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.

ToC: Israel Affairs, 23.2 (2017)

Israel Affairs 23.2 (2017)

Table of Contents

Articles

• The rise and decline of ‘optional control’ in the IDF / Eitan Shamir (205-230)
•  ‘Spokesman-ship is a weapon’: Israeli army news management during the October 1973 war / Giora Goodman (231-252)
• The erosion of US‒Israeli relations during Obama’s second term / Robert O. Freedman (253-272)
• A ruling party in the making: Mapai in the 1948 war / Avi Bareli (273-302)
• Politics vs. trade: a Realist view on Turkish‒Israeli economic relations / Cenap Çakmak & Murat Ustaoğlu (303-323)
• Israel is too expensive for us? Political consumerism, public policy and entrepreneurship: the case of the cottage cheese boycott / Omri Shamir (324-341)
• Banking and philanthropy in pre-state Jewish Palestine: particularist Sephardic philanthropy disguised as support for the general Zionist cause / Riki Galia (342-360)
• ‘Digital soap opera’ online radio listening patterns and the digital divide / Mira Moshe, Tal Laor & Shimon Friedkin (361-384)
• The Palestinian Authority: the dangerous transition from failing entity to failing state / Kobi Michael (385-410)
• The Holocaust paradox: Holocaust denial and its use in the Arab world / Nitza Davidovitch & Nissim Dana (411-426)
• Cultural change in a kibbutz factory as an outcome of the privatization process: an Israeli case study / Yaffa Moskovich & Yuval Achouch (427-446)

Book Reviews

• Divine service? Judaism and Israel’s armed forces (447-448)
• Crossing: Suez, 1973 (448-449)
• Eye to eye (450-451)
• Defensive Shield: An Israeli Special Forces Commander on the Front Line of Counterterrorism (451-452)

New Article: Klein & Shimoni-Hershkoviz, Privatization and Competition in the Education System

Klein, Joseph, and Lizi Shimoni-Hershkoviz. “The Contribution of Privatization and Competition in the Education System to the Development of an Informal Management Culture in Schools. A Case Study in Israel.” International Journal of Educational Management 30.4 (2016).

 

URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJEM-08-2014-0113

 

Abstract

Regulation and privatization of education systems has led to a “league standing” mentality regarding school achievements. The present study examines how school principals deal with the pressures of competition and achievements while aspiring to imbue pupils with values and a broad education. 12 high school principals were interviewed about external demands imposed on them, their educational policy and modes of operation. Publicly, school supervisors advocate a balance between core studies and education for values and enrichment. Informally they pressure principals to allocate maximal resources to preparing for high risk tests at the expense of other educational activities. School administrators and teachers, while dissatisfied with this approach, maintain a covert informal culture that concentrates mainly on external test achievements, which contrasts to their public value-rich educational vision, and undertake actions that raise educational, management and ethical questions. Placing the schools’ informal culture on the research agenda will increase institutional transparency and may contribute to a greater correspondence between school visions advocating knowledge and values, and the policy actually implemented. Raising this subject for discussion may contribute to a demand for more transparency in how schools allocate their resources. It may also help to increase the correspondence between the values and vision promulgated by schools and the educational policy they actually implement.

 

 

 

New Article: Edom et al, Privatization Processes of the Industrial Activity of Israeli Kibbutzim

Edom, Sara, Ram Edur, and Yoram Kroll. “Motives, Expectations and Results of the 2000–2009 M&A Privatization Processes of the Industrial Activity of Israeli Kibbutzim.” Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcom.2015.11.006
 
Abstract

In the 20th century, almost all of the 350 kibbutzim’s industrial plants were solely owned by the kibbutzim, which were managed like family communal cooperatives. In 2011, almost all of these cooperative-like firms were privatized and started to employ a public type of management. More than 50% of them went public by IPOs or underwent an M&A process. Questioning those who were involved in the above process as well as the details of financial reports before and after the IPO and M&A events, reveal that in contrast to the expectations and incentives, the IPOs and the M&As harmed the profitability of the acquired industrial firms compared with the industrial firms that remained fully owned by the communal cooperatives of the kibbutzim.

