The paradoxes of Israeli politics. A short course
The paradoxes of Israeli politics. A short course

Author(s): Marek Matusiak
Subject(s): Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Military policy, Political behavior, Politics and religion, Politics and society, Studies in violence and power, History of the Holocaust, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies
Published by: OSW Ośrodek Studiów Wschodnich im. Marka Karpia
Keywords: Israeli politics; Political life crisis; peculiarity of Israeli politics; territory question; social diversity; security; Zionism; Palestine; Eretz Israel; The Holocaust; Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
Summary/Abstract: Israeli political life and, more broadly, the way the state operates, are often difficult to understand for the European observer. There are at least four reasons for this state of affairs. First, Israel’s political scene includes many elements that do not exist outside it and for whom analogies are difficult to find. Second, institutional, constitutional and political similarities to European countries are often incomplete and sometimes even misleading. Third, the Israeli reality is characterised by a considerable number of paradoxes, within which phenomena irreconcilable from a European perspective coexist. Fourth, the country’s politics routinely invokes contexts that are highly symbolically and emotionally charged, which paralyse the external observer with their gravity.

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