ToC: Israel Studies Review 31.2 (2016)

Israel Studies Review 31.2 (2016)

Table of Contents

Articles

• The Puzzle of The University on Air: A Story of Media and Academia in Israel, 1977–2013 / Hagai Boas and Ayelet Baram-Tsabari (1–21)
• Menachem Begin’s World Travels in the 1950s: A Road to Political Legitimacy / Ofira Gruweis-Kovalsky (22–40)
• The New Economic Policy of 1962: How Israeli Economists Almost Changed the Israeli Economy / Ronen Mandelkern (41–60)
• War and Memory: The Israeli Communist Commemoration of the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1986 / Amir Locker-Biletzki (61–79)
• Israel Goes to the Polls: The Road to Elections for the Constituent Assembly, 1948–1949 / Meir Chazan (80–100)
• Westernization and Israelization within Israel’s Extreme Orthodox Haredi Society / Menachem Keren-Kratz (101–129)
• Turkish-Israeli Relations during the Cold War: The Myth of a Long ‘Special Relationship’ / Kilic Bugra Kanat (130–149)

Reviews

• Uri Ram, The Return of Martin Buber: National and Social Thought in Israel from Buber to the Neo-Buberians [in Hebrew].
• Christopher L. Schilling, Emotional State Theory: Friendship and Fear in Israeli Foreign Policy.
• Marwan Darweish and Andrew Rigby, Popular Protest in Palestine: The Uncertain Future of Unarmed Resistance.
• Erella Grassiani, Soldiering under Occupation: Processes of Numbing among Israeli Soldiers in the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
• Assaf Meydani, The Anatomy of Human Rights in Israel: Constitutional Rhetoric and State Practice.
• Yael Raviv, Falafel Nation: Cuisine and the Making of National Identity in Israel.

New Article: Ginor & Remez,Veterans’ Memoirs as a Source for the USSR’s Intervention in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Ginor, Isabella, and Gideon Remez. “Veterans’ Memoirs as a Source for the USSR’s Intervention in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Fluctuations in Their Appearance and Character With Political Change in Post-Soviet Russia.” Journal of Slavic Military Studies 29.2 (2016): 279-97.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13518046.2016.1168136

 

Abstract

Shortly before and after the USSR’s demise, a new literature emerged: memoirs by veterans of the Soviet Union’s massive military intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the 1960s and ’70s. Resurgent Russian pride, coupled with condemnation of its corruption by Soviet crimes, permitted startling disclosures. Tools we developed to evaluate these sources found them remarkably reliable and necessitated a reassessment of existing historiography. The Putin administration marked a reversal. Russian nationalism now stressed continuity with the USSR’s great-power status. ‘Falsification of history against Russian interests’ was criminalized. Some veterans resorted to purported ‘fiction’, which if challenged could be disclaimed. But under even stricter scrutiny, these narratives generally proved to reflect the authors’ actual experience, providing significant pointers for further research.

 

 

 

New Book: Shilon, Ben Gurion – His Later Years in the Political Wilderness

Shilon, Avi. Ben-Gurion. His Later Years in the Political Wilderness. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield , 2016.

This is the first in-depth account of the later years of David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), Israel’s first Prime Minister and founding father. One of the first to sign Israel’s declaration of independence and a leading figure in Zionism, Ben-Gurion stepped down from office in 1963 and retired from political life in 1970, deeply disappointed about the path on which the state had embarked and the process that brought about the end of his political career. He moved to a kibbutz in the Negev desert, where he lived until his death. Robbed of the public aura that had wrapped him for decades, his revolutionary passion, which was not weakened in his 80s, pushed him to continue seeking social and moral change in Israel, a political solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict, and to conduct a personal and national soul-searching about the development of the State he himself had declared.

Based on his personal archives and new interviews with his intimate friends and family, the book reveals how the founding father explored the Israeli establishment he created and from which he later disengaged. It provides a thorough examination of the decisive moments in the annals of Zionism as revealed through the lens of Ben-Gurion’s worldview, which are still relevant to present-day Israel.

