JERUSALEM IN HISTORY AND INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY
The July 2000 Camp David Summit was clearly a diplomatic failure, that resulted largely, though not exclusively, from the in surmountable gap between Israel and the PLO over the issue of Jerusalem. The Palestinian violence imposed on Israel by the PLO, in the summit’s aftermath, not only undermined the future of any meaningful peace negotiations, but also threatened the stability of the entire Middle East region. The Camp David breakdown, in short, was not cost-free.
I
Jewish Life in Ukraine at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: Part Two
Local Jewish volunteer leadership in Ukraine is most likely to emerge in the federated community organizations established and nurtured by a small number of community rabbis, such as Rabbi Kaminezki in Dnipropetrovsk (Philanthropic Fund of the Dnipropetrovsk Jewish Community) or Rabbi Bleich in Kyiv (Kyiv Municipal Jewish Community), who endorse multiple Jewish community institutions. (Rabbi Vishedski of Donetsk supports a similar effort.)
CIVILIZATIONAL, RELIGIOUS, AND NATIONAL EXPLANATIONS FOR ETHNIC REBELLION IN THE POST-COLD WAR MIDDLE EAST
Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis, if nothing else, has sparked a debate over the nature of conflict in the post Cold War era. Huntington predicts that future conflict, including conflict in the Middle East, will be mostly between civilizations. However, many disagree and variously predict that conflict in general will decline or that it will continue to be fought along more traditional lines. Two traditional bases for ethnic conflict that are particularly relevant to the Middle East are religion and nationalism. Accordingly, this study assesses the comparative im pact of civilization, religion, and nationalism on ethnic rebellion in the Middle East. The results show that both conflict in general and civilizational conflict in particular in the Middle East dropped significantly after the end of the Cold War, thus contradicting Huntington’s theory.
Jewish Life in Ukraine at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: Part One
Ukraine is a country in transition between a Soviet past and an uncertain future. Since declaring independence in 1991 at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine has provided cause for both hope and despair.
Jewish Environmental Studies: A New Field
Jewish environmental studies do not yet exist as an academic field. There are no chairs or regular university courses in this discipline.
Failure of Perception and Self-Deception: Israel’s Quest for Peace in the Context of Related Historical Cases
An examination of the historical record reveals many examples of failures of perception, and of leaders and governments refusing to integrate compelling information of existential importance. Taking account of new information and responding to changing circumstances is vital to man’s relationship with his environment. When a dysfunction in the process of absorbing important new knowledge and correcting mistakes occurs, the faculty of rational judgment may be fatefully impaired.
Apocalyptic Fears Now; Unforseen Risks Tomorrow: Israel’s Poorly Predicted Future
After seven years of the peace process, catastrophic remarks about the end of the State of Israel are much more frequent than they were before the Oslo agreements. Judaism has a long tradition of religious apocalyptic thought; in the secular end-of-days fantasies of the last few months, however, no salvation is offered the community.
The Conflict Between Israel and the Palestinians: A Rational Analysis
Israel’s Confused Leadership / Applying Game Theory / The Possibilities / Is Arafat Irrational? / Does Peace Depend Only on Israel? / Deciphering Arafat’s Intentions / Arafat’s Internal Political Price / Choosing the Correct Strategy / The Right Response
Jerusalem in International Diplomacy: The 2000 Camp David Summit, the Clinton Plan, and Their Aftermath
Since its independence in 1948, and indeed even in prior times, Israel’s rights to sovereignty in Jerusalem have been firmly grounded in history and international law. The aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War only reinforced the strength of Israel’s claims. Seven years after the implementation of the 1993 Oslo Agreements, Prime Minister Ehud Barak became the first Israeli prime minister to consider re-dividing Jerusalem in response to an American proposal at the July 2000 Camp David Summit.
The Israel Swing Factor: How the American Jewish Vote Influences U.S. Elections
There are two clashing myths on the political power of American Jewry. One claims that the community is too small to affect national elections; Jews make up less than 3 percent of the U.S. population.
“The Poor in Your Own City Shall Have Precedence”: A Neo-Zionist Critique of the Katzir-Qaadan Decision
As events that accompanied the establishment of the State of Israel receded into the history books, the extraordinary accomplishments of the Zionist movement also began to fade. For many Israelis growing up after 1948, Zionism became a negative term, satirized and trivialized, and the details of its achievements were rarely taught in the Israeli schools.
American Evenhandedness in the Mideast Peace Process: Lessons from Camp David II and the Al-Aqsa Intifada
Ask Israelis or Arabs to characterize the U.S.-Israel relationship and most, particularly on the Arab side, will argue that the picture is one of unwavering support for the Jewish state. Indeed, the outgoing Clinton administration has been widely perceived and labeled as the closest to Israel in the history of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Israel’s Major Economic Challenge: Closing the Gap in the Field of Business Economics
Why is it that Israel’s per capita GNP still lags substantially behind that of the leading countries of the world? Why is it likely to take decades for the Israeli economy to catch up? This is while the Israeli papers are full of news about very promising high-tech start-ups, and we even hear occasionally about payments of billions of dollars by major foreign firms to acquire Israeli businesses which were founded a few years ago and have at most several hundred employees.
FACTORS IMPEDING THE IMPLEMENTATION OF PRIVATIZATION
Who Should Manage Privatization? / Lessons from the Past / Restrictions on Tenders / “Golden Shares” for the State of Israel / The Cable & Wireless Debacle / Appointment of Directors / State Land and Bezeq
The Cease-Fire That Never Was
During Yasser Arafat’s war against the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in the early 1970s, the PLO was known to have reached 22 cease-fire agreements, each of which it subsequently broke.
The understandings reached two nights ago between Regional Cooperation Minister Shimon Peres and Arafat were not even a formal cease-fire, but only an agreement for the reduction of violence. Yet it should not have come as a surprise that even this less ambitious agreement would fail.
