Polarization and Consensus-Building in Israel

The Center Cannot Hold

Elie Friedman, Michal Neubauer-Shani, Paul Scham, Elie Friedman, Michal Neubauer-Shani, Paul Scham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9781032293318
• eBook ISBN: 9781000874686
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Democracia

This edited volume examines the most pressing social and political issues confronting Israel from a multidisciplinary perspective, focusing on the breakdown of social solidarity and the inability to formulate consensus.

The contributors – encompassing political scientists, historians, communication researchers, sociologists, economists, and educators – focus on specific topics that serve as exemplary cases of various trends of consensus and polarization. These trends are examined in the context of ideological, religious, economic, national, and ethnic cleavages. In addition, this volume analyzes how political actors' preference for "non-decision" on various issues has resulted in the maintenance of a status quo, with cleavages or conflicts being neither mitigated nor polarized. Together, this collection of articles paints a picture of Israel as a state racked by increasing polarization along ideological and religious lines. It is argued that this difficulty in determining a consensual definition of the state threatens to destroy social solidarity in Israel altogether, a climate in which "the center cannot hold."

This book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the major internal threats to Israel's self-definition as a Jewish-democratic state and will also appeal to sociologists and political scientists interested in global polarization trends.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables and graphs
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The Great Division: The Fateful Polarization of (Jewish) Israeli Society in the 1980s
• 2 The Political Polarization Surrounding the Oslo Accords and the National Religious Party in Israel
• 3 To Drink or to Boycott? Israel’s Borders, the BDS Movement, and the Case of SodaStream
• 4 A Summary of the Relationships between the Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI and the Jewish People: Closer Theological Relations, Conflicting Political Relations
• 5 The Two Ongoing Narratives and Current Disputes on the Affair of “The Missing Yemenite Children” in Israel
• 6 An Examination of Liberal-Conservative Polarization in Mediated Discourse on Civic Studies in Israel
• 7 Government by Consensus? A Comparison of the Alignment-Likud (1984–1988) and the Likud-Blue and White (2020) National Unity Coalitions
• 8 Israel’s Secular-Religious Cleavage: Postsecular Genealogies and Remedies
• 9 The Politics of Arab Israelis: The Quest for Legitimacy
• 10 Adversarial Heritage as Consensus Heritage in a Jewish City: Arab Heritage Preservation in Ashkelon
• 11 Israel’s First Antitrust Law, the Agricultural Exemption, and the Mapai-Right Liberal Rift
• 12 The Controversy Surrounding Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Position Regarding the Two-State Solution – Background and Implications
• 13 Polarization, Integration, and Moderation: The Case of Ra’am
• 14 When State Meets Community: Trends of Consensus and Polarization – COVID-19 and Ultra-Orthodox Society in Israel
• 15 Visible, Blurred or Concealed: Religion and Gender in 21st Century Textbooks
• Index