israel's democracy

Has Israel really been a garrison democracy? Sources of change in Israel's democracy

ETHICS ON THE INTERNET

Two speakers at Online 95 spoke on the contentious subjects of censorship and other ethical matters on the Internet. Charles Oppenheim, then of the University of Strathclyde, talked about three problem areas on the Internet that are difficult to police — pornography; copyright and moral rights infringement; and libel and slander. He also cited some examples of each. Michael Dahan of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and of the Israel Democracy Institute, then talked about the censorship imposed on the Internet by the secret service in Israel — a country that is understandably more security conscious than many in the West.

Israeli Democracy and Jewish History

Prominent traits of modern Israel would appear to work against a democratic regime. Most of the population came from societies of cen tral and eastern Europe or the Middle East where democracy was weakly established, if it existed at all. The first years of the state's exist ence were marked by a difficult war and mass immigration. Almost all of the immigrants were desperately poor and in need of housing and social services. The economy was so short of resources that it could barely provide basic foods. Such conditions are typically cited as expla nations for coups d'tat or other cancellations of democratic procedures. Few countries that came on the world's scene along with Israel in the decade after World War II fulfilled their proclamations of democracy with anything close to Israel's achievements, and few of them faced challenges like those of Israel.

The Religious Elite Connection and Some Problems of Israeli Democracy

This Article is Addressed to the Qufstion Which Has recently caught the attention of scholars of the role of elites in promoting, or conversely impairing, democracy. It is based on the thesis that when elites are separate and relatively autonomous from the political elite which is in government, this promotes democracy. Conversely, when elites are closely connected, this impairs proper democratidelectoral procedures. The paper marshals illustrative-empirical support for this thesis from the relations between two elites in one Westem-style democracy: the religious elite and the political elite of government parties in Israel. It traces the intricate connections between religious leaders and the leaders of the government. It shows that these damage the freedom of elections, and enfeeble Israeli democracy.

The Global Imperative

Essay| January 01 1994 The Global Imperative: Building a Democratic World Order Larry Diamond Larry Diamond Larry Diamond is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and coeditor of the Journal of Democracy. He recently edited Political Culture and Democracy in Developing Countries and, with Ehud Sprinzak, Israeli Democracy under Stress (both Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1993), and also The Global Resurgence of Democracy and Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, both with Marc F. Plattner (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992 and 1993). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Current History (1994) 93 (579): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1994.93.579.1 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Larry Diamond; The Global Imperative: Building a Democratic World Order. Current History 1 January 1994; 93 (579): 1–7. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1994.93.579.1 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentCurrent History Search This content is only available via PDF. © 1994 by The Regents of the University of California1994 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Israeli Democracy under Stress: Ehud Sprinzak and Larry Diamond, editors

Israeli Democracy under Stress: Ehud Sprinzak and Larry Diamond, editors

The Meaning of Political Participation in a Nonliberal Democracy: The Israeli Experience

How do cultural rules shape the meaning of participation in politics ? Israel offers an example of the impact of a nonliberal, collective democracy on political participation. Political participation is examined during two different historical periods : the prestate era and the last 20 years. In both periods Israel's nonliberal democracy fostered the separation of political participation from political influence. Israeli democracy can be characterized as a system of domination that avoids change by relying on people's tendency to participate.

Trends in Israeli Democracy: The Public's View (review)

Trends in Israeli Democracy: The Public's View (review)

Yochanan Peres and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, Trends in Israeli Democracy: The Public's View (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992).Pp. 69.

Yochanan Peres and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, Trends in Israeli Democracy: The Public's View (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992).Pp. 69.

Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads: A Crisis of Non-governability

THROUGHOUT THIS CENTURY, THE STRUGGLE FOR AND consolidation of Jewish territorial sovereignty in the ancient Land of Israel has been characterized by two complementary processes: waves of Jewish immigration from throughout the diaspora, and a succession of violent conflicts with Israel's Arab neighbours. Both of those processes were at work during 1990 — 91 when Israel became reluctantly involved in the Gulf war while also having to cope with an influx of hundreds of thousands of Jews seeking escape from the crumbling Soviet empire, as well as a few thousand emigrants from Ethiopia and from South America. For many Israelis, the surrealistic spectacle of immigrants being greeted at Ben-Gurion Airport with gas-masks designed to protect them from the Iraqi Scud missiles raining down on major Israeli cities, represented highly dramatic evidence of the fulfilment of Zionism's aspirations.