Israel Tutorial Notes

 Can the terms lef tnad right be applied to israel’s political landscape?
o Because of extreme PR its impossible to have clear left and right.
o Ideology distinction?
o Policy distinction?
o 2013 bell curve- on centre they want to maintain settlements, right
build more settlements, left says evacuate the settlements.- this is
security
o ambiguity in economics
o left and right can’t be defined because polticis is nt the priority-
private interests are
o left and right split is due to ethnic or religious factors rather than
policy or ideology
o to do with territorial control or compromise
o no split with communist and neoliberal.
 Does PR help or hinder the process of democracy govt in Israel?
o Does benefit everyone
o Allowed more radicla groups to get into power- ultraorthodox jew
in charge of education.
o Discourages young aprty polticitians.
o Interests of young polticians never represented.
o Idoelogicla homogenisaiotn in larger aprties
o

 Point 1 coalition problem

o Ineffective decision making
o Proliferation of NGO’s more NGO’s.
 Point 2 candidate selection
o Inherently corrupt
o Polticians hang on to power
o Talent goes into business
 No proper welfare state- all privatized, no visibility, laissez faire.
 Obama actively funded far left NGO’s in election to get rid of Netanyahu-
NGO’s do interefere in elecitons and cause greater rifts.
 Initial population was only 1,000,000 and that was perfect for PR
 Now its 8m and it doesn’t work.
 Settlements aren’t settlements- they’re literally towns now- they are in
the firing line if there si invasion.
 Golan heights will never be given back to Syria as it’s so important for
Israel.
 Threshold has gone form 1% to 2% to 3%- its unhelpful but it ensures
arabs are represented.
 Arabs could created coaltiosn within coalitions to get representation
 Raise threshold to 5%?
 If they hammer through the military service agenda, they would seriously
damage Shas
  Shad is the enemy- such dicks.

 Safeguarding democracy: For the first time in many years, respondents do

not consider the Supreme Court as the “institution which best safeguards
Israeli democracy” (35%). This year, it is the media which wins the top slot at
36% as the institution that the public believes best safeguards Israeli
democracy. For the first time too, major changes are seen in the third and
fourth slots, with the Knesset ranking third (16%) and the Prime Minister
fourth (13%).
 Trust in institutions: The public’s trust in the Supreme Court fell by 12
percentage points: 49% this year as compared with 61% in 2007. This is a
dramatic decrease. Only 36% of the public have trust in the Attorney General,
while 64% do not. The IDF heads the list of institutions which the public trusts
the most, at 71% —a decline of 3 percentage points compared with 2007.
Trust in the President of the State rose from 22% to 47%. Trust in the police
fell substantially from 41% to 33%, and in the Knesset from 33% to 29%. The
Prime Minister receives an expression of trust of only 17%, while political
parties are at the bottom of the list with a rating of 15%. The media—which is
viewed as the institution that best safeguards Israeli democracy--received
37%, representing a drop of 8 percentage points compared with 2007. Most of
these findings highlight the serious flaws in the functioning of the Israeli
political system and point to anti-political trends.
 Interest in politics: Only 43% of respondents acknowledge that they discuss
political issues with their friends or family members; only about 60% say that
they are interested in politics — representing a dramatic fall compared with
2006, when 73% said they were interested in political issues. Seventy-three
percent of respondents would not advise friends or family members to enter
politics; this should be viewed against the backdrop of 68% of respondents
who believe that politicians do not take into account the opinion of the man in
the street.
 Corruption: Ninety percent of respondents believe that Israel is tainted with
corruption — 60% believe that the level of corruption is very high, while 30%
believe that it is quite high. In contrast, only 9% believe that there is very little
corruption in Israel, and just 1% believe that there is no corruption at all. More
than half of the respondents (51%) believe that corruption is necessary in
order to reach the top echelons of Israeli politics today.
 International comparison: Israel receives better evaluations from
international research institutes compared with previous years. Nevertheless,
there is no change in Israel’s ranking among a sample of 36 countries, and in
certain cases, its ranking has fallen. In other words, despite the relative
improvement in Israel’s scores in certain categories, the situation of other
countries has improved more and, relative to them, Israel’s ranking has fallen.

