Jewish State Research Articles

Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign against the Jewish State

Article Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign against the Jewish State was published on March 1, 2022 in the journal Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism (volume 5, issue 1).

“Doing the Right and the Good”: Thinking Against Mass Incarceration

ABSTRACTIn 1952, Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg (a member of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of Israel) and Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Chai Uziel (the Rishon LeTziyon and Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel) addressed the question of incarceration in a Jewish state according to the halakhic tradition. A generation later, Rabbi Chaim David Halevi the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv‐Yaffo) also addressed this question. Their approaches shed light on the way we should be thinking about incarceration in general, and the overwhelming problem of the current moment in the United States: mass incarceration.

Azerbaijan, Israel, and Iran: An Unlikely Triangle Shaping the Northern Middle East

AbstractSince the collapse of the Soviet Union, political commentators and students of international relations alike have been puzzled by an increasingly cordial relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan, a Muslim‐majority republic in the South Caucasus. Indeed, the unfolding alliance of the Jewish state and a tiny, energy‐rich, post‐Soviet country sandwiched between Iran and Russia has been by many seen as an anomaly. Particularly puzzled have been constructivists and adepts of geopolitics for whom the shared Shiite identity of Azerbaijan and Iran pre‐ordained a close relationship. In reality, Tehran's suspicions of Azerbaijan's economic rise, coupled with concerns over pan‐Turkic sentiments spread through Iran's northwest, and Iran's own imperial nostalgia have exacerbated an adversarial relationship. Against this backdrop, Azerbaijan's efforts to counterbalance those of Iran and Russia in the Caspian‐South Caucasus region have brought Baku to forge closer ties with Israel.

Israel's Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict

After World War II America had three objectives in the Middle East: contain Soviet influence, assure oil supplies to the West, and support Israel. Although the last objective often conflicted with the first two, strong support of the Jewish state became an enduring foundation of American policy. Walter L. Hixson's Israel's Armor is a meticulous examination of the influence of the Israel lobby on this process. He defines the lobby as “a continuous campaign of advocacy on the part of Israel and its American supporters to secure foreign policies perceived as favorable to the Israeli national interest” (p. 1). The lobby's ability to influence American decisions concerning both Israel and the Middle East, he maintains, often resulted in actions and policies at odds with America's broader interests. This thesis is not new; it was stated most famously and controversially in John J. Mersheimer's and Steven M. Walt's The Israel Lobby...

Political antisemitism: Qatar’s attitude towards Jews and Israel

There were many examples of Antisemitism in Qatar in the last decade and this trend was reflected especially in the Qatari media. The leadership of Al Thani was aware of the situation, but sometimes the royal house itself should be attributed to the Antisemitic approach. This attitude was against the background of the hosting of the World Cup in 2022 and internatiomal change in the area, mainly the Abraham Accords of 2020. Qatari objection to Israel appeared from the founding of the Jewish state. The Antisemitic views are reflected in demonstrations of the emirate’s population from an early stage. One notable action is the Qatari boycott against Israel. This policy has continued through the years until today. This attitude relied upon the population support in objection to the Jewish state. The Antisemitic feelings did not stop even when the leadership chose to improve the relations with Israel. the rapprochement between Qatar and Israel was only improvement of communication at the level of the authorities. Throughout the period in question, the Qatari people showed hostility towards the Jews in general, and the Israelis in particular. Qatari agenda towards the Jews and Israel has a direct connection to the US administration. The Arab world also had a major effect on the Qatari agenda.

The Attitudes of American Jews and Christian Zionists towards Politics of Israel

For Israel maintaining strong relations with Diaspora remains one of the key goals as the Jewish State. American Jewry, American Zionist organizations and Pro-Israel lobbyists have been playing an important role in organizing support and providing assistance for Israel in the US. However, in the XXI century there is a deepening crisis between the Jewish state and American Jewish community, mainly, because of dissatisfaction of Israel’s domestic and foreign policy. Managing the risks of lowering support from the US, that are the most important strategic partners for Jerusalem, Israel has intensified its rapprochement with the US Christian Zionists, who are the most consistent supporters the Jewish state as “the Zionist project”. The Christian Zionist’s interest in Israel is based on the Bible's theological interpretation of the significance of the gathering and preservation of the Jews in Palestine (and then in Israel) for the ultimate salvation of mankind. Despite the controversy of this concept to the core principles of Judaism and Zionism, the significance of their support, primarily political, for Israel is currently increasing.