 

 

 

New Article: Shtern, Urban Neoliberalism vs. Ethno-National Division in Jerusalem’s Shopping Malls

Shtern, Marik. “Urban Neoliberalism vs. Ethno-National Division: The Case of West Jerusalem’s Shopping Malls.” Cities 52 (2016): 132-9.

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2015.11.019

 

Abstract

Most research on ethnically and nationally contested cities posits that urban spatial segregation trends will remain decisive so long as the macro level national conflict persists, and assumes that the neoliberalization of urban space would only strengthen such trends. Over the last decade however, and despite the ever deepening national conflict, Jerusalem has seen the emergence of neoliberal spaces of consumption that serve as resilient spaces of intergroup encounter between Israeli-Jewish and Palestinian-Arab populations. In this article I will examine and compare two such neoliberal spaces in Jerusalem, and show how under certain conditions, privatized urban spaces can undermine processes of ethno-national segregation. I argue that interactions between members of the two rival groups are challenged and reshaped by neoliberal spaces and that the relocation of the ethno-national intergroup encounters to privatized spaces of consumption could represent a temporal shift to a class based encounters.

 

 

 

Conference paper: Moskovich, Ramon’s Leadership in the new Israeli Labor Union

Moskovich, Yaffa. “Ramon’s Leadership in the new Israeli Labor Union: The Histadrut.” European Conference on Management, Leadership & Governance (November 2015).

 
URL: http://search.proquest.com/openview/d52d59af091005feb53467157ab3e094/1
 
Abstract

In Israel, the old Histadrut, or organization of trade unions, was founded as a welfare agency, it employed about one third of the labor force, and it was the dominant health-service provider, primarily funded by insurance premiums. As a socialist entity, the Histadrut was linked politically and economically to the Labor Party, which helped fund it while in power. The old Histadrut was managed on a political basis, and suffered from organizational decline, including huge debts and economic bankruptcy in most of its institutions and assets. In 1994, a new leader, Haim Ramon, was elected to run the organization. Acting against union members, Ramon transformed the Histadrut into a confederation of autonomous labor unions, selling off Histadrut enterprises and assets to private investors, and severing all political ties. This paper demonstrates the unusual union leadership style of Ramon, who downsized, weakened, and destroyed the Israeli union, while most union leaders act to empower their organization.

 

 

 

Exchange: Chinitz, Israeli, Filc, and Cohen, Black Market Medicine and Privatization in Israel

Chinitz, David, and Avi Israeli. “Not Everything is Black or White: Commentary on Filc D and Cohen N, Blurring the Boundaries between Public and Private Health Care Services as an Alternative Explanation for the Emergence of Black Medicine: the Israeli Case.” Health Economics, Policy and Law (early view; online first).

 

Filc, Dani, and Nissim Cohen. “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck: Black Market Medicine and Privatization in Israel.” Health Economics, Policy and Law (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744133115000365

http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1744133115000377

 

Abstract

It is thus surprising to read a paper based in a country with National Health Insurance that implies that such blurring is problematic to the point of contributing to the emergence of black medicine in that country’s health care system. The article by Filc and Cohen on which we comment here, appears to be issuing a warning that when boundaries blur mischief is likely to be afoot Given the relevance to many health systems, and the illustrative value of the Israeli case, we have decided to review briefly the contents of that article, and comment on the main components of its analysis.

 

 

New Article: Simmons and Hammer, Privatization of Prisons in Israel and Beyond

Simmons, William Paul, and Leonard Hammer. “Privatization of Prisons in Israel and Beyond: A Per Se Violation of the Human Right to Dignity.” Santa Clara Journal of International Law 13.2 (2015): 487-515.