Table of Contents

Part I
Chapter 1: Last Dance
Chapter 2: By all Means
Chapter 3: Grief of Victory
Chapter 4: My Way

Part II
Chapter 5: Back to the Shed
Chapter 6: A man of one Trade
Chapter 7: Vision, Leadership, Path
Chapter 8: Memorandum
Chapter 9: Eternal salvation
Chapter 10: Confessions
Chapter 11: Farewell

AVI SHILON is a historian and journalist, whose articles have been published in all of Israel’s major newspapers: Ma’ariv, Globes, Israel Hayom. He currently writes a weekly column in Ha’aretz.

New Article: Omer & Zafrir-Reuven, The Development of Street Patterns in Israeli Cities

Omer, Itzhak, and Orna Zafrir-Reuven. “The Development of Street Patterns in Israeli Cities.” Journal of Urban and Regional Analysis 7.2 (2015): 113-27.

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URL: http://www.jurareview.ro/2015_7_2/a1_72.pdf [PDF]

 

Abstract

Street patterns of Israeli cities were investigated by comparing three time periods of urban development: (I) the late 19th century until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948; (II) 1948 until the 1980s; and (III) the late 1980s until the present. These time periods are related respectively to the pre-modern, modern and late-modern urban planning approach. Representative urban street networks were examined in selected cities by means of morphological analysis of typical street pattern properties: curvature, fragmentation, connectivity, continuity and differentiation. The study results reveal significant differences between the street patterns of the three examined periods in the development of cities in Israel. The results show clearly the gradual trends in the intensification of curvature, fragmentation, complexity and hierarchical organization of street networks as well as the weakening of the network’s internal and external connectivity. The implications of these changes on connectivity and spatial integration are discussed with respect to planning approaches.

 

 

 

New Article: Tubi and Feitelson, Bedouin Herders and Jewish Farmers in the Negev, 1957–1963

Tubi, Amit, and Eran Feitelson. “Drought and Cooperation in a Conflict Prone Area: Bedouin Herders and Jewish Farmers in Israel’s Northern Negev, 1957–1963.” Political Geography 51 (2016): 30-42.

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2015.11.009

 

Abstract

Climate change is increasingly considered a security problem by academics and politicians alike. Although research is challenging such neo-Malthusian views, it focuses on conflict, or lack thereof, paying limited attention, if any, to cooperation. This study examines the effect of a severe drought on a spectrum of both conflict and cooperation in a highly incendiary setting, between Muslim Bedouin herders and Jewish agricultural settlements in Israel’s semi-arid northern Negev region. This region, lying between the Mediterranean zone and the Negev Desert, has historically been a battle ground between farmers and pastoralists.

Using archival data, both conflictive and cooperative interactions between the two groups during the 1957–63 drought, the worst in the 20th century, were examined. The results indicate that although the entire range of responses occurred, violence was limited and occurred only when some of the Bedouins migrated to the more northern Mediterranean zone. In the semi-arid northern Negev the Bedouins and two settlements engaged in substantive cooperation and assistance. Grazing on damaged crops in return for payment was also practiced during the drought.

A number of factors that affected both conflict and cooperation are identified. The severity of conflicts increased when farmers and herders lacked previous familiarity, while the need to reduce the drought’s impacts and settlements’ left-wing political affiliation formed main incentives for cooperation. Measures taken by state institutions to directly reduce frictions and to provide relief assistance were central to the overall limited level of conflict, but also reinforced the power disparities between the groups.

 

 

 

New Article: Feniger & Kallus, Expertise in the Name of Diplomacy: The Israeli Plan for Rebuilding the Qazvin Region, Iran

Feniger, Neta, and Rachel Kallus. “Expertise in the Name of Diplomacy: The Israeli Plan for Rebuilding the Qazvin Region, Iran.” International Journal of Islamic Architecture 5.1 (2016): 103-34.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/ijia.5.1.103_1

 