Civil Society

 Fifty-seven percent of respondents believe that the quality of services

provided by civil organizations is better than that provided by the state.
Nevertheless, the majority of citizens is still interested in receiving the
services they need from the state rather than from civil society organizations:
 53% of respondents agree with the statement that it is preferable for the state
to continue its previous level of involvement in social and economic domains,
while 28% prefer to see a reduction in state involvement in these domains;
46% prefer to receive services from state organizations, while 29% prefer to
receive services from social organizations. The public believes that its elected
representatives are concerned, first and foremost, with the furthering of their
private interests and are not attuned to the wishes and needs of the voters. This
is a dangerous situation for democracy. Should these trends continue, the
involvement of citizens with the political system will gradually decrease, as
distrust and alienation increase. This might irrevocably erode the legitimacy of
representative democracy in Israel.
 Satisfaction with the functioning of Israeli democracy: The public’s level
of satisfaction with the functioning of Israeli democracy has risen: 43%
expressed satisfaction, compared with 34% who expressed satisfaction in the
2007 democracy survey. The 2008 democracy survey also shows that the
majority of citizens are very proud to be Israeli (80%), and many of them
(83%) are certain that they want to continue living in Israel in the long term. It
should be pointed out that these findings primarily attest to an emotional
loyalty to the state and homeland, and less to respondents’ feelings about the
present situation.
Israeli democracy is still fragile and needs nurturing, particularly in view of
the governance crisis and the trend toward alienation from politics, which are
prominent in the 2008 Democracy Index.

Tutorial 3- 23/11/17

What role has ethnicity played in determining Israeli policy toward the
palesitnians?

 Labour is more open to the two state solution

 Likud or right wing is for rejecting the two state eoslution outright
 Right is only party that has concluded with palesitnians
 Ashkenaizi are secular
 Mizarim arereligious.

Why do ethnic parties tend to favour right wing agendas in Israel?

 Peres and rabin pushed peace accords and Shas supported

 Theoretircally right wing, practically flexible- just gets power.
 Left and right can’t be decided on social and eocnomci parameters
 You decide whether they are right or left based on security issues.

Israel is an ehtnocracy not a decomracy, discuss

 3 main issue
o Republican collectivisim
 o Ehtnonationalism
o Liberalalsim
 Liberal approach creates divides
 Tribal lines are still important
 Institutional strucutres are along ethnic lines- even though its less, its still
there
 Institutional barricades to incorporating these hostoricly stratified
groups

 Largely defined by ethnic nationalism

 There are new trends some muslims are more ready to voluntarily join
Israeli army
 Increasing number of ultra-orthodox jews willing to serve in IDF.
 Long term entrenched structural, ideological realitie which are impossible
to shift
 Israel is an ehtnocracy more than a democracy
 Australia and northern Ireland is an ethnocracy
 Israel was estblshed on the basis of an ethnic group, no one else was.
 Israel doesn’t want to go back to pre 1967 broders because it threatens its
security
 Israle has adopted pragmatic approach- land for peace
 Likud Is pragmatic right wing
 Not many aprties that are non ethnic parties.
 Need structural changes in the Knesset
 Need to invest more in arab neighbourhoods

Civil military relations tutorial- last one of term 1, 07/12/17

 Is Israel a miltiristic society, or does it possess a civilainised military

o Traditojnal approach is that it was a civlianised military and you
treat the two spehres eparately
o Military retains the elements of both
 Can Israel ever have aprofessional military force?
o Unlikely
o Conscription is a basic accepted part of socity
o Conscription is not really opposed
o Its hero worshipped