 

URL: http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/scujil/vol13/iss2/7

 

Abstract

Making a rather ambitious, broad-form decision, the Israeli Supreme Court (ISC) in 2009 ruled that privatization of prisons is a per se violation of human rights, in particular the rights to liberty and dignity. The Court ruled that it was not the often deleterious consequences of privatization that violated the rights to liberty and dignity, but that privatization of prisons by itself was a violation. This decision has been subject to much negative commentary and criticism with most analyses focusing on the Court’s argument on the right to liberty. Scholars that have dismissed the opinion seemed to have misread it, often grounding their counter-arguments with faulty and wildly abstract premises that misrepresent the human rights issues at stake. This article focuses on the Court’s novel argument on the right to human dignity, and especially how privatization of prisons turns inmates into commodities. While this argument may have been under-developed in the Court’s opinion, teasing out and expanding on the Court’s logic could provide an important new avenue to consider when litigating matters that pertain to the fundamental human right to dignity in other forums, both domestic and international.

The Israeli Court decision briefly mentions that similar decisions have not been made in other forums and cited a brief that suggested that “were arguments of this kind to be raised before those courts, they would not be expected to be successful.” This paper argues instead that the logic of the Israeli decision on the human rights to dignity could be successful in other jurisdictions, especially those that have strong case law on the rights of vulnerable populations and the right to human dignity, such as South Africa, the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the Inter-American Human Rights system. Indeed, the viable contentions based on the human right to dignity that could be raised before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights serve as potential grounds for challenging the widespread privatization of prisons in the United States.

This paper begins with an analysis of the Israeli prison privatization case with a focus on the Court’s finding of a per se violation of the human right to dignity. The second section analyzes two previous commentaries of the Israeli case to show how even those in agreement with the Court’s decision have misread the case. This analysis provides a deeper and more nuanced reading of the Israeli Court’s logic on the human right to dignity, especially how the commodification of inmates in a private prison inherently is a violation of that right at least in the Israeli context. The third section expands upon the Court’s reasoning through a discussion of what has been referred to as “cauterization,” which involves branding a group as inferior, sealing it off from the social and political sphere, and reducing sympathy for its members. Interestingly, the same logic was also used in a recent groundbreaking mental health decision, Purohit and Moore v. Gambia, a case before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The fourth section teases out the key elements of the Israeli decision to show which elements would need to be present to successfully bring such a case in other jurisdictions. These elements are present not only in the Israeli context, but also in the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the South African Constitutional Court, and the Inter-American Human Rights system.

 

 

New Article: Lim, Transnational Migration of Filipino Caregivers to Israel

Lim, Anna. “Networked Mobility in the ‘Migration Industry’: Transnational Migration of Filipino Caregivers to Israel.” Asian Women 31.2 (2015): 85-118.

 

URL: http://www.dbpia.co.kr/Journal/ArticleDetail/NODE06362705

 

Abstract

This article examines how labor migration is facilitated and shaped within the neoliberal economy system, focusing on the case of Filipino migration to Israel. For Filipino women who seek to find economic opportunities abroad but lack skills, Israel has emerged as one of the most popular destinations since the mid-1990s, since it is a destination in which they are allowed to work as paid caregivers. In Israel, the caregiver sector occupies the greatest part of the overseas labor market, while providing local senior citizens with live-in caregivers at a cheap cost. In investigating the migration flow of Filipino caregivers to Israel, I draw a special attention to the informal operations of intermediary networks and their roles in initiating and sustaining Filipino migrant flow to Israel. In this article, the intermediary networks involve all those who engage in the migration process such as agents/sub-agents, family, friends, and the friends of their friends. In the context of Israel, where a relatively higher wage is assured for foreign caregivers yet where entry conditions require an exorbitant placement fee, the migration is operated through the complementary roles of a wide range of formal and informal intermediaries. Significantly, such privatization of overseas labor recruitment, characterized by a binding system and an overseas recruitment scheme, contributes to producing power to private agencies, enabling them to impose excessive placement fees on the migrants and control the employment. It is within this context that Filipino women are channeled into the Israel labor market, shaping the current migration flow.

