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Assembled by Ken Stein and Eli Sperling Emory University and Center for Israel Education kenstein@israeled.org or kstein@emory.edu Morsi Abu Mokh, “Between the Rational and the Emotional: Factors Influencing the Political Participation of Arab Citizens in Israel,” Moshe Dayan Center, August 12, 2019. https://dayan.org/content/between-rational-and-emotional-factors-influencing-political-participation-arab-citizens Ofer Aderet, “Israeli Tech Pioneer Who Made It Possible to Talk on […]

The considerations that have so far guided Hezbollah’s calculated retaliation on September 1, 2019 following Israel’s strikes, and the August 25 drone strike in Beirut in particular, reflect its character as an organization with multiple identities – all of which influence its decision making. Hezbollah simultaneously constitutes a pivotal link in the regional “resistance axis” led by Iran; a Lebanese “resistance” movement and “defender of Lebanon”; and an organization within Lebanon that preserves its independent identity and autonomous decision making. Even as Hezbollah is involved in the overarching “resistance axis” against Israel, its commitment to the Lebanese state serves as a restraint. In its brief round of fighting with Israel, Hezbollah, which seeks to avoid broadening the confrontation to a war ruinous for both Lebanon and itself, behaved like a careful state-like actor.

Two weeks to the elections Jewish Israelis show a strong preference for a unity government while Arab Israelis prefer a center-left wing government led by Gantz. Also over the past five months there has been a steady decline in the public’s optimism about the future of Israel’s democracy and security.

Major changes had taken place in the structure of the Zionist Organization during the four years between the rejection of Chaim Weizmann at the Seventeenth Zionist Congress of 1931 and his reelection in 1935. The most important of these was the secession of the Revisionists, who established the New Zionist Organization in September 1935. The second was the strengthening of the Labour groups to become the central force in the movement, with 45 per cent of the delegates at the Nineteenth Congress compared with 29 per cent in 1931. Finally, there was the continued decline of the two wings of the General Zionists. These factors both necessitated and facilitated Weizmann’s return to the leadership.

It was the style of Weizmann’s leadership rather than his politics that came under fire at the 17th Zionist Congress held in Basle in July 1931. His policies, to be sure, were much criticized, but his displacement from the presidency of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency at that Congress did not alter the basic strategy of the movement. Officially, Weizmann remained in the wilderness for the ensuing four years, until his re-election as President at the 19th Congress in Lucerne in August 1935. Nevertheless, he would not allow his political judgment to relax, nor would he abdicate from his role as a Jewish statesman of international rank. For January, 1933, saw the advent of Adolf Hitler to power.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) the population of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA: the Arab countries and Iran) will increase from 484 million in 2018 to 581 million in 2030 and 724 million in 2050.[1] (See Table 1) Between 2018 and 2030, the population is forecast rise by almost 1.7 percent annually and between 2030 and 2050 by just over 1.2 percent annually. By far the largest country demographically is Egypt, and its population is forecast to rise by almost 1.8 percent annually between 2018 and 2030 and by almost 1.4 percent annually between 2030 and 2050. This edition of Iqtisadi examines the report and its implications.

Israel’s political system requires its leaders and political parties to reach compromises and agreements in order to effectively govern the country.

Volume XV of the Letters of Chaim Weizmann opens with the Zionist leader in an ambiguous situation: although he has resigned the Presidency of the Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency in protest against the Passfield White Paper of October 1930, which restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine and the acquisition of land there, no successor has been selected. Weizmann in fact is still the head of the movement, and this situation continues until he finds himself formally replaced as President by Nahum Sokolow at the Seventeenth Zionist Congress the following year.

This special survey examines attitudes of right wing voters on a number of issues related to September’s election including the possibility of a unity government and recent proposals that would limit judicial review and oversight of Knesset and government decisions. The poll reveals that 42% of right-wing voters support a unity government and that 43% oppose additional political power for elected officials at the expense of the Judicial Branch of government.

