In late 2014, the Israeli domestic picture changed dramatically as a result of the disbanding of Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government and the Knesset’s decision to dissolve itself and hold general elections on March 17, 2015. Early elections prior to the conclusion of the Knesset’s legal term in office is nothing new in Israel and is actually typical of the past two decades. The forthcoming early elections, however, constitute a particularly unusual phenomenon on the Israeli political landscape, as the dissolution of the Knesset...
On November 8, 2014, 22-year old Khayr al-Din Hamdan was shot to death in Kafr Qana by an Israeli Police Special Patrol squad. While a strong majority of Jews saw the shooting as an act of self defense, among the Arab community the event was almost unanimously described as cold-blooded murder. The widespread rage and protest among Israeli Arabs that followed, much it marked by a focus on Palestinian national identity, highlighted once again the rift between Jews and Arabs in Israel. While it appears that the risk of escalation has...
On March 18, 2014, the Knesset passed the Governance Law, raising the electoral threshold from 2 to 3.25 percent. All the coalition factions joined together to pass the law by a majority of 67 MKs. All the opposition factions opposed it, including the Arab parties, which argued that it would make it difficult for them to be elected to the Knesset in the future. The question now is, will the law prevent the Arab parties from reaching the electoral threshold and thereby preclude their representation in the forthcoming Knesset? Or, will...
The 1.5 million Arabs who live in Israel constitute nearly 20 percent of the population. According to figures of late 2013, there are 257 local authorities in Israel, 85 of which are in the Arab sector. This article looks at the October 22, 2013 municipal elections in the Arab communities, which differed in style and character from the local elections elsewhere in Israel. Over the years, the voter turnout in local elections in the Arab community has been an extremely high 85-90 percent. Likewise the 2013 elections saw a very...
The disturbances of October 2000 and the conclusions of the Or Commission, the official commission of inquiry established in the wake of those events, prompted a new understanding among decision makers in Israel on the strategic importance of the status of the Arab minority in Israel. Israel has publicly acknowledged its policy of discrimination against Arabs, in effect since the establishment of the state, and admitted that full equality according to the law for this sector, as individuals and as a group, is in Israel’s...
The book includes ten analytical essays written by INSS researchers that dwell on Israel’s strategic environment in the period under review. The ongoing challenges represented by the Palestinian issue and the Iranian nuclear program are well documented, as well as developments elsewhere in the Arab and Muslim world and in Israel.