U.S. policy towards Israel in the context of the Israeli-Jordanian armed clashes (1954)

The U.S. policy towards Israel in 1954 is considered on the example of foreign policy decisions taken by the American side during the Israeli-Jordanian armed clashes. As part of the unresolved Arab-Israeli conflict, the U.S. administration considered the vector of establishing partnerships with Arab countries as one of the ways to counteract the expansion of Soviet influence in the region. When resolving the issue of the Israeli-Jordanian border conflicts, the U.S. resorted to a policy of maneuvering, trying to maintain a balanced interaction with each of the parties. Meanwhile, this did not improve relations with the Arab countries, which emphasized the ongoing U.S. financial and political assistance to Israel. There was also a cooling of relations with the Jewish state, whose government was concerned about the prevailing positive trends in relations between the Arab countries and the United States. It is concluded that by 1954 the U.S. policy towards Israel was still at the stage of its formation, which was reflected in the contradictory opinions within the U.S. administration itself when resolving issues related to the foreign policy strategy regarding the Jewish state, and manifested itself in the process of unsuccessful resolution of the Israeli-Jordanian conflict.

The Abraham Accords between Israel, UAE and Bahrain in the context of changing of the geopolitical reality in the Middle East

The article analyzes the geopolitical significance of the normalization agreements between Israel, UAE and Bahrain, which were signed in September 2020 and became known as the Abraham Accords (the title refers to the Biblical Abraham, who is considered to be the forefather of both Arabs and Jews). The authors examine the historical background of the agreements, their features and differences from the previous acts on the Arab-Israeli settlement, as well as their impact on the geopolitical reality of the Middle East. In addition, the article contains predictions on the possible prospects of the remaining Gulf States (Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait) joining the agreements. As the authors note, the normalization between Israel and the two Gulf monarchies has become possible due to three main factors. The first factor is the presence of the common enemy, Iran, which threatens both the Jewish state and the Gulf monarchies. The second factor is the consequential decline of the importance of the Palestinian issue among the Gulf leaders, disappointed with the stubbornness of Palestinian leadership and interested in cooperation with Israel. Finally, the authors underline the pro-Israeli policies of D.J.Trump, which strongly stimulated the acceleration in the normalization process, focusing on the Arab-Israeli normalization before reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, according to the authors, the Abraham Accords have a potential to stimulate an acceleration to Arab-Israeli reconciliation all across the MENA region as it already did with Morocco and Sudan, which followed UAR and Bahrain in normalizing with Israel shortly after the accords were signed.

The Canadian Arab: The First Arab Political Organ in Canada

In the early 1940s, Arab lobbying activities started to be noticeable in Canada. In 1944, Muhammad Said Massoud, a Druze emigrant from Lebanon, founded the Canadian Arab Friendship League in Montreal. The League soon became the spearhead of Arab lobbying activity in Canada with a declared goal of improving Canada’s relations with the Arab world. The Canadian Arab, published by Massoud between May 1945 and December 1947, was the most significant enterprise of the League. Being the first of its kind in Canada, the journal was intended to refute Zionist arguments regarding Palestine and prevent Canadian public opinion from being sympathetic to the establishment of a Jewish state. The journal, in English but with the editorial also translated into Arabic, was distributed gratis to statesmen, religious leaders, university lecturers, teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and libraries. Besides Massoud’s editorial, it included news, political essays, protests, correspondence, and historical reviews.

Israeli Policy on Immigrants' Housing in the 1950s: Problems and Contradictions

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, in accordance with UN Resolution №181, announced the establishment of the State of Israel on the territory of Palestine, which caused an armed conflict known as the "War of Independence" in Israel and as the "Nakba" in Arab historiography. At the same time, in parallel with the creation of the state and the outbreak of war, the mass immigration began that increased Israeli population from 600 thousand to 1.4 million people by 1951. The acceptance of such a large number of repatriates was a unique historical event, and naturally presented a serious challenge to the economy, culture and security of the Jewish state. This article attempts to analyze the mass immigration with an emphasis on the measures taken by Israel to house such a large number of immigrants. The first part of the article examines the original housing plan, taken in 1948, especially its settlement policy, and the reasons of its failure, covering the housing crisis, and the formation of a new plan in 1950, which implied the transition to a new policy of settlement building – maabarot and development towns. In the second and the third parts of the article, the author gives a detailed description of new settlements as well as the bureaucratic features of their planning and implementation. Although the process of housing mass immigration was formally completed by the 1960s, de-facto some of the problems were not overcome, becoming prerequisites for a number of domestic political tensions in the 1970s.

