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What are the key factors that have transformed the Israeli political center and how will they shape Israel's role in the Middle East in the 1990s? Well-known experts join the editors, Reich and Kieval, in giving a unique picture of current and future trends in Israeli politics, focusing on the movement of the Israeli body politic to the right-of-center and the growing hold of Likud. They define future prospects, taking into account foreign policy, economic, and demographic issues. Academics, policymakers, and journalists will find this volume indispensable to understanding the critical role that Israel will play in the Middle East in the next decade and how domestic politics in Israel will define that role.
This survey of political developments by eleven authorities is based on a study of the latest events, on long reflection, and on two conferences that brought together sixty of the most knowledgeable experts on the Middle East today, drawn from the academic world and from various U.S. government departments and agencies. This analysis of political trends assesses Likud's centrality in the governmental system, the role of religious and settler movements, the linkage of domestic politics to the question of Arab-Israeli peace and the future of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and demographic, attitudinal, and other factors that affect political leadership and decisionmaking. The influx of Jewish immigration to Israel from the Soviet Union is viewed in terms of future implications as well. A detailed bibliography is provided.
List of contents
Preface
Introduction
The Changing Center in Israeli Politics by Gershon R. Kieval and Bernard Reich
The Balance of Political Power and Israel's Political Future by Daniel J. Elazar
Toward the 1990s in Israeli Politics by Asher Arian
Extremism, Intensity, and Apocalyptic Warnings: Prophetic Policy Advocacy in Modern Israel by Ira Sharkanksy
The Religious Parties as a Support System for the Settler Movement by Stewart Reiser
The Israeli-Jewish Presence in the Territories: Historical and Cultural Roots by Chaim I. Waxman
The Embeddedness of the Arab-Jewish Conflict in the State of Israel: Demographic and Sociological Perspectives by Calvin Goldscheider
Demographic and Economic Forces Underlining Likud's Perspective of the West Bank by Fred Gottheil
Achieving Peace Through Economic Development: The Case of the West Bank and Gaza by Marver H. Bernstein
Appendixes
Selected Bibliography by Noah Dropkin
Index
About the author
Gershon Kieval, Bernard Reich
