By Piki Ish-Shalom, July 1st, 2013 
In an oft-quoted remark Henry Kissinger observed that “Israel has no foreign policy, it has only a domestic policy.” Israel keeps on proving Kissinger right and by now his bon mot has become a sad truism. But recently the truism has turned to farce as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relentlessly takes apart Israel’s Foreign Ministry and its professional Foreign Service.
In an act of political payoff, Netanyahu did not appoint a Foreign Minister in his new cabinet at the request of Avigdor Lieberman, the former Foreign Minister, who is currently standing trial for Breach of Trust and fraud. Netanyahu has decided to keep the position open for Lieberman until the end of the trial. In the meantime, he himself is acting as the Foreign Minister. Needless to say, the Prime Minister hardly has the time to manage the daily matters of the Ministry, though he started his public career as a diplomat, and a very adept one.
Additionally, to further weaken the ministry, Netanyahu redistributed many of the traditional responsibilities of the Foreign Ministry among other ministries, some of them new and bogus creations, such as the gimmicky Ministry of International Relations. Other related ministries include the Ministry for Regional Cooperation, a Minister for Diasporas, and a Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, who is also responsible for diplomatic initiatives and peace talks with the Palestinians. Considering that Prime Minister Netanyahu keeps for himself and in his office some key aspects of Israel’s foreign relations, what we get is a beheaded and enfeebled Foreign Ministry, lacking political backing, which competes with several artificial and bogus ministries. Why is this so? Why does Netanyahu sacrifice the Foreign Ministry with its years of experience and professionalism?
One may argue that by weakening the ministry and establishing evermore competing entities, Netanyahu is trying to divide and rule, a well-worn strategy of playing all against all, so as to secure his own agenda. However, in my judgment, there is no agenda as it appears that in Israel, everyone is in charge and no one is in command.
There are two possible alternative reasons for the establishment of . . .
Read more: Israeli Foreign Policy: Everyone is in Charge and No One is In Command
By Nahed Habiballah, April 30th, 2013 
As my partner and I were taking what has become our routine journey (twice a month) from my parents’ home in Al-Ram (between Jerusalem and Ramallah) to the Sheikh Hussein Bridge heading for Amman-Jordan, he raised an interesting question. Noting that the State of Israel has devoted so much energy and resources to “protect” itself through occupation, the separation wall and check points, he wondered whether Israelis foresee a solution, or do they believe that the current situation is a final solution? Our bi-weekly trip to the bridge provides the context for this question.
My parents’ home is on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which under normal circumstances could have been a natural expansion of Jerusalem. It could have been a desirable suburb in a normal setting, as it has access to the northern exit, making a northern trip swift. This was a plus when my father decided to buy that plot of land, as he is originally from the Nazareth area, and we used to make the trip up north almost weekly to visit family.
With the continuing Palestinian Israeli conflict and the resulting decision by the Israeli government to build the wall, Al-Ram neighborhood was one of the areas that suffered. To make matters worse, the State of Israel has an Industrial zone (“Atarot”) opposite our neighborhood, which means that they needed access to it. As a result the “Wall” was erected in the middle of the street dividing it into two parallel streets and declaring one side of it as Israeli and part of Jerusalem while the other side as Area B. (Area B: The Oslo II Accord of Sep. 28th 1995 has created three “temporary” distinct administrative divisions of the Palestinian territories thus creating what have become areas A, B and C. According to Oslo Accord, Area B is Israeli controlled but administered by Palestinian Authority.)
This arrangement meant that we no longer have the convenient access of the northern route and now in order to leave our neighborhood and reach Jerusalem, we have two options. The first is Qalandya checkpoint, the . . .
Read more: The Israeli Future? A View From Both Sides of the Wall
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, April 8th, 2013 
 To skip this introduction and go directly to read today’s In-Depth post, “Israel Against Democracy: Post-Elections Analysis” by Hilla Dayan, click here.
In today’s “in-depth” post, Hilla Dayan provides critical insight into the Israeli political landscape, following the recent elections. She paints a stark reality. The elections in her judgment have a “Groundhog Day” quality. Once again, a centrist, anti-religious, patriotic party appeared from nowhere. Once again, the left was not a significant factor, and once again the right-wing ruling party prevailed to form the coalition. Dayan presents a much more radical response than did Michael Weinman in his inquiry into the future prospects following the elections for Israel. Weinman foresees a fundamental challenge to Israeli democracy, worries about theocratic and authoritarian dangers, and sees in the modest quest for a normal society a possible key for a democratic future.
