Description:
The course will address the politics of Israel in the 20th century from the establishment of the state through the 1990s.  We will begin by studying the structure of Israeli political institutions.  We will study key moments in Israel's political history and focus on the following themes in Israeli politics: (1) The judicialization of politics -- We will examine the role of courts in Israeli politics, and landmark political-legal debates, including (A) "Who is a Jew?" and (B) the conflict between religious and secular authorities.  (2) The impact of wars on Israeli political culture -- We will study political consensus and dissent within the Israeli state and society during key wars, as well as how those wars affected Israeli politics.  (3) Women and politics -- We will learn about women's status and agency in several spheres, including work and religious law.  Throughout the course, we will focus on the relationship between state institutions, on the one hand, and social groups, movements, and institutions, on the other hand.

Requirements:
Students will be expected to come to class having done the readings and ready to discuss them in detail.  Students may be asked to prepare study questions or like assignments.  These assignments are designed to help the student develop critical reading skills and prepare for class discussion of the central arguments, concepts, and questions raised in the readings.  Students will be responsible for all material, whether presented in readings, lecture, or discussion.  The course will include both lecture and active discussion; participation will be an important part of the grade.  The final syllabus will be distributed on the first day of class.

Grade Distribution:
10% Participation
5% Group Presentation
25% Quizzes and/or writing assignments
25% Midterm Exam
35% Final Exam
 

Texts:
1.  Don Peretz and Gideon Doron. The Government and Politics of Israel. 3rd ed. Boulder: Westview Press, 1997.
2. Alan Dowty.  The Jewish State: A Century Later. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
3. Pnina Lahav. Judgment in Jerusalem : Chief Justice Simon Agranat and the Zionist Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
4. Reader

Textbooks are listed on the UF Textbook Adoptions website and will be available at bookstores around Gainesville.  (Make sure to specify used or new; used books are available for most of these texts).

A course reader will be available at Custom Copies (across from Krispy Kreme on NW 13th Street).

Please note: readings from Gad Barzilai and Yael Yishai are not in your reader.  They are available through the UF library website as free e-books.  You should print out the few assigned chapters from each book for class discussion.
 

IMPORTANT NOTICES:
No late assignments.
No late work will be accepted, whether for assignments, quizzes, or exams.  If you have extraordinary circumstances (your place from Bahrain was cancelled and you are unexpectedly not on the continent), you must contact me before the relevant assignment/quiz/exam to see if special arrangements can be made.

Participation and Attendance:
You are expected to come to class having completed the readings for that day, having prepared any study questions or assignments, and to be ready to analyze readings for content, argument, assumptions, etc.  Students will develop these skills throughout the course of the class.   Participation means both attending and participating actively in discussions and other assignments.  Students may be asked to give short individual presentations of the day’s readings.  You will be able to look at your participation grade at mid-term.

You cannot participate if you are not in class.  Therefore, missing more than five days in the semester will hurt your grade.  Every day missed over five days will reduce your grade by 3 points.

Tardiness means that you are not participating and that you upset the flow of discussion by coming in late, thus tardiness will not be accepted and will also hurt your grade.

Study Groups:
You will be assigned to study groups for discussion work and exercises in class.  Study groups are encouraged to meet outside of class for at least one hour per week, but are not required to do so.  Meeting with your study group to discuss the readings will help bring class discussions to a higher level and make them more exciting.

Study Group Presentation:
Each study group will be asked to present to the class the central argument and major supporting pieces of evidence for a week’s readings.  We will discuss the assignment in more detail in class.  We will schedule the presentations in the first or second week of class.

Quizzes and Pop Quizzes:
There will be two scheduled in-class quizzes (see schedule below).  They will be multiple-choice and identification.

There will also be 4-6 writing quizzes, which will usually be pop quizzes.  As pop quizzes, they will be in-class writing quizzes on the readings for the day or the week as well as regular pop quizzes on our materials.  Writing quizzes generally will require the student to write a paragraph to a page explaining the argument of the scholar(s), to give a few pieces of evidence offered in support of that argument, and/or explain the main differences/similarities between arguments.  Quizzes will usually take between 10-20 minutes.  There will be no make-up quizzes.

Reading: All of your work in this class will be focused on reading, writing, participation, and presentations.  The readings for the class provide the basis for all other assignments.  All of these assignments (including participation) will be graded.  You will not be able to succeed in this class if you do not do the reading.

Accommodations for students with disabilities:
Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation.
 
 

SCHEDULED ASSIGNMENTS

I. State Formation and State Institutions
 

Week I: Tuesday 1/8, Peretz and Doron, pp. 11-45

Thursday 1/10, Peretz and Doron, Chapter 3
Joel S. Migdal, “Laying the Basis for a Strong State: The British and Zionists in Palestine” in Thought the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2001 (in reader).

Week II:

Tuesday 1/15, Peretz and Doron, Chapters 4, 6

II. Society Formation

Thursday 1/17, Dowty, Chapters 3, 4

Week III

Tuesday 1/22, Dowty, Chapter 6; Peretz and Doron, Chapter 2

Thursday 1/24, Lahav, Chapter 2
Asher Arian, “People of Israel” in The Second Republic: Politics in Israel. Chatam, NJ: Chatham House, 1998.