Volume XIV of the letters of Chaim Weizmann, written in the period between the Sixteenth Zionist Congress and the British Government’s Statement of Policy of 21 October 1930, gives a central place to the establishment of an enlarged Jewish Agency by the inclusion of non-Zionists, and to the political struggle which followed the 1929 disturbances in Palestine. The achievement of the Jewish Agency would undoubtedly have marked a high point in Weizmann’s Zionist leadership were it not diminished by the world-wide economic slump and a crisis in relations with the British Government.

Jerusalem is the largest and most complex city in Israel. According to data from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) at the end of 2017 Jerusalem residents comprised roughly 10% of the total population of the State of Israel (901,302 persons). 62.1% of the city’s population are classified as “Jews and others” (559,849 persons), and 37.9% of its residents are classified as Arab (341,453 persons). At the same time, according to ICBS figures, approximately 72,600 residents left Jerusalem between the years 2007-2017. In 2017 for example, Jerusalem’s population was reduced by 6,000 people as a result of negative internal migration (of which, 5,800 were “Jews and others” and 200 were Arabs).

Volume XIII of the Letters of Chaim Weizmann, covering the period March 1926 to July 1929, gives preponderance to two crucial issues: the economic crisis which struck at the Jewish community in Palestine, bringing the Zionist Organization to the verge of bankruptcy and threatening the very survival of the Jewish National Home; and the resumption of efforts to form an expanded Jewish Agency with the participation of non-Zionist Jewish leaders. In March 1926 Dr. Weizmann and his wife Vera arrived in Palestine to find great distress resulting from the developing economic crisis there.

The State Comptroller’s Office is the only institution outside of the defense establishment that conducts comprehensive and independent audits of security matters; hence its importance to national security. In the view of newly-appointed State Comptroller and Ombudsman Matanyahu Englman, an audit is meant to be a constructive process that addresses issues of national value; the audit process is a tool that supports the government and prime minister; audits that are liable to affect real-time decision making should be avoided; and the Comptroller should also report on the success of those audited. By contrast, his predecessor, retired judge Yosef Shapira, stressed that the State Comptroller is not the government’s in-house auditor and that audits do not depend on the good will of any external party.

Imagine a growing Israeli startup whose product is deepfake videos that are based on artificial intelligence and appear to be utterly authentic. The company’s marketing efforts, according to its website, are conducted by two departments — “consulting for corporations” and “consulting for governments and politicians.” In addition, “the company helps its customers uncover their opponents’ weak spots and make them go viral.” Finally, imagine that the company describes its employees as “highly experienced men and women, graduates of elite units of the IDF intelligence branch and Israeli government intelligence agencies,” and that its technology is based on developments by these same security agencies. When you are done imagining this, it’s time to think about the private intelligence firm Black Cube.

This volume of the Weizmann Letters covers a period of two years and nine months, from the 13th Zionist Congress at Carlsbad in August 1923 until Chaim Weizmann’s departure from London for a visit to Palestine in March 1926. These were years of reorientation in the history of Zionism, with its center of gravity shifting from the political sphere to the task of construction in Palestine. The transition was bound to involve difficulties for the movement, for political work, with its immediate challenges, would naturally be more appealing than the practical work in Palestine, which was gradualist, and only bore fruit after a considerable lapse of time.

Veterans of the Jewish Resistance in France participated in the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews during WWII. They provided emissaries from the Land of Israel with vital infrastructure for clandestine Zionist activities in France, including money, manpower, forged documents, accommodation, and contacts among the French authorities. In July-August 1947, they were significantly involved in the dramatic story of the Exodus 1947, the ship full of Holocaust survivors turned back by the British. It is regrettable that their contribution to the creation of the State of Israel is almost entirely absent from the collective memory.

The opening of the eleventh volume of the Weizmann Letters, which covers the period from January 1922 to July 1923, finds Weizmann in Berlin on his way back to London from a meeting in Vienna of the Actions Committee of the Zionist Organization. The journey was one of many which Weizmann undertook during this period. Of the nineteen months covered by this volume he spent eleven months outside Britain, an indication of the international nature of the complex diplomatic, political, and financial problems which Weizmann and the Zionist movement faced in these years.

