Shlomo avineri

Shlomo Avineri

ISRAEL: NATION-BUILDING, POLITICAL DEVELOPEMNT.

WAR AND PEACE

(Course description)
This course aims at a comprehensive overview of the main issues which have determined Israel’s political and ideological development.

The intellectual and political origins of Zionism and Israel will be traced in the context of 19^th and 20^th century European nationalism and the crisis and failure of liberalism in Central and Eastern Europe. The structure of the political institutions and political ideological formations in Jewish community in British, pre-1948 Palestine will be presented as the background out of which the political structure and culture of contemporary Israel has emerged. The political map of Israel will be discussed over the period 1948-2002: political parties, state/religion, the status of the Arab minority in Israel, the emergence of Sephardi power and the impact of the recent Russian immigration.

The international context of the Arab-Israel conflict will be related to these developments: from Soviet support for Israel in the late 1940”s, through French-British-Israeli alliance in 1956, the growing importance of the American connection in the Cold War and the post-l989 changes. The promise of Oslo and the breakdown of the peace process following Camp David in 2000 and the impact on the Israeli political scene will lead us to the January 2003 elections.

ADDENDUM TO AVINERI COURSE:
Sammy Smooha, “Jewish Ethnicity in Israel: Symbolic or Real?”, in: Jews in Israel: Contemporary Social and Cultural Patterns, ed. Uzi Rebhun and Chaim I. Waxman (Brandeis University Press, Hanover/London, 2004), pp. 47-80.
Elazar Leshem and Moshe Sicron, “The Soviet Immigrant Community in Israel”, in Rebhun/Waxman, pp. 80-117.