Mahatma Gandhi about Jews and Jewish question

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the leader of Indian liberation struggle and nonviolence adept, paid a lot of attention to the status of the Jews and the Jewish Question. According to the author, Gandhi considered the Jews to be a part of the Indian nation, and their participation in civil disobedience campaigns together with the Hindus and the Muslims to lead to the achievement of Home Rule. Gandhi condemned the idea of making the Jewish National Home in Palestine as well as the idea of making the state of Israel due to the fact that Palestine belonged to the Arabs like England belonged to the English and France belonged to the French. Therefore, Gandhi thought that the migration of the Jews to their historical motherland depends on the Arabs’ good will. Gandhi offered his own way of solving the Jewish Question. He thought the Jews should stay in the countries they were born in and lived in and oppose to the discrimination and pursuit with nonviolence actions following the example of the Indians in South Africa. M.K. Gandhi tried to persuade the Jews that nonviolence was in their interests and it was able to lead to the realization of the Jews’ ambitions even in the Nazi Germany. The author concludes that the reasonable criticism of Gandhi’s naïve beliefs did not affect his trust in universal abilities of nonviolence. Gandhi’s position of condemning the partition of Palestine and the making of the Jewish State had a tremendous impact on the external policy of India in the Middle East. This position made the dialogue between India and Israel rather complicated. As a result India was the latest country among the leading non-Arab and non-Muslim ones to send its ambassador to Israel in 1992.

“Duteous Bonds”:Daniel Derondaand the 1870 Naturalization Act

This essay reads George Eliot's Daniel Deronda (1876) in dialogue with mid-Victorian debates on British nationality law, illuminating the larger questions of nationality and community that Eliot considered throughout her career. The 1860s, the decade in which the novel is set, witnessed a transformation in the law of subjecthood that culminated in the Naturalization Act (1870). In the lead up to the act, officials reconsidered the doctrine of “indelible allegiance” and debated whether and how the legal status of a subject should reflect an individual's choice and commitments. In the novel, Eliot approaches these issues by examining nationality as an individual experience in addition to a philosophical issue. For example, although both Sir Hugo Mallinger and Mordecai Cohen are British subjects, Mordecai's identity as a Jew conflicts with his legal status—to his great distress. Eliot uses Mordecai's proposal for a Jewish state to engage with an alternative form of national identity: one in which legal identity aligns with cultural and ethnic indices. In tackling these issues, Eliot exposes the complications and contradictions of national identity, showing how nationality law functions as a battleground for larger conflicts over the fate of nationality, both in Britain and beyond.

Israel and apartheid: Opinion of human rights NGOs, and Israeli Government denials

Between 2019 and early 2022 more than 15 human rights NGOs have brought accusations against Israel regarding the presence of signs of apartheid both in the territory of the State of Israel and in the occupied territories. Based on documents of international law (the International Convention against the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statute), NGOs (national and international) have presented in a number of reports why the reality in which the Palestinian people live should be called apartheid. Although the term ‘apartheid’ has no geographic reference, its use for systems established outside of South Africa is very rare and highly controversial. However, accusations against Israel, which have been going on for a long time, are gaining popularity and are also reflected in the reports of the Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, which are mainly based on data provided by NGOs. Israel contends that these accusations are false and have nothing to do with reality. Thus, the Israeli authorities have repeatedly stated that in this way human rights organizations promote hate, incitement, violence, and terror. Despite the tendentious nature of the information, NGOs have a significant impact on the image of the Jewish state and on public opinion in the context of supporting the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, although they will not make changes to Israel’s policy.

The Israeli navy vs. Hamas and Hezbollah

ABSTRACT The Israeli navy prepares to confront Arab non-state actors, mostly Hamas and Hezbollah. Hezbollah might attack Israel’s sea lanes in the Mediterranean Sea, while both Hamas and Hezbollah might strike Israel’s natural gas rigs and the Israeli coastline, where most of the Jewish state’s population and infrastructure are located. The Israeli navy will support ground forces by gathering intelligence and by striking targets. Yet, the Israeli navy does not have significant firepower so the IAF will assist in this matter. The Israeli navy also lacks the ability to conduct vast amphibious operations. The IDF can invest in this field sicne such a maneuver can be a game changer.

