Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Israel

Guy Ben-Porat is Professor at the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He is the author of Global Liberalism, Local Populism: Peace and Conflict in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland (2006) and Between State and Synagogue: The Secularization of Contemporary Israel (2012). He is also the co-author of Policing Citizens: Minority Policy in Israel (2019).

This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary Israel, accounting for changes, developments and contemporary debates. The different chapters offer both a historical background and an updated analysis of politics, economy, society and culture.

Introduction, Part 1: Historical Overview, 1. Zionism between Despair and Hope, 2. Mamlakhtiyut: The Zionist and Israeli version of Republicanism, 3. Melting Pot and Plurality of Cultures in Early Israel