Israel, like Britain, is a parliamentary democracy, but, like Britain, Israel lacks a formal constitution. The following items show how the system works and include Israel’s proposed 1948 constitution and the Basic Laws that fill…
The Jewish people have a 3,000-year history with the city of Jerusalem as a political, economic, religious and cultural center. In ancient times, the city housed the First and Second Temples where Jews from throughout the Land of Israel and the growing Diaspora made regular pilgrimages. Español | Italiano
Introduction With an extraordinary legaI mind and life of civil service to the state of Israel, Elyakim Rubinstein served as an estimable Supreme Court Judge, as legal adviser during the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations, worked closely with…
“We are very grateful for the learning and the PD that the program provides our faculty and look forward to continuing this in the next school year 2022-23.” Sinai Akiba, Los Angeles, CA “For years…
Adopting a systematic, yet non-technical, approach, Jacob Metzer’s book is the first to analyze the divided economy of Mandatory Palestine from the viewpoints of modern economic history and development economics.
Compiled by the Center for Israel Education, January 2023 February has historically been a month when the Zionist dream of a Jewish homeland and its defense confronted realities of world politics and diplomacy, from a…
Compiled by the Center for Israel Education, January 2023 January in Zionist history has been a month for frustrated peace efforts and life transitions. Jan. 2, 1927 — Death of Ahad Ha’am Ahad Ha’am, the…
The Jordanian, Israeli, Palestinian Triangle Ken Stein January 27, 2023 From the June 1967 War, when Israel captured lands on the West Bank of the Jordan River, portions of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the…
Udi Dekel and Noa Shusterman, with permission of INSS
Examination of the mobilization of society for the Israeli War of Independence effort enables one to present a more extended process that began in October 1947 — some two months prior to the outbreak of the war — and ended, from the standpoint of mobilization of personnel, at the beginning of 1949, when demobilization of the first draftees from the wartime army took place, and from an economic standpoint in April 1949, when an Austerity system was declared in the State of Israel.
For many years the ultra-Orthodox were perceived as “captive voters” who would always comply with their rabbis’ instructions to cast their ballot for ultra-Orthodox parties. In today’s new reality such directives are no longer enough
Compiled by the Center for Israel Education, 2022 If November historically has been a month for some of Zionism’s highest highs (the Balfour Declaration, Anwar Sadat’s visit to Jerusalem, U.N. Resolution 181) and its lowest…
Michael Jacobs, November 4, 2022 From the founding of Petah Tikvah, through the Balfour Declaration and the U.N. partition resolution to Anwar Sadat’s address to the Knesset and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, November has…
A referendum on a constitutional amendment is to be held in Egypt at the beginning of May, which would enable President Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi to continue governing after the end of his current term. In the face of massive repression, approval seems certain. This would largely complete the power consolidation of the Sisi-regime, which emerged from the military coup of July 2013. But how will this regime develop in the future? Possible scenarios are a successful development dictatorship, decades of political and economic stagnation, as under Hosni Mubarak, or imminent failure.
Political instability and fall 2022 election, Israeli Palestinian issues, Abraham Accords and Israeli normalization, countering Iran, Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine
Michael Jacobs and Ken Stein Israel on Nov. 1, 2022, is holding its fifth Knesset election since spring 2019 and its 25th since the state’s founding in 1948. Voters are facing a new mix of…
On a stormy evening on Sept. 17, 1978, with President Jimmy Carter as their witness, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin stepped to a table at the White House and signed the Camp David Accords, consisting of two framework agreements: an outline for the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty and a scaffold for planning self-rule for the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, held by Israel since the June 1967 war. Six months later, on March 26, 1979, the three men gathered again at the White House to sign the peace treaty. But their path to the ceremony 40 years ago was hardly smooth.
Despite ongoing efforts to improve relations between Fatah and Hamas, there is no serious hope of reconciliation between them in the foreseeable future. Noteworthy against this background are the attempts by Hamas and other opposition organizations to challenge both the PLO’s standing as the sole representative of the Palestinian people, and the senior standing of Fatah within the PLO. The Palestinian public, which saw the PLO as its sole representative, understands that it can no longer ignore the dominance of Hamas, which has competed with Fatah for their hearts and minds since 1987.
Notwithstanding the signing of the Abraham Accords (1920) and the growing prominence of the cooperation between Israel and the Arab Gulf states, including on security matters, the road toward its establishment increasingly rests with American involvement or leadership. Will this be a Biden priority when he visits the region over the summer?
Public opinion both shapes and reflects policy choices. Attitudes provide snap shots of short and long term trends. Assembled here are a variety of current data about policies, reflections, and expectations.
Through a national-political lens, political cooperation between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel seems unlikely, as their national issues seem to be insurmountable and of central importance. However, the formation of a mixed Jewish-Arab municipal coalition in Lod brings the supposed centrality of national politics into question, and points to cooperation on shared local issues.
The nature of the relations between Jewish and Arab citizens in the State of Israel have undergone, and are currently undergoing, significant changes. However, one fact remains unaltered: Israel is defined as the nation state of the Jewish people alone—a democratic state, but at the same time—the state of the Jewish majority, and a state in which the Arab minority constitutes around 22% of the population.
On Jan. 29, 2019, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence: “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” However, experience helps us realize that the American intelligence community has a very problematic track record in revealing, on time, nuclear weaponization efforts of many countries (e.g., North Korea, India, Pakistan, Syria, and Iraq) including Iran itself, so one has to be very humble about this kind of assessment.