In Dayan’s account, in contrast, the key question is whether the strong anti-democratic agenda of the far right will proceed, whether Israel’s present regime, combining an unsteady and receding liberal democracy for Jewish citizens and second class Palestinian citizens, with dictatorship over the Palestinians in the occupied territories, will be replaced by a more pure authoritarian indeed fascist regime, with the potential of a genocidal approach to the Palestinian other.
While for Weinman hope lies in the internal dynamics of Israeli society, for Dayan hope can be found in the potential common project linking the post if not anti-Zionist left within Israel and in the occupied territories. Both see the elections as indecisive. Both see real dangers. Yet, both also provide some grounds for hope: Weinman in the possibility of incremental steps toward a two state solution, between now and a better then, Dayan in the radical step that must be taken for a just secular one state solution.
My ambivalent response: as a matter of temperament and personal experience, I am attracted to the quest for a normal society as a wise political . . .
Read more: Israel Against Democracy: Introduction
By Hilla Dayan, April 8th, 2013 The recent elections in Israel were held, as in past years, in a climate of resignation. No big surprises were anticipated, and no one for a minute doubted that Benjamin Netanyahu would be elected for a historic third time. Even when the results were announced, the landslide victory of the new party, Yesh Atid [there is a future], led by media celebrity Yair Lapid, was hardly a surprise. It is the third time that a vaguely centrist party with a vaguely anti-religious, patriotic agenda took a big chunk of the “average Israeli” votes. (Kadima is today the smallest party in the Knesset with 2 seats. In its first elections in 2006 it took 29 seats to become the largest party within the coalition government. Shinuy party won 15 seats in 2003 and disappeared in the 2006 elections.) With 17 out of 120 Knesset seats, Yesh Atid has become the second biggest party in Israel overnight, second to the ruling party. They were declared the “winners” and the Netanyahu-Liberman duo the “losers,” for losing a large portion of their mandate through the merger of Likud and Israel Beitenu.
The massive vote for Lapid, riding on a general discontent with politics, made it painfully clear how sectorial the “social justice” protest in the summer of 2011 was after all, which drew primarily on middle-class frustrations with dwindling economic prospects for future generations. The amazing creativity and energy of many young and more radicalized 2011 protestors dissipated much too soon. Difficult yet promising alliances forged at the time between Mizrahi neighborhoods in Tel Aviv and Palestinian activists in Jaffa found no political expression. The summer of 2011 was a moment when hundreds of thousands poured to the streets to demonstrate against the rule of the so-called “tycoons,” Israel’s business oligarchy. This seemed to have the potential to lead to an even broader, more threatening mobilization against the existing order. It didn’t happen. No serious opposition to the reign of the neoliberal hawkish right emerged from this outburst. The 2011 protest did not generate any visible crack in the tectonic structures of Israeli politics. The main players on the Israeli political map remain Netanyahu-Liberman, a spineless, inflated center, and a disproportionately strong settler-dominated extreme . . .
Read more: Israel Against Democracy: Post-Elections Analysis
By Michael Weinman, April 5th, 2013 
In the immediate aftermath of the latest elections in Israel, my (somewhat snide, but really felt) response was “good thing there is a future; there’s surely no present.” Meaning, I suppose, something like: nice to see that folks really made a statement that the current political system is fundamentally broken (by voting in droves for the newly-minted Yesh Atid [i.e., there is a future] party), but that doesn’t mean that anything has actually changed, or can be expected to change, any time soon. I had wanted to try to develop that reaction into a sustained thought, but failed. Then, in the build-up to Obama’s visit and the drama of Netanyahu’s troubled, but ultimately (and predictably) successful, attempt to forge a coalition, I thought that there was a real moment to expand on my initial response. I failed again. Obama’s visit itself would have been a nice occasion to revisit my thesis and see how it was holding up against “facts on the ground.” But, alas, that moment passed as well.
Who would have thought that the “critical mass” would have been reached through a seemingly benign, almost anodyne, gesture by Yair Lapid (head of the afore-mentioned party) in saying that any structural changes to Israeli economic and fiscal policy—and such changes, it is universally agreed (and, seriously, now, how often is universal agreement reached on anything in Israel?)—must first of all resolve the difficulties faced by the “ideal typical” family of “Riki Cohen” who (it so happens) is said to hail from Hadera, the suburban semi-city between Tel Aviv and Haifa where my wife’s parents have lived for 25 years.
So, I am sitting here in their house in Hadera, looking over the pages and pages devoted to “Rikigate” in the thick Friday [think: Sunday] editions of Yediot Ahronot and HaAretz (including prized positions on the front covers thereof), and I realize: this is the evidence that the January version of me would have wanted to rip from the near future and point to in making my comment about the lack of a political present in Israel. . . .