Extract

After the September 1962 earthquake in the Qazvin region of Iran, Israel sent planning experts to assist Iranian relief efforts. A small project, the reconstruction of one village, led to a larger project initiated by the United Nations, in which a team of experts from Israel were sent to survey and plan the region devastated by the quake. This resulted in a comprehensive regional plan, and detailed plans for several villages. Israeli assistance to Iran was also intended to reinforce bilateral relations between the countries. The disaster offered an opportunity for demonstrating Israeli expertise in a range of fields including architecture, and to consolidate Israel’s international image as an agent for development. This article examines transnational exchange via professional expertise, using the participation of Israeli architects in the rebuilding of Qazvin as a case study, in order to demonstrate that architects were agents of Israel’s diplomatic goals. The architects had professional objectives, namely the creation of a modern plan for the region and its villages. At the same time, these objectives were intertwined with the Shah of Iran’s national modernization plan, and with Israel’s desire to become Iran’s ally in this drive for change and modernization, in the hope of promoting a different, more modern, Middle East.

 

 

 

New Article: Setton & Rein, Is an Embassy Really Necessary? Israeli–Spanish Relations in the 1960s

Setton, Guy, and Raanan Rein. “Is an Embassy Really Necessary? Israeli–Spanish Relations in the 1960s.” Diplomacy & Statecraft 26.4 (2015): 678-95.

 

URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2015.1096697

 

Abstract

Spanish–Israeli relations expanded across numerous fields throughout the 1960s despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties. For all practical purposes, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a legation in Madrid during the second half of the 1960s, including at least 3 semi-official representatives operating with the full knowledge of Madrid. Clandestinely, a Mossad station worked in liaison with the local intelligence services. Absence of a full-fledged Israeli embassy did not prevent advancing bilateral ties, normalising Jewish affairs in Spain, or preventing both Powers from engaging in official and public occasions or behind the scenes. Systemic pressure, most evident in Madrid’s ascension to GATT, and the need to abide with its rules by liberalising trade with Israel did much to advance Spanish–Israeli bilateral ties in the 1960s. A strong systemic external force also brought change in their relations in the 1980s. The diplomatic breakthrough of January 1986 and establishment of full formal diplomatic relations between the Powers was largely the inevitable result of Spain’s entry into the European Economic Community.

 

 

 

ToC: Jewish Social Studies 21,1 (2015)

Jewish Social Studies 21.1 (2015)

Table of Contents

 Front Matter

•  A Modern (Jewish) Woman in a Café: Leah Goldberg and the Poetic Space of the Coffeehouse (pp. 1-48)

  Shachar Pinsker
• The Missing Beat Generation: Coming of Age and Nostalgism in Arik Einstein’s Music (pp. 49-88)

  Arie M. Dubnov
• Shame as an Existential Emotion in Modern Kabbalah (pp. 89-122)

  Jonathan Garb
• Yad Vashem and the State of Holocaust Education in Israeli Schools in the 1960s (pp. 123-150)

  Jeffrey C. Blutinger
• Jewish Liberal, Russian Conservative: Daniel Pasmanik between Zionism and the Anti-Bolshevik White Movement (pp. 151-180)

  Taro Tsurumi

New Article: Heimann, France, Israel and the Former French Colonies in Africa, 1958–62

Heimann, Gadi. “A Case of Diplomatic Symbiosis: France, Israel and the Former French Colonies in Africa, 1958–62.” Journal of Contemporary History (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022009415596059

 

Abstract

This article deals with the interesting three-way relationship between Israel, France, and the former French colonies in Africa located south of the Sahara during the years 1958–62. The main argument of the paper is that in French Africa Israel and France maintained a sort of symbiosis: by seeking its own self-interest, each side fulfilled a vital function for the other. France showed great patience with Israel’s attempts to penetrate its former colonies, more so than vis-a-vis any other countries. From Israel’s standpoint this was a great opportunity, since it granted Israel a kind of exclusivity over supplementing French aid in its former colonies: France removed possible competition and made the assistance that Israel could offer even more attractive to the Africans. For its part, Israel saw itself as being required, almost without exception, to obtain France’s consent of undertakings that it initiated in the African states. Therefore, if it was decreed that the new states in Africa were to receive assistance from other countries, then Israel was a convenient default, since it, more than any other country, showed sensitivity to the French interests there.