III. A Major Social Cleavage: Religious Secular Conflict

Week IV Tuesday 1/29, Dowty, Chapter 1; Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “Jewish Civilization: Approaches to Problems of Israeli Society” in Israeli Judaism: The Sociology of Religion in Israel. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 1995.

Thursday 1/31, Dowty, Chapters 7, 8

Week V

 Tuesday 2/5, Lahav, Chapter 12
Asher Cohen and Charles S. Liebman, “The Struggle Among Religious Zionists over the Issue of a Religious State” in Religion, Democracy and Israeli Society. Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997.

Thursday 2/7, Quiz I (one hour, in-class, multiple choice and identification)

IV. Judicial Institutions and the Judicialization of Politics
Special Focus: Religious-Secular Conflict

Week VI Tuesday 2/12, Lahav, Chapters 3,4; David Kretzmer, “Judicial Review of Statues and Parliamentary Proceedings” in Public Law in Israel. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Thursday 2/14, Lahav, Chapters 5, 6, 9

Week VII

Tuesday 2/19,
(1) Patricia Woods, “The Irony of State Incorporation,” book chapter, manuscript available on class website with password; (2) Pinhas Shifman, “Family Law in Israel: The Struggle Between Religious and Secular Law” Israel Law Review 24:3-4 (1990): 537-552; (3) “The Shoshana Miller Case: Unity of the Jewish People is Paramount” (Shoshanah Miller v. Minister of the Interior) translated and summarized by Asher Felix Landau in The Jerusalem Post Law Reports.  Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1993.

Thursday 2/21, (1) “Working Women and Discrimination” (Nevo v. National Labor Court and Others) translated and summarized by Asher Felix Landau in The Jerusalem Post Law Reports.  Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1993; (2) Yael Yishai, “Family Policy: Patriarchy in the Jewish State” ” in Between the Flag and the Banner: Women in Israeli Politics. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1997.

Week VIII

Tuesday 2/26, Philippa Strum, “Women and the Politics of Religion in Israel” Human Rights Quarterly 11 (1989) 483-503.
Special Guest Speaker for part of class: Israel Vice-Consul Matty Cohen will speak about the current situation in Israel.  Be sure to come to class with informed questions for the Honorable Mr. Cohen.

Thursday 2/28, Midterm (one hour in-class with take-home assignment due 2/28)
 

March 4-8: Spring Break (no classes)

V. Wars and Political Culture

Week IX  Tuesday 3/12, Dowty Chapter 6

Thursday 3/14, Gad Barzilai, “Democracies in Wars and Severe National-Security Crises: Theoretical and Comparative Aspects” in Wars, Internal Conflicts and Political Order: A Jewish Democracy in the Middle East. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1996.

Week X

Tuesday 3/19,
Benny Morris, “The Six-Day War, 1967” in Righteous Victims. New York: Knopf, 1999.
Joel S. Migdal, “Changing Boundaries and Social Crisis: Israel and the 1967 War” in Thought the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2001.

Thursday 3/21, Lahav, Chapter 13; Gad Barzilai, “War of Initiative and Political Polarization” in Wars, Internal Conflicts and Political Order: A Jewish Democracy in the Middle East. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1996.

Week XI

 Tuesday 3/26, Peretz and Doron, Chapter 8; Dowty, Chapter 5

Thursday 3/28, (1) Gad Barzilai, “The Inter-Communal Conflict of the Intifada and the Israeli Regime (1987-93)” in Wars, Internal Conflicts and Political Order: A Jewish Democracy in the Middle East. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1996; (2) Simona Sharoni, “The Politics of Alliances Between Palestinian and Israeli Women” in Gender and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Politics of Women’s Resistance. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1995.

Week XII

 Tuesday 4/2, Quiz 2 (one hour in-class in second hour of class)

VI. Women, Politics, and State

Thursday 4/4, (1) Yael Yishai, “Between the Flag and the Banner: Dilemmas in the Political Life of Israeli Women” in Between the Flag and the Banner: Women in Israeli Politics. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1997.  (2) Yael Yishai, “Labor Policy: The Problem of Economic Equity” in Between the Flag and the Banner: Women in Israeli Politics. Albany, NY: SUNY, 1997.

Week XIII

Tuesday 4/9,
(1) Jacqueline Portugese, “Evidence of Official Concern for the Birthrate” in Fertility Policy in Israel: The Politics of Religion, Gender, and Nation. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998; (2) Re-read Nevo case: “Working Women and Discrimination” (Nevo v. National Labor Court and Others) translated and summarized by Asher Felix Landau in The Jerusalem Post Law Reports.  Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1993.

VII. Citizenship, Membership, and Arabs in Israel

Thursday 4/11, Joel S. Migdal with Baruch Kimmerling, “The Odd Man Out: Arabs in Israel” in Thought the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2001.

Week XIV

Tuesday 4/16, Dowty, Chapters 6, 9

Thursday 4/18, Lahav, chapter 11 (Arab Representation in the Jewish State);
Nabila Espanioly, “Palestinian Women in Israel: Identity in Light of the Occupation” in Women and the Israeli Occupation: The Politics of Change, edited by Tamar Mayer. New York: Routledge, 1994.

VIII. Conclusions: Challenges for the Future

Week XV  Tuesday 4/23, Peretz and Doron, Chapter 9