David Ben Gurion And The Foundation Of Israeli Democracy

In David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy, Nir Kedar offers a poignant study of the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Kedar provides an explication of the making of Israeli democracy in terms of its institutional-legal structures and social-cultural underpinnings. David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy connects the formal structures of democracy to the fundamental principles that they were constructed to serve—human freedom and dignity.

Israel is the only new state among the twenty-one countries in the world today that have maintained democracy without interruption since the end of the Second World War. Israel's case is all the more notable because its democracy was established under extremely adverse conditions: massive immigration; severe social dislocation; the introduction of ethnic, cultural, linguistic, religious, and national differences; rapid economic growth; a permanent security threat that led to five major wars in thirty-five years; and a population that, in the main, had little or no experience of a democratic order. In this insightful study of Israel's founding period from 1948 to 1967, Peter Medding addresses this puzzle, providing a lucid account of the political and historical conditions that gave rise to this distinctive period, as well as the changes which brought it to an end. The result is an eminently readable account of the state-building process and of the role played by David Ben-Gurion and other politicians in moving from consensus politics to a majoritarian-like democracy. Medding's analysis is further enriched by his comparisons of the development of Israeli democracy with that of other countries.

A narrative chronicle of Israeli democracy that defines historic phases and follows thematic challenges to democracy, including: competition between religion and the rule of law; the statist society and chaotic minoritocracy; modern illiberal populism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The comprehensive portrait exposes endemic flaws of democracy in Israel, but also shows that Israel has considerable capacity – and responsibility – to fulfill the promise of democracy.

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Since its founding in 1948 Israel has faced many political, social and psychological challenges, unfamiliar to other nations on the western democratic political model and peculiar to the Jewish state. This work covers the role of politics in Israel since 1948.

Independence and Politics delves deeply into the political landscape of Israel during the years 1947–1949. Weaving together a wealth of original sources and emphasizing domestic politics, Meir Chazan offers a comprehensive analysis of the critical factors that contributed to the establishment and early governance of the State of Israel. Chazan explores the formation of governing institutions in the transition from a voluntary society to typical patterns of statehood. He investigates the shocks that led to these institutions' formation and the critical decision to declare statehood. Additionally, he provides a detailed account of the election campaign for the Constituent Assembly, which was the forerunner of the First Knesset, and the struggle to attain the United States' de facto and de jure recognition of Israel. Insightful and informative, Independence and Politics provides a fresh perspective on the establishment of the State of Israel. Chazan's analysis and expert commentary offer an unparalleled understanding of the challenges faced by the fledgling state and the decisions that shaped its future.

More than seven decades after the founding of Israel, the momentum to establish a Jewish state has led to remarkable achievements in the nation's “hardware”: stable structures in government, the military, and the economy. At the same time, the “operating system,” the guidelines that accommodate human diversity and enable coexistence, is still riddled with weaknesses. Arye Carmon diagnoses the critical vulnerabilities at the heart of Israeli democracy and the obstacles to forming a sustainable national consciousness. The author merges touching narratives about his own life in Israel with insightful ruminations on the Jewish diaspora and the arc of Israel's history, illuminating the conflicts between Jewish identities and between democratic values and the halacha—the collective body of Jewish religious laws.There is no consensus on the characteristics that define Israel as a state that is both Jewish and democratic. Rather, the struggle between a secular and a religious Jewish identity, amid voices promoting ethnocentric nationalism, threatens to sever the ties that strengthen democracy.This cultural fragility has far-reaching implications for Israeli institutions and deepens societal rifts. Israel lacks a constitution to bind its democracy and a bill of rights to safeguard the freedoms of its citizens, enable the inclusion of diverse outlooks and beliefs, and underpin the norms of its civil society.

A specialist in the Arab-Israeli conflict and Israel's defense policy, Shalom (Ben-Gurion U.) looks at the first prime minister's views on politics and security and the forces that shaped his positions regarding the Arab world between the War of Independence and the Sinai campaign. He highlights the fundamental difference between political theory and the praxis of applications, and finds in the gap the truism that no policy can reflect in absolute terms a leader's purity of will and aspiration. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book explores the complex challenges facing Israel and the extent to which its present state structures and institutions can adapt and accommodtae themselves to the diversity of security threats that it now faces.