Israel
Israel’s Cabinet Crisis and the Political Economy of Peace
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak postponed this week's cabinet meeting from Sunday to Tuesday in an effort to resolve the crisis prompted by the Shas Party's announcement that it is leaving his government. Shas (Sephardi Torah Guardians), with 17 seats in the Knesset, is Israel's third largest party and the second largest in the current government after Barak's Labor/One Israel. It is an ultra-orthodox religious party whose supporters are mainly poor and working class Jews whose families came to Israel from Middle Eastern countries (Mizrahim).
Israeli-Syrian Talks: Back In a Deep Freeze
Israel's terms for peace with Syria as revealed in the Israeli-leaked American document speak of a military redeployment with the settlements remaining in place. While Syria is responding favorably to Israeli demands for normalization and security, Israel's ideas are more a road-map for permanent occupation than a plan for a reasonable peace agreement.
Twenty-First Century Palestine
Salim al-Shawamreh, his wife, Arabia and their six children live in the village of Anata, half of which is classified as Area B (under Palestinian municipal control) and half — where Salim’s house sits — as Area C (under full Israeli control). About a third of Anata’s 12,000 residents hold Jerusalem identity cards. The rest are considered West Bank residents, and thus cannot enter Jerusalem, including the section of Anata classified as part of Jerusalem.
Faith, Money and the Millennium
The solar eclipse on August 11, 1999 led some people to expect the end of the world. According to one report, three people committed suicide, sure the end was near. Others shut themselves in their homes expecting extraordinary events to usher in the eschaton (“end times”). Since a simple eclipse could cause such panic, despite our considerable scientific knowledge, one wonders what the end of a millennium might do to people, individually and collectively.
“The Land without the People”
On September 14, 1999, the day after Oslo’s Final Status negotiations opened, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited Ma’ale Adumim, the largest Jewish settlement on the West Bank. There he declared that this Jewish “neighborhood” would remain part of Israel’s Jerusalem. “Every house you build,” he promised residents, “every tree you plant here, will be Israel’s forever…”. [1] Final status negotiations represent the last stage of the Palestinian-Israeli “peace process” initiated six years ago. Long-deferred discussions about the future of Jerusalem, refugees, settlements and other issues are to be addressed by September 2000.
Assessing Israel’s New Government
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak presents his coalition government to the Knesset he will receive a vote of confidence from 75 of its 120 members. Seven parties, some with incompatible positions on key issues, support the new government. In addition to Barak's One Israel list (Labor Party plus Gesher and Meimad, 26 seats), the coalition includes the Sephardi-orthodox SHAS (17 seats), the dovish-secularist MERETZ (10 seats), the politically ambiguous Center Party (6 seats), whose leaders include ministers in the previous Likud government; the secular-Russian immigrant Yisrael ba-`Aliyah (6 seats), the pro-settler National Religious Party (5 seats), and the ultra-orthodox United Torah Judaism (5 seats).
How the Sex Trade Becomes a Slave Trade
“Trafficking into Israel is not simply a story of economic migration; it is a modern slave trade.” [1]
— Martina Vandenberg
Liberating Arnoun
This interview with student activist Hassan Marwany was conducted, transcribed and translated by Marlin Dick of The Daily Star in May 1999.
The initial spark for the liberation of Arnoun was a candlelight vigil and march from St. Joseph’s University to UN House in central Beirut, organized by the Tanios Shahin group at the university. About 250 people participated; they were later joined at UN House by students from the American University of Beirut, Notre Dame University and the Lebanese University. There, we heard the Federation of Democratic Students’ (FDS) invitation to go to Arnoun on Friday. [1] At first, the idea was simply to protest Israel’s occupation of Arnoun, not to liberate the village.
Interpreting Israel’s 1999 Election Campaign
The current election campaign in Israel is often portrayed as a struggle over the future of peace with the Palestinians. But according to Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, "this great debate is over."[1] Most Israelis believe a Palestinian state is inevitable and that even a Likud government will accept some form of Palestinian political autonomy.
“Praise God and Pass the Ammunition!”
Analyses of the US-Israel relationship usually focus on the question of influence. Is the pro-Israel lobby more powerful, or are Washington’s strategic thinkers in charge? In fact, neither question is particularly useful. Rather, Israeli and US interests intersect in the political and strategic arenas of US decision making.
The past decade has witnessed the consolidation of a strategically unchallenged, post-Soviet US hegemony in the Middle East. During this period of global transition, continuity and change have characterized the political and military arenas of US-Israeli relations, particularly during the first two years of Binyamin Netanyahu’s premiership.
From Schmaltz to Sacrilege
Yaron Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997).
The Enigmas of Shas
On April 23, 1997, the general secretary of Israel’s Sephardi orthodox Shas movement, Rabbi Aryeh Deri, was carried shoulder high above the roar of more than 20,000 adoring supporters gathered in the Givat Ram sports stadium in West Jerusalem. “We are all Deri,” was one chant; “Deri equals Dreyfus” was another.
The Contradictions of Economic Reform in Israel
Half a century ago Israel was a poor new state hopelessly indebted to the outside world. Fifteen years later, it could be described as a rapidly growing developing country undergoing successful industrialization. By the early 1980s, it was an extreme case of an economically overburdened state incapable of stemming stagnation and spiraling inflation. But as the century comes to a close, the guardians of the “Washington consensus” laud Israel as a model of economic liberalization and successful adaptation to globalization and technological change.
US Aid to Israel
Not long ago right-wing Israel backer William Safire wrote in his column in the New York Times that the Palestinians had to recognize that their “100 million-plus [dollars] annual financial support from the European Union had ties to mutual movement” in the Oslo process. [1] On a certain level of abstraction he is correct. Significant international backing, whether financial or political, should imply commensurate adherence to international norms, whether in international human rights law, respect for the sovereignty of neighboring countries, fulfillment of United Nations resolutions or implementation of internationally backed treaties.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
There is a bill pending in the Israeli Knesset that would allow women the option to use the country’s civil courts for personal status matters. Liberal Israeli feminists see this as promoting “women’s rights” by loosening the grip of religious authorities over women’s personal lives. But Israel is not a liberal state, so there is something fundamentally problematic in assuming common gender interests, since women in Israel have no common status or rights as citizens. In fact, as long as Israel is a Jewish state, the Muslim, Christian and Druze religious institutions will remain important sources of communal identity for Israel’s Arabs (women and men), since the civil state is not really “theirs.”