Divorced from Citizenship: Palestinian-Christian Women between the Church and the Jewish State

The vast multidisciplinary literature on marital dissolution tends to conceptualize divorce as a personal, individualist act that naturally resides in the domestic sphere. The article challenges this prevailing scholarly perspective by dissecting a substantially underexplored dimension of divorce as a citizenship-certifying act located squarely in the public sphere. Drawing on a pioneering qualitative study among Palestinian Christians in Israel as a case study, we argue that Israel’s divorce law, which locks Catholics into indissoluble marriages, should be recognized as a key state instrument for delineating the contours of citizenship—a boundary-demarcating apparatus between insiders and outsiders who are excluded from full and equal membership. The article provides novel insights into the complex interrelations between divorce, gender, and citizenship, showing how Palestinian-Christian women pay the price of a purportedly sex-neutral, no-exit regime. The article also illuminates a seldom-studied phenomenon we call “divorce conversion”: the act of changing one’s denomination for the sake of marital freedom, which is a hallmark of Palestinian-Christians’ third-rate status in the Jewish state. We conclude that divorce should be reconceptualized as a right to egalitarian female citizenship, serving as a basic precursor to women’s full participation in all spheres of life.

The Interplay of News Production and Journalistic Self-Branding in the Coverage of Celebrity Mixed Marriages

ABSTRACT In October 2018, Lucy Aharish, a Muslim Israeli-Arab journalist, and Tzachi Halevy, a Jewish Israeli actor, were married. In Israel, mixed-marriage, especially between a Jewish-Israeli man and a Muslim-Arab-Israeli woman, is perceived to threaten the social order. This celebrities’ mixed marriage triggered a heated public debate focusing on “assimilation” and arguing the marriage was a threat to the demography of the Jewish state. The high-visibility coverage of the story allows us to examine the role of celebrities in creating mediated public-discourse around complex categories of identity. We ask: How has Israeli journalism framed the issue of mixed marriage through the case of Aharish and Halevy? And what roles have Aharish and Halevy as celebrities played in framing their own story? Based on content-analysis of 149 news items published on digital news-sites, we detected three main news frames: “A love story,” “Advocating inclusion,” and “Fighting assimilation.” Analyzing the prominent role and the agency of the couple in the coverage, the case-study demonstrates how “traditional” news construction by journalists consolidates with self-branding of news-people. It suggests that we examine not only the frames embedded in news, but also the process of framing within the current individualistic news environment – where journalists become celebrified journalists.

West Bank Barrier: Origins, Implementation, and Consequences

The Israelis call it a “security fence,” but the Palestinians call it the “apartheid wall.” From the original idea to its construction, the West Bank barrier, which separates Israel from the West Bank, is hugely controversial. This article begins by unpacking Israel’s motivations to build such an edifice, arguing that, despite its purported security purposes, evidence suggests that the barrier may also have been intended to prevent an influx of Palestinians living inside Israeli territory that would have threatened Israel’s claim to be a Jewish State. This research investigates the political, social, and economic consequences of the barrier for Palestinians, concluding with a discussion of the barrier’s implications for the Israeli-Palestinian relationship overall.

Sweden’s Assyrian community and its attitude towards Israel and Jews

ABSTRACT This article examines attitudes within Sweden’s Assyrian community towards Israel, based on responses to a Swedish-language questionnaire distributed via the community’s electronic mailing list. The emergent picture is one of strong sympathy for the Jewish state, seen by respondents as a shining example of national self-determination based on the ingathering of the exiles – a dream nurtured by the world-dispersed small Assyrian nation. In addition, due to their deep animosity towards Turkey and the Arab states on account of their centuries-long persecution of the Assyrians, Swedish Assyrians tend to favour Israel in its feud with the Palestinians.

Sivan Baskin: Multilingual Israeli Poet in the Age of Globalization

Abstract Sivan Baskin, a poet and literary translator, started writing on the Internet in the early years of the millennium on the “New Stage” site and has published three books of poetry. Baskin’s writing is characterized by multilingualism, inserting words from various languages, written in their own alphabet, within a poem in Hebrew. Although these words or phrases are few and far between, they are conspicuous by their presence and foreignness, representing multiculturalism. Baskin is the first Hebrew poet in multicultural Israel to do this. This article cites four poems that reflect Baskin’s unique writing, which is derived from the combination of her two mother-countries in her life: Lithuania as a Jewish exile, her first homeland, and Israel as the Jewish State into which Jews from around the world were gathered. As an introduction to Baskin’s poetry, this article presents Israel as a multicultural and multilingual country.

Benjamin Netanyahu as a mobilizing symbol in ethno-class divisions among Jewish Israelis, 2009–2021

ABSTRACT 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.