 

 

New Article: Bar-Yosef, Heart of Darkness in Israeli Culture

Bar-Yosef, Eitan. “‘The Horror’ in Hebrew. Heart of Darkness in Israeli Culture.” Interventions (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2015.1079499

 

Abstract

Tracing the intricate presence of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in Israeli culture, this essay explores how elements of the novella (the journey to Africa, the iconic Kurtz, and the nature of ‘darkness’) have been repeatedly evoked, both implicitly and explicitly, in various cultural contexts. Focusing on three major episodes – the emergence of political Zionism in the 1890s; young Israel’s intensive involvement in Black Africa in the 1960s; and the pessimism that engulfed Israeli society after the 1973 war – the essay suggests that the novella’s relevance to Israeli culture is rooted in the work’s fluid allegorical mode, which parallels tensions and contradictions that have characterized the Zionist project from its inception. This mirroring reached a climax in the journalistic work of Adam Baruch, who offered a highly stylized postcolonial reworking of Heart of Darkness in his influential account of a journey undertaken to find a disgraced Israeli general, self-exiled in Africa. The search for the Israeli ‘Kurtz’ thus continues to function as a powerful emblem of Israel’s colonial violence.

 

 

New Article: Smola, Utopian Space and Time in Soviet Jewish Exodus Literature

Smola, Klavdia. “The Reinvention of the Promised Land: Utopian Space and Time in Soviet Jewish Exodus Literature.” East European Jewish Affairs 45.1 (2015): 79-108.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501674.2015.992711

 

Abstract

The Jewish underground movement in the Soviet Union in the second half of the 1960s produced literature that became a part of the counterculture of Soviet dissent. For the first time in decades, Russian Jews identified, to a significant degree, as people of the galut (Jewish Diaspora). The battle for the return to Israel and the new Jewish renaissance in the intellectual sphere of the unofficial led to the emergence of new topographical concepts, which were inspired primarily by the Jewish cultural tradition. In fact, the exodus texts written in the 1960s–1980s represented a new, late Soviet shaping of Zionist prose. They relate to the symbol of the Promised Land as a fundamental projection of aspirations. Late Soviet Zionist texts share the traditional Jewish vision of Israel as an imagined topos of the original homeland that is both retrospective (with reference to the biblical promise of the land and the seizure of Canaan) and prospective (return and redemption). The Exodus story contained in Sefer Shemot becomes a leading poetic, philosophical and at times religiously charged metaphor of liberation and reunification. The re-strengthened collective memory of tradition required biblical symbols to be imbued with new semiotic power.

This paper will show that the historical dimension of the events dealt with in the literature often has strong mystical and mythological traits and displays messianic-apocalyptic hopes of salvation. However, alternative literary space and time models represented in the aliyah literature hereby betray their rootedness in the teleology of the communist regime. The powerful Israel utopia reflects both the eschatological time of the Soviet empire and its phantasms of paradise on earth. Late Soviet Zionism and totalitarian discourse are shown to be two space-time utopias.

 

 

New Article: Blanga, Egypt’s Relations with the US and Israel

Blanga, Yehuda U. “Nasser’s Dilemma: Egypt’s Relations with the United States and Israel, 1967–69.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.2 (2015): 301-26.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00263206.2014.942648

 

Abstract

The article examines the American political efforts to bring about an agreement between Israel and Egypt between 1967 and 1969 and analyses the reasons for their failure. But it does not focus exclusively on the Americans; it also outlines the alternatives for Egyptian action during the period in question and looks at the political and military steps taken by Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, vis-à-vis Israel and the United States. The main conclusion is that despite Egypt’s dependence on the Soviet Union for economic aid and the rebuilding of the decimated Egyptian army, Nasser knew that the only route to a political process to regain Sinai ran through the United States. His diplomatic efforts were all derived from this insight. At the same time, the Egyptian president’s attempts to exploit American pressure to his benefit, as he had done in 1957, was undercut by his overestimation of his bargaining chips, a mistake that was one factor in the collapse of the efforts to reach a diplomatic agreement in the region.

New Book: Hanafi et al, UNRWA and Palestinian Refugees

Hanafi, Sari, Leila Hilal, and Lex Takkenberg, eds. UNRWA and Palestinian Refugees. From Relief and Works to Human Development. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014.

 

 

URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415715041/

 

Abstract

Exploring the evolution of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), this book fills a lacuna in literature on the agency. It employs recent fieldwork in order to analyse challenges in programmes and service delivery, protection, camp governance, community participation, and camp improvement and reconstruction. The chapters examine the way UNRWA is adapting to a changing social, political and economic context, mostly within urban settings – a paradigmatic shift from understanding the Agency’s role as simply a provider of relief and services to one comprehensively supporting the human development of Palestinian refugees.

Examining the refugee debate using new disciplines and research frameworks, this collection aims to emphasise the centrality of the Palestinian refugee issue for Middle East peace-making and to contribute a better understanding of a unique agency. This book will be a useful aid for students and researchers with an interest in Middle East Studies, Politics, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Table of Contents

Part I: Meeting Challenges in Programmes and Service Delivery

1 Realizing Self-Reliance through Microfinance – Allex Pollock

2 UNRWA’s ‘Traditional’ Programmes as a Catalyst for Human Development – Tjitske de Jong & Miriam Aced

Part II: Protection: From Concept to Practice

3 Incorporating Protection into UNRWA Operations – Mark Brailsford

4 Advancing Child Protection in Jordan, Lebanon, Occupied Palestinian Territory and Syria – Laurent Chapuis

Part III: Governance: The Camps and UNRWA

5 From Chaos to Order and Back: The Construction of UNRWA Shelters and Camps 1950- 1970– Kjersti Gravelsaeter Berg

6 UNRWA as ‘Phantom Sovereign’: Governance Practices in Lebanon – Sari Hanafi

Part IV: Civic Participation and Community Engagement

7 From Beneficiary to Stakeholder: An Overview of UNRWA’s Approach to Refugee Participation– Terry Rempel

8 Community Participation and Human Rights Advocacy: Questions Arising from the Campaign about the Right to Work of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon – Sergio Bianchi

Part V: Camp Improvement/Reconstruction and Development

9 Dynamics of Space, Temporariness, Development and Rights in Palestine Refugees’ Camps– Mona Budeiri

10 Talbiyeh Camp Improvement Project and the Challenges of Community Participation: Between Empowerment and Conflict– Fatima Al-Nammari

11 Implementing the Neirab Rehabilitation Project: UNRWA’s Approach to Development in Syria’s Palestinian Refugee Camps– Nell Gabiam

12 The Urban Planning Strategy in Al-Hussein Palestinian Refugee Camp in Amman: Heterogeneous Practices; Homogeneous Landscape– Lucas Oesch

Part VI: Palestinian Refugees and Durable Solutions: A Role for UNRWA

13 UNRWA as Avatar: Current Debates on the Agency and their Implications – Rex Brynen

14 The Role of UNRWA in Resolving the Palestinian Refugee Issue – Leila Hilal

ToC: Israel Studies 20,1 (2015)

 

 

1. Special Section: Landscapes
   1. Zippori National Park as a Composite Narrative (pp. 1-30)

      Tal Alon-Mozes and Matanya Maya
   2. The Geopolitics of Interment: An Inquiry into the Burial of Muhammad Ali in Jerusalem, 1931 (pp. 31-56)

      Maoz Azaryahu and Yitzhak Reiter
   3. Greening the Curriculum: Current Trends in Environmental Education in Israel’s Public Schools (pp. 57-85)

      Gonen Sagy and Alon Tal
2. Articles
   1. The Need to be Part of Europe: Israel’s Struggle for an Association Agreement with the EEC, 1957–1961 (pp. 86-109)

      Gadi Heimann
   2. Crisis and Development: Menachem Begin’s Leadership Throughout the 1960s (pp. 110-133)

      Amir Goldstein
   3. Imperialism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Revisions in Matzpen’s Historical Perspective (pp. 134-158)

      Joshua Blass
   4. Pinchas Sadeh’s Religiosity (pp. 159-179)

      Gideon Katz
   5. Homogeneity vs. Heterogeneity in the Young Adult and Children’s Literature of Devorah Omer (pp. 180-194)

      Rima Shikhmanter
3. Notes on Contributors (pp. 195-197)
4. Guidelines for Contributors (pp. 198-200)