This article was downloaded by: [Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor] On: 13 August 2012, At: 05:26 Publisher: Routledge

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Journal of Modern Jewish Studies

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Politics and Government in Israel. The Maturation of a Modern State

Raphael Cohen-Almagor
a a

University of Hull, UK

Version of record first published: 08 Aug 2012

To cite this article: Raphael Cohen-Almagor (2012): Politics and Government in Israel. The Maturation of a Modern State, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 11:2, 286-288 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2012.686571

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rockets are named) visited Saffuriyya in 1929, he was said to have recruited some of the men for his secret bands of resistance fighters against the British and the Jews. The Zionists regarded Saffuriyya as a village of murderers, and the new Israeli army destroyed it in 1948 as a place of fierce warriors and fanatical Muslims. The rest of this fascinating story and that of Taha himself is for the reader to discover. It is an account of a history that has been buried for too long. Adina Hoffmans remarkable book is an unintended but eloquent expos of the flaws in this version of history.

Note
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1. Walid Khalidi, ed., All That Remains. The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948 (Washington, DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992).

GHADA KARMI Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies University of Exeter, UK 2012, Ghada Karmi http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2012.686570

Politics and Government in Israel. The Maturation of a Modern State GREGORY MAHLER Rowman and Littlefield, 2011 402 pp., $44.00, ISBN 978-0-7425-6828-0 In Politics and Government in Israel, Mahler aims to acquaint readers with the history of Israel and its political processes. Mahler endeavours to present a balanced picture, attempting to provide Israels historical background and social context, to explain the countrys political structures and to clarify the external pressures that influence the political system. Mahler is cognizant of the books limitations. The book does not rely on Hebrew sources, is quite brief on major issues (for instance, Israeli economy) and is not immune to factual errors. Mahler explains that his purpose was not to develop comprehensive expertise but to raise consciousness and familiarity (10). Chapter 1 deals with the history and the creation of Israel. It describes the emergence of Zionism from 1830 and explains the reasons for immigration to Palestine. In turn, chapter 2 is about Zionism and religion. Zionism as a revolutionary movement meant to found a Jewish society, free of prejudice and prosecution, where Jews could live as a unified, independent people in a land of their own. By the end of the chapter, Mahler concisely speaks of the institutional discrimination against the Israeli Arab population, which constitutes some 20 per cent of the population. Chapter 3 explains major themes essential to the understanding of Israeli society and its economy. One of the major schisms in society is between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim, called also Middle-Easterners.1 The Israeli leadership, from the early 1950s onwards,

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regarded western tradition and culture as the significant other, as the frame of reference to which they wanted Israel to be associated. The dominance of these ideas made Israel increasingly liberal, while the linkage between religion and state distinguished Israel from other western democracies. The traditional Middle-Eastern culture was rejected during the formative years, and efforts were made to curtail its legitimacy. Middle-Eastern customs were looked upon as a threat to progress, development and to Israeli democracy. The enunciated view was that we, the Israeli elite, were benevolent people who brought the Middle-Easterners to a higher stage of development, and that it was for their own advantage to change their culture. The resulting view was, inevitably, that integration was not on equal terms. It was based on efforts to upgrade the backward primitives and to reshape their entire being and thinking in the European image. Those primitives were expected to switch worlds, and to start a new life according to a new set of values that included socialist, modern nationalistic, secular as well as democratic notions and norms.2 The discrimination against Middle Eastern culture was a driving force behind the election of Menachem Begin in 1977, and in making the Likud the prime force in Israeli politics until today. Contrary to Mapai and its successor Labour, the right-wing parties always showed respect to Middle-Eastern culture and rebuked the elitist sentiments of the Israeli labour movement. The appropriate connections between politics-ideology and the economy are of utmost importance. The first years of Israels young history were characterized by massive involvement of the government in the economy. This was for both ideological and practical reasons. Economic constraints imposed on the government the need to be very active in the economy. The government adopted communal economic responsibility at the expense of developing free-market economy. Later on, the government cooperated with the private sector, which marked the second economic phase. Thus, during the 1960s a gradual liberalization took place. The next five chapters of Mahlers book are concerned with Israeli governance. They explain Israels party system, its deficiencies and flaws. The last two chapters are the weakest chapters of this book. Chapter 9 examines Israels foreign policy and its strategic considerations, while Chapter 10 is concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the failed attempts to reach peace. These chapters are far too short and contain some basic factual errors. They lack criticism of Israels blunders in achieving sustainable peace with the Palestinians. Thus, for instance, the 2000 Camp David Summit is not analysed sufficiently; there is no adequate criticism of the Shamir and Netanyahu governments stalling tactics which has aggravated the situation and led the region away from peace and into repeated cycles of violence; the crucial 1992 elections are not mentioned. Contrary to what Mahler writes (245), Hamas is not part of the PLO; and Israel and the US did not have a close relationship since the creation of the State of Israel (232).3 Furthermore, the UN lost its credibility in Israeli eyes not only because of its 1974 recognition of the PLO when it was regarded by Israel as a terrorist organization (230), but because of the consistent stream of antiIsraeli resolutions, including the 1975 Zionism-Racism decision. The composition of the UN, with more than 40 Muslim member-states and one Jewish state, yields negative bias against Israel. This book is primarily for undergraduate students who wish to gain insight into Israeli society and politics. Politics and Government in Israel is quite balanced as Mahler

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relies on mainstream literature. Its major flaws are the lack of sufficient criticism of Israel when criticism is warranted and quite a few factual mistakes that undermine the quality of the book. The book has a thorough and informative index, a valuable resource for a book that is rich in facts and condensed in information.

Notes
1. I prefer the term Middle-Easterners when referring to immigrants from the Middle East. The other terms in use, Mizrahiyim and Sepharadim, may include immigrants also from outside of the Middle East. Mizrahiyim also includes people from the Caucasus region while Sepharadim includes people from Spain, Portugal and the Balkans. 2. Raphael Cohen-Almagor, Cultural Pluralism and the Israeli Nation-Building Ideology, International Journal of Middle East Studies 27 (1995): 46184; Orit Rozin, Food, Identity and Nation-building in Israels Formative Years, Israel Studies Forum 21.1 (2001): 5480. 3. In 1948, the Israeli leadership did not wish to choose sides between the Soviet Union and the United States, having closer affinities to the socialist East than the capitalist West.

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RAPHAEL COHEN -ALMAGOR University of Hull, UK 2012, Raphael Cohen-Almagor http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14725886.2012.686571

As If It Were Life: a World War 2 diary from the Theresienstadt ghetto PHILIPP MANES Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 289 pp., $28.00, ISBN 978-0230-61328-7 Philipp Manes was an assimilated German Jew, a fur merchant by trade, who was transported, with his wife Gertrud, to the ghetto of Theresienstadt in July 1942. A highly cultured and well-travelled man, and already a prolific writer, he found in the camp his opportunity to participate in, and even create, a rich cultural life of lectures, concerts, play-readings and discussions. Theresienstadt was run and administered by a Jewish Council who were given a great deal of autonomy and allowed to organize a rich programme of cultural events. On his arrival at the camp, Manes was appointed to run a new Orientation Service (later renamed Auxiliary Service of the Ghetto Watch), which developed into a funny mixture of police station, theatrical publication company, adult education centre, and concert agency (5) as a friend of Maness described it. Theresienstadt is now notorious for the town beautification programme planned by the Nazisand implemented by the Jewish prisonersin order to deceive the Committee of the International Red Cross, which visited in June 1944. Groups of prisoners were periodically selected and transported to Poland, and this process intensified during the preparations for the Red Cross visit in order to make conditions in the