Read more: Is There an Israeli Future? Post-Election Reflections on Minister Lapid, “Riki Cohen from Hadera” and the Pursuit of a Normal Society
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, March 28th, 2013 
To skip this introduction and go directly to read Zachary Metz’s In-Depth Analysis, “Peace Writ Small: Reflections on “Peacebuilding” in Iraq, Burma, Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, the Balkans and Beyond,” click here.
In today’s “in-depth post,” Zachary Metz, a veteran conflict resolution practitioner, reflects on his vast experience exploring the potential of “peacebuilding.” He notes that, in recent years, the concern among practitioners has turned away from the simple cessation of violence, toward “positive peace,” a term advocated by Johan Galtung, working for “peace writ large,” in which peace includes a focus on long term, large scale, social change. Metz appreciates this move and has applied it, but he also recognizes its limits. Conflict is embedded in everyday social practices, he notes, in the small interactions that lead toward or away from violence, which promote conflicts or understandings. He thus focuses this piece on what he calls “peace writ small.” After explaining how his close focus on interaction responds to problems of the day and problems among conflict resolution practitioners, and after he draws on relevant theoretical developments, Metz illuminates how his approach looks like in practice. He describes and analyzes a moving example of “peace writ small” in a group he led in Iraq in 2005. In Iraq in 2005!
I am first impressed by the bravery involved, but even more significant is that Metz clearly illuminates the type of work that needs to happen for the Iraqis to have any chance in the aftermath of this tragic war. In miniature, I think I see in Zach’s account the only way for an alternative to the again escalating strife in that long-suffering country. In the ten year anniversary post mortem of the war, reflections have all been writ large, too often repeating thread worn partisan positions. Metz shows how we see and can do much more when we pay attention to everyday experience and concerns, and respond accordingly.
P.S. As the author of The Politics of Small Things, from which Metz draws insight, I find his . . .
Read more: Peace Writ Small: Introduction
By Zachary Metz, March 28th, 2013 “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”
– Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”
Over the course of my career as a practitioner and researcher in the field known as “peacebuilding,” I have worked alongside thousands of people in conflicted societies, including in Iraq, Burma, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, the Balkans, and elsewhere. In this article, I explore a dilemma I see in the field, namely the increasingly singular emphasis on grand narratives of peace, known as “Peace Writ Large.” I fear that this frame, while valuable in many ways, may have the unintended consequence of actually undermining inquiry into and support for the powerful micro interactions that occur in even the most polarized conflicts. I argue that we must not lose sight of the power embodied in “peace writ small.”
Since the mid-1990s, approaches to theory-building, policy-making and intervention in conflict have increasingly emphasized macro, long-term societal changes, first under the rubric of “conflict transformation” and now “peacebuilding”.
Building on Johann Galtung’s fundamental concept of positive peace (meant to contrast with “negative peace,” meaning the cessation of violence), “Peace Writ Large” articulates an expansive vision, embracing human rights, environmental sensitivity, sustainable development, gender equity, and other normative and structural transformations. (Chigas & Woodrow, 2009). Anderson and Olsen (2003:12) define Peace Writ Large as comprising change “at the broader level of society as a whole,” which addresses “political, economic, and social grievances that may be driving conflict.” Lederach (1997:84), integrates Peace Writ Large into his definition of peacebuilding, which is:
“…a comprehensive concept that encompasses, generates and sustains the full array of processes, approaches and stages needed to transform conflict toward more sustainable, peaceful relationships…Metaphorically, peace is seen not merely as a stage in time or a condition. It is seen as a dynamic social construct.”
The focus in this article does not allow space for a full discussion of the rich dialogues and debates relevant to peacebuilding or Peace Writ Large. That said, I note that in my own work I have found that this meta approach expands our tools of engagement and pushes us to move beyond official “Track I” diplomacy and state-based mechanisms, to involve civil society, . . .
Read more: Peace Writ Small: Reflections on “Peacebuilding” in Iraq, Burma, Israel and Palestine, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, the Balkans and Beyond
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 7th, 2013 
During my sabbatical, I have had the luxury of reading in a leisurely fashion, without courses and writing projects in mind, going where my interests take me. It has been a pleasure and, as it happens, a fruitful practice. Without intention, it has led me to a new project, as I have already reported: an exploration of the unresolvable dilemmas built into the social fabric, the study of the social condition. Today, another example, the tensions between religion and politics in modern society: I returned to this problem reading Nachman Ben Yehuda’s latest book, Theocratic Democracy: The Social Construction of Religious and Secular Extremism.
