The prevailing assumption among leftist circles in Israel, including most of the delegates of the Joint List, is that ending the occupation in the 1967 borders and establishing a Palestinian state in that territory may lead to a peace accord between the peoples. In that vision, the structure of the regime in Israel will remain […]

When the Joint List was created out of the four parties that comprise it before the elections for the 20th Knesset in March 2015, the purpose was to guarantee the parties’ admission to the Knesset after the voting threshold was raised from 2% to 3.25%. The raising of the threshold threatened the ability of these […]

In his book “Minorities at Risk”(1993), Ted Gurr, one of the leading researchers of political conflicts, reviews 230 minority groups throughout the world. Gurr concludes that a minority has three strategic choices: nonviolent struggle; violent struggle; and revolution, coup or civil disobedience. As opposed to the two kinds of struggle, whose purpose is to put […]

In every attempt to rethink nationality in Israel-Palestine, or to conceive and consider political structures that would express the will and self-realization of its inhabitants, the concept of sovereignty as it appears in contemporary Israeli discourse poses a significant obstacle. Seemingly, sovereignty is a main organizing concept in the modern political world, and means primarily […]

“Happy Independence Day to those who celebrate.” This greeting, which appeared on the website of the Hebrew University’s law faculty, set off a furor. A wave of condemnations from the right and from the Labor Party was heaped on the faculty, which dared qualify the sovereignty festivities, while a counter-wave of condemnations came against the […]

In this article I argue that the State of Israel, in its current legal structure and the political discourse it promotes, is reshaping Jewish identity in a way that devoids it of components that were essential to it for generations. I will also argue that the present use of the term “Jewish” in Israel, along […]

In an essay by Jewish author Jean Améry, “How Much Home Does a Person Need?” which appears in the book “Beyond Guilt and Atonement,” Améry explains that for him money can be a temporary substitute for a homeland, sometimes even to the point where the Latin saying “ubi bene ibi patria” – where there is […]

In this article I will argue that the typical liberal interpretation of the constitutional term “Jewish and democratic,” which is committed to equal distribution of the state’s material resources, is an internal contradiction that does not allow such equality. A common example of the liberal interpretation of the term “Jewish and democratic” can be found […]

In this article I will attempt to argue that even if the demand for a Jewish majority is legitimate or necessary, the demand to maintain that majority out of hostility towards the Palestinians has negative political implications, and creates an inner contradiction in the national logic of those seeking equality in Israel. This article is […]

Elections in democratic systems are like volcanic eruptions: they shape political streams and changes as well as reflecting them. Three election cycles in 2019-2020, and especially the last two rounds, shaped and reflected, among other things, the rise of the “Arab option” in the eyes of parts of the Jewish Zionist political scene; namely, the […]