Tutorial on ehtnocracy

 Israel is not a democracy at all

 Societies with deep ethnic divions can disiriminate by violent or non
violent means
 Minorities will not be treated as equals
 Tyranny of the majority
 160,000 palesitnainsdecided to stay in Israel/Palestine
 ethinc democracy is nto a democratic form as it doesn’t give equality
before the law etc
 not intolerant but has restirvie rights
 discimrinatory but nto tyrannical
 freedom of assocaiton but polcieis typically favours jews
 don’t celebrate aras holidays or events
 Israeli flags or jewish national holidays
 State as the jewish people
 Doesn’t appreciate that there are arab citizens.
 Constitution doesn’t talk about arab citizens
 Arabs are excluded form other isnitutions.
 Arab parties treated as being permanently opposition
 Exemption from compulsory military service move made in 1954 by
ministry of defence.
 Some Israeli arabs see iDF as only way to move up in society
 State benefits aren’t given to non-jews
 Little employment in senior positions
 Never bene an arab director-general
 Little power in private sectors
 Shabak is Israeli equivalent of MI5
 Disciminration in media
 Less than 1% of tv networks are comprised of arabs
 Arab social issues rarely covered
 When they are covered its about arab-isaeli not about other issues
 Operative elvel or lgislaiton in budgets
 Idea of state land- only
 Laods of isralei arabs vote on local level but not on general level
 Contructs of citizenship- look about it in social rights, economic rights,
and poltical rights
 Defintaly not liberlademocracy
 Non liberal dmoecracy is kind fo the same as a majority democracy
 Again its between a non liberal democracy and an ethnic democracy
 Real democracy is the ability to have access to power- but there is always
a glass ceiling and that is because the distribution of power is always
determined
 Read Yiftachel- he thinks its an ethnic democracy
 Smooha says yes that’s true, but its not true to the extent that they don’t
have power. They do have power. Look at local elections. They express
power in other ways.
 If you look at construct of citiznehsip- the struggle is always about this
 Struggle of Israeli arabs is always about polticial citizenship
 Isralei govt is trying to shift this into the economic citixneship sphere
 Netanyahu and misniter of education are giving more money to Israeli
arab kids but this doesn’t reflect on the potlcial level. Also economic as
there is a glass ceiling.
 Equally the case that much of this is to do with suspicions from
majoritairn Israelis
 Israeli rabs seen as a 5th column
 Yiftahael support idea that its an ethnocracy
 Smooha says yiftahel ignores the limitiations placed whtin Israeli arab
society itself
 Smooha thus draws on social strcutre of Israeli arab society rather than
society as a whole
 Read book called ‘BEING ISRAELI’- if you look at isralei discourse- it was a
republican discourse (this has now gone- except for military), liberal
disoucrse, and religious natioanlsit discourse (seen in jewish terms)
 Docuemntary of role of Israeli arabs in the iDF
o Osraelli arabs serve in separate units
o Ghadzar is an all arab Israeli unit
o Only 1% of isralei arabs join army despite being 20% of population
o Druze have own unit
o 52-54% of palesintinas are under poverty
o 10% aplesitnians go to uni
o army is bribing Israeli arabs to join
o Fater Nadhaff tries to get chrisitians to join IDF to give back
o 200 joined laster year
o 90% of them joined combat units
o schilarships of £1000 from father nadhaff to go to uni after the
army he says it comes from charity not the Israeli govt
o Israeli military seize land where stones are thrown from as its
considered a security threat
o They swear on quran not torah
o Arab isalries get given a grant to get their own land which jews
don’t get
o Being in the army gives you security clearance for life making it
easier t get jobs
o Israeli army pay for medical school
o Rufuse Group- target Israeli arbas joinging army especially
chrisitain ones with father naddaf
o Numbers of Israeli arabs marching on ladn day has stedadily fallen
over the years
o Over half identity somewhat as Israeli
o 10s to 100s of recuitrs who are muslim have been joining army in
3 years
o 12 jewish tribes of Israel
o Israeli govt passed a law that criminalises the harassment fo
Christian soliders and those who recruit them
o Harassment being a broad term of course
o Beree f the ghdsar unit
o