Ben Yehuda, my old friend and colleague, is studying in his book Jewish extremism in the Jewish state. He investigates deviance in the religious community as a way to analyze the conflict between the religious and secular in Israel. Central religious and political commitments in Israel as a matter of the identity of the national community pose serious problems. Not only has the recognition of Israel as a Jewish Democratic state become a key demand and obstacle in negotiations with the Palestinians: it has become a problematic challenge to the relationship among Israeli Jews. Nachman, an occasional Deliberately Considered contributor explores this. His central findings are presented in part 2 of Theocratic Democracy, on the deviance and the non-conformity of the ultra orthodox, and part 3 on cultural conflict in the media.
In part 2, a selection of “illustrative events and affairs” is presented, among many others: a 1958 affair surrounding the building of a swimming pool for mixed, male and female, bathing, in ultra-orthodox rendering the “abomination pool,” and the 1981 ultra-orthodox attack on an archaeological dig of the City of David, near the old city of Jerusalem, leading to a series of conflicts, ultimately resulting in the fine tuning of the law of archaeology. During 1985-6, there were Haredi attacks on advertising posters. Further, there were attacks on movie theaters open on the Saturday Sabbath, . . .
Read more: The Social Condition, Religion and Politics in Israel
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 28th, 2012 
This is the first part of a two-part post. Today I focus on Israel and point to comparisons. In part 2, I explore the comparisons. –Jeff
I am mimicking the title of my second book, On Cultural Freedom: An Exploration of Public Life in Poland and America in the title of this post, as I am imagining writing a second volume, a case study focusing the theory in my book written thirty years ago to a particular cultural domain today. My thought experiment is motivated by a concern for my intellectual home, the university.
While the immediate stimulus for these reflections is the attack upon the Politics and Government Department at Ben Gurion University in Israel, first reported here on Tuesday, I think the crudeness of the attack is matched by more subtle, but also powerful, challenges to academic freedom and quality quite apparent in the United States, and elsewhere. I write about these concerns, thinking of my students and particularly of a Deliberately Considered contributor from Pakistan, Daniyal Khan.
The attack on the academic freedom of the politics and government of Ben Gurion University is straightforward political repression. There is an attempt on the part of the Israeli right to cleanse the Israeli academy of what it takes to be “anti-Zionism.” A NGO, sometimes labeled as Fascist, Im Tirtzu, has led the charge. Right-wing politicians have used institutional means to attempt a purge. There are only days left to forestall this dire outcome. (protest against these developments here)
An international review panel recommended reforms to broaden the intellectual profile of Ben Gurion University’s Department of Politics and Government (something I for one am not sure is a good idea) and the recommendations have been creatively misinterpreted by the Israeli Council for Higher Education (CHE), a government-appointed body charged with the supervision and financing of universities and colleges in Israel, to justify closing the department down. The independence of the university is under direct political assault.
This . . .
Read more: On Cultural Freedom: An Exploration of Academic Life in Israel, Pakistan and the U.S.
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, September 25th, 2012 
The members of the Department of Politics and Government at Ben Gurion University have agreed among themselves not to individually publish opinion pieces on the threat of closing of their department. For this reason, I have taken down the first version of this post. Instead I reproduce here the explanation of the situation of the department and the state of academic freedom in Israel given on the site Israel Academy Under Attack. For more information on the attack, go to the site, which includes suggestions for ways concerned readers can effectively respond to this assault on academic freedom. -Jeff
On September 4th 2012 the sub-committee for quality control of the Israeli Council of Higher Education recommended that the department of Politics and Government at BGU be prevented from registering new students for the 2013-14 academic year. This recommendation — which, if implemented, will lead to the closure of the department — will be voted on by the CHE in its next general meeting, due to take place on October 23rd. Below we provide an overview of the events that led to the sub-committee’s decision.
The saga began when the Israeli Council of Higher Education established an international evaluation committee to scrutinize political science departments in Israel.
From the very beginning, the process was mired by irregularities. First, Prof. Ian Lustick, a prominent American political scientist from U of Penn and an internationally recognized expert on Israeli society and politics, was removed from the evaluation committee for unknown reasons. In response, the original committee chair, Prof. Robert Shapiro of Columbia University, resigned and the political science department at Hebrew University stopped cooperating with the committee. The committee was subsequently recomposed with Prof. Thomas Risse from Frei University in Berlin taking the helm (Risse was aware that the other people resigned and still took it on), and included such people as Israeli Prof. Avraham Diskin who had previously written articles in support of the radical right wing group Im Tirzu.
This committee, whose members are praised as positivist and empiricist political scientists produced a report that was not . . .
Read more: Academic Freedom Attacked in Israel
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