The Israel Democracy Institute published on August 12th a special survey examining attitudes of right wing voters on a number of issues related to September’s election including. These include the possibility of a unity government and recent proposals that would limit judicial review and oversight of Knesset and government decisions. The poll reveals that 42% of right-wing voters support a unity government and that 43% oppose additional political power for elected officials at the expense of the Judicial Branch of government.

With the inability of Prime Minister Netanyahu to form a governing coalition in the spring, Israeli voters will head back to the polls just five months after April’s Knesset elections. This whiteboard video explains what’s different this time around emphasizing which political parties have joined together, which ones have new leaders, and which ones have decided not to run.

(14 de junio de 2009) Netanyahu, Benjamín. Universidad Bar Ilán, Ramat Gan. 14 de junio de 2009. Discurso.  En un discurso de treinta minutos sobre política exterior, el Primer Ministro presentó su plan para una resolución del conflicto palestino-israelí. Si bien se refirió brevemente a la amenaza que Irán suponía para Israel, la crisis económica […]

La Resolución llama a la retirada indeterminada de Israel de territorios a cambio del derecho de todos los estados a vivir en paz.

La Organización para la Liberación de Palestina busca la destrucción de Israel por medio de la lucha armada. Mantiene esta política fija desde diciembre de 1988.

In the Arabian Sea, competition has been building for the past few years over control of the strategic ports adjacent to major trade routes. Power struggles have developed in the context of China’s efforts to consolidate its hold on key ports in the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea, and Red Sea, as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). From Israel’s perspective, the competition over the Red Sea shipping lane allows the consolidation of the presence of different actors along the southern access routes to the Gulf of Eilat and to the Suez Canal, creating a new space of challenges, and maybe also opportunities for (low profile) Israeli involvement in some of the initiatives.

The dominant theme of this tenth volume (July 1920–December 1921) of the Weizmann Letters, as of Weizmann’s political career as a whole, is one of struggle. Three major conflicts which absorbed most of Weizmann’s energies and thoughts in the period are reflected: the struggle with the followers of Justice Louis D. Brandeis within the World Zionist Organization; the struggle over the provisions and ratification of the Palestine mandate; and the struggle over the northern and eastern borders of the Jewish National Home in Palestine.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is awarded high grades for improving Israel’s international standing (60%), enhancing the country’s military strength (56%), and successfully contending with the Iranian threat (50.5%) but poor grades for failing to increase solidarity between Israel’s different segments of society (51%) and on the question of personal integrity (49%).

Una mirada al crecimiento y el éxito de Israel como un titán tecnológico y su evolución hacia la Nación de la Creación.

This volume spans the period between October 1918, when Weizmann, the head of the Zionist Commission, had just returned to England from Palestine, and July 1920, the month in which Herbert Samuel began his tenure as High Commissioner for Palestine and in which the Zionist Conference took place in London. These twenty-one months are of crucial importance for the history of Zionism and for the Jews in Palestine (the Yishuv). It is a period in which Weizmann’s ascendancy to the leadership of the World Zionist Organization becomes undisputed.

Assembled by Ken Stein and Eli SperlingEmory University and Center for Israel Educationkenstein@israeled.org or kstein@emory.edu Adnan Abu Amer, “How to read Hamas’ visit to Iran,” Al-Monitor, July 26, 2019. https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/07/palestine-hamas-iran-relations-visit-delegation-war-us-syria.html  Mohammed Bani Salameh and Ayman Hayajneh, “How Jordan Can Cope the End of the Syrian Civil War,” Middle East Forum, Summer 2019. https://www.meforum.org/58683/end-syrian-civil-war-jordan  BICOM Staff, “September 17 […]

According to the BDS movement’s Palestinian branch, the impact of the movement “is increasing substantially.” Many pro-Israel sites and organizations agree with that assessment. But how accurate is this prognosis?

The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann  November 1917 – October 1918 Volume VIII, Series A  Introduction: Devorah Barzilay General Editor Meyer W. Weisgal, Volume Editors Devorah Barzilay and Barnet Litvinoff, Transaction Books, Rutgers University and Israel Universities Press, Jerusalem, 1977 [Reprinted with express permission from the Weizmann Archives, Rehovot, Israel,  by the Center for […]