Yoav Peled
Yoav Peled is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. In 2016-17 he was a Leverhulme Professorial Fellow in the School of Global Studies, the University of Sussex, and a visiting professor in the Middle East Centre at the LSE. His book, co-authored with Gershon Shafir, Being Israeli: The Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship (CUP, 2002) won the 2002 Albert Hourani Award of the Middle East Studies Association of North America. He is co-author, with Horit Herman Peled, of The Religionization of Israeli Society (Routledge, 2019) and co-editor, with John Ehrenberg, of Israel and Palestine: Alternative Perspectives on Statehood (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016).
Phone: 972-3-6409743
Address: Department of Political Science
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv 69978
Israel
Phone: 972-3-6409743
Address: Department of Political Science
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv 69978
Israel
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During Israel's military operation in Gaza in the summer of 2014 the commanding officer of the Givati infantry brigade, Col. Ofer Vinter, called upon his troops to fight "the terrorists who defame the God of Israel." This unprecedented call for religious war by a senior IDF commander caused an uproar, but it was just one symptom of a profound process of religionization, or de-secularization, that Israeli society, including the Israeli military, has been going through since the turn of the twenty-first century. The book analyzes the growing significance of Orthodox Judaism and of Orthodox Jews in all spheres of Israel's social life, from politics and the military to culture and education. Even more important than the growing weight of Orthodox Jews in the society is the hegemonic status gradually being acquired by religion in Jewish Israeli culture, in the sense that the "givens" of the prevailing worldview are increasingly supplied by a Jewish religious outlook, as is becoming evident in all aspects of the public discourse. This complex phenomenon encompasses three distinct processes: (1) the growing demographic weight of religious Jews, both ultra-Orthodox and religious Zionists, due to their higher birth rates; (2) the "return" to a spectrum of Jewish religious practices by formerly more or less secular Israeli Jews; (3) a growing openness in the general culture to religious Jewish motifs. These processes constitute a reversal of the secularizing trend that was clearly evident in the 1990s, due to the liberalization of Israeli society in that decade. The turning point came with the end of the liberalizing era (except in the economic sphere), following the demise of the Oslo peace process in 2000. The book further argues that while Zionism was rooted in general and Jewish European Enlightenment thought and secular nationalist ideas, Jewish religion, inseparable from Jewish nationality, was embedded in it from its inception at the end of the 19th Century. Religion was subdued, however, to a certain extent in favor of the national aspect of Judaism in the interest of building a modern nation-state, but has been reasserting itself in recent decades. Individual chapters of the book deal with the military, the educational system, the media of mass communications, the teshuvah movement, the movement for Jewish renewal, and the development of religious feminism. A major chapter is devoted to the religionization of the visual fine arts field, a topic that has been largely neglected by previous researchers.
The sophistication of these debates will come as a surprise to many observers who might have concluded that there is no escape from the present impasse and little possibility for a just settlement of the grievous divisions in the region. Given the pivotal role of the United States in the Middle East, it would be particularly helpful if Americans’ understanding of the issues went beyond the superficiality that often passes for political discussion and media coverage. Whatever the outcome of the discussions currently under way, the central commitment of the Oslo Accords to the two-state solution has long been the foundation of American diplomacy and is the starting-point of Washington’s most recent attempt to revive the moribund peace process.
Important segments of public opinion in the three communities, however, have started to question the possibility—and, more importantly perhaps, the desirability—of a two-state solution. Their doubts have set in motion a lively and important debate, and this book is designed to introduce American readers to the terms of that discussion. It features essays by well-known Israeli academics, both Jewish and Palestinian, as well as contributions from non-Israeli citizen Palestinian, and American scholars. It is the first to bring together a wide range of views and perspectives by influential scholars from various disciplines as well as from activists to bear on a very topical subject with international ramifications.
English title: "Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth from thee (Isaiah 49:17).
במהלך השנים נקטו הבדואים וארגוני זכויות האדם המייצגים אותם באסטרטגיה של "הכרה מלמטה" במעמדם של הכפרים הלא-מוכרים – הגשת עתירות להקמת מתקני חינוך, בריאות וכיו"ב ולאספקת שירותים חברתיים ותשתיות כמו מים, חשמל וכיו"ב – בכדי לקבוע עובדות בשטח שיובילו בסופו של דבר להכרה ביישובים הללו. אולם למרות מספר הצלחות נקודתיות, לא הביאה אסטרטגיה זו לשינוי משמעותי במצבם של תושבי הכפרים הלא-מוכרים. כישלונה של האסטרטגיה של "הכרה מלמטה" נבע, לדעתנו, מכך שהיא ביקשה לעקוף את הסוגיה המהותית הנמצאת בלב יחסי הבדואים עם המדינה – סוגיית הבעלות על הקרקע – במקום לתקוף אותה באופן ישיר. בעבודה זו אנחנו מבקשים להציע אסטרטגיה חלופית, המבוססת על תקיפה ישירה של פסה"ד המכונן בשאלת הבעלות על אדמות הבדואים בנגב – פס"ד אל-הוואשלה.