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Israeli Democracy at the Crossroads: A Crisis of Non-governability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Gad Barzilai  and
Yossi Shain
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Extract

THROUGHOUT THIS CENTURY, THE STRUGGLE FOR AND consolidation of Jewish territorial sovereignty in the ancient Land of Israel has been characterized by two complementary processes: waves of Jewish immigration from throughout the diaspora, and a succession of violent conflicts with Israel's Arab neighbours. Both of those processes were at work during 1990 — 91 when Israel became reluctantly involved in the Gulf war while also having to cope with an influx of hundreds of thousands of Jews seeking escape from the crumbling Soviet empire, as well as a few thousand emigrants from Ethiopia and from South America. For many Israelis, the surrealistic spectacle of immigrants being greeted at Ben-Gurion Airport with gas-masks designed to protect them from the Iraqi Scud missiles raining down on major Israeli cities, represented highly dramatic evidence of the fulfilment of Zionism's aspirations.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1991 , pp. 345 - 367
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1991

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References

1 The political controversy in Israel about its domination over the Gaza Strip is bereft of any ideological tone. The Gaza Strip is populated by about a million refugees who live in conditions of overcrowding and squalor which are among the worst in the world and have turned the area into the most violent of those under Israeli occupation. Many on the Israeli Right are prepared to yield territory in the Gaza Strip but fear the consequences of possible linkage between concessions agreed to there and compromises which might then be expected on the West Bank as well.

2 On Gush Emunim’s politics, see: Sprinzak, Ehud, Fundamentalism, Terrorism and Democracy, Washington, Wilson Center, 1986.Google Scholar

3 A television interview with Hashem Mhahmid, Arab M. K., Israeli Evening News, 8 10 1990 Google Scholar; Davar, 9 October 1990.

4 See Inbar, Michael and Yuchtman-Yaar, Ephraim, ‘The People’s Image of Conflict Resolution: Israelis and Palestinians’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 33, 03 1989, pp. 37–66 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also a survey among Israeli-Arab students at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Yediot Aharonot, 5 December 1989.

5 Cited in The International Herald Tribune, 25 May 1990.

6 Protocols of the Knesset, April 1990, debates regarding efforts to establish a new government, pp. 3251–3261.

7 Statistical Abstract of Israel 1989, pp. 327, 335. See also Special Issue on the Arabs in Israel: Between Religious Revival and National Awakening, in Hehadash, Hamizrah (the new East), Quarterly of the Israel Oriental Society, 32, 1989, pp. 1–9; 97–105; 165–191; 192–207.Google Scholar

8 Protocols of the Knesset, 11 June 1990, debates regarding the new government and its establishment, p. 3874.

9 See Arabs in Israel, semi-monthly Newsletter from the Institute for Arab-Jewish Affairs, Tel-Aviv, 14 October 1990.

10 See New Outlook, 33, September–November 1990, p. 20.

11 Maariv, 28 March 1990.

12 B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Press Release, 1 April 1991.

13 See Yediot Aharonot Weekend Magazine, 12 April 1991.

14 Maariv, 28 September 1989.

15 On 6 December 1989, the US State Department announced the Baker Plan for Israeli-Palestinian talks to be held in Cairo. The talks should have led both parties to agree on elections in the occupied territories. Under the Plan, the Egyptians were to consult with the Palestinians, but no mention was made of the PLO.

16 Ha’aretz, 17 August 1990.

17 Jerusalem Report, 13 December 1990.

18 High Court of Justice 1601–1604/90, Meshulam Shalit et al. Shimon Peres, v. et al, 1990, Collection of Judgments, 44(3), 495.Google Scholar

19 High Court of Justice 680/88, Shniser, et al. v. The Censor and the Minister of Defence, Collection of Judgments, 42, 4, p. 617.Google Scholar