New Article: Hananel, Rethinking Israel’s National Land Policy

Hananel, Ravit. “The Land Narrative: Rethinking Israel’s National Land Policy.” Land Use Policy 45 (2015): 128-40.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2015.01.015

 

Abstract

The land narrative tells the unique story of Israel’s national land policy. Its historical and ideological roots are in the early 1900s, when the Zionist movement and the Jewish National Fund were founded, but it continues to influence spatial policy and land allocation in Israel today. The land narrative is based on the distinction between the urban sector and the rural-agricultural sector and on the clear preference—at least at the ideological level—for the rural-agricultural sector. However, despite the decision-makers’ clear preference for the members of the cooperative and communal rural sector, over time the urban residents’ have received more land rights de facto. This study provides an explanation of this dissonance by exploring the land narrative, examines its broad implications for Israeli society, and discusses its future implications.

Symposium: Private Sphere as Public Policy in Israel (Berkeley, Feb 17, 2015)

THE PRIVATE SPHERE AS PUBLIC POLICY?:

A Symposium on Law and Society in Israel

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015

RECEPTION: 2:30; SYMPOSIUM 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

GOLDBERG ROOM (297 BOALT HALL), BERKELEY LAW

INTRODUCTION

Jonathan Simon, Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law; Director, CSLS

PRISON PRIVATIZATION

Hila Shamir, Associate Professor, Buchman Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University

JUDGING IN THE SHADOW OF THE LAW: PRIVATE FORUMS AND PRIVATIZED ADJUDICATION IN ISRAEL

Ori Aronson, Assistant Professor, Bar-Ilan University Faculty of Law

‘I’VE GOT NO ONE TO LEAN ON’: THE NEGOTIATION OF NETWORK RELATIONS AMONG LOW-INCOME MOTHERS IN ISRAEL UNDER A NEOLIBERAL DISCOURSE

Shira Offer, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Bar-Ilan University

THE (LEGITIMACY) PRICE OF PRIVATIZED WELFARE

Avishai Benish, Assistant Professor, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

RESPONDENT

Malcolm Feeley, Claire Sanders Clements Dean’s Professor of Law

 

 

Click here for a PDF of the flyer.

New Article: Vigoda-Gadot, Cohen, and Zalmanovitch, Does the Privatizing of Policy Formation Threaten Democracy?

Vigoda-Gadot, Eran, Haim Cohen & Yair Zalmanovitch. “Does the Privatizing of Policy Formation Threaten Democracy? Arguments from the Israeli Experience.” Policy Studies (ahead of print).

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01442872.2014.946482

 

Abstract

Since the 1970s, the literature on privatization has tried to find the right balance between the public interest and the neoliberal spirit of modern economies. This paper examines the implications of one such process – the privatizing of policy formation. Using examples from Israel, we maintain that allowing private interests to formulate public policy is unique among other types of privatization strategies. We seek to identify the challenges and risks that such an approach to formulating public policy poses. We conclude that the privatizing of far-reaching policies should be done with caution and within parameters outlined by law in order to prevent the potential damage that such privatization efforts might have on democratic governments.

New Article: Kemp and Raijman, A Meso-Level Analysis of Labor Trafficking in Israel

Kemp, Adriana and Rebeca Raijman. “Bringing in State Regulations, Private Brokers, and Local Employers: A Meso-Level Analysis of Labor Trafficking in Israel.” International Migration Review (early view).

 

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/imre.12109/abstract

 

Abstract

This article examines the intersection of state policies, private brokers and local employers that fuels trafficking practices and forced labor of legal labor migrants. Focusing on the Israeli case of labor migration, we offer a meso-level institutional analysis of the modes by which private brokers’s actions combine with state regulations and policies in creating labor trafficking. More specifically, we stress the active role official labor migration schemes play in the growth of a private brokerage sector driven by profit considerations and in the privatization of state capacities regarding migration control and management. Our analysis demonstrates how systemic features – and not necessarily or solely criminal activities – catalyze trafficking practices taking place first and foremost within the realm of legal migration.

Cite: Peled & Navot, Private Incarceration – Towards a Philosophical Critique

Peled, Yoav and Doron Navot. “Private Incarceration – Towards a Philosophical Critique.” Constellations 19.2 (2012): 216-234.

URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2012.00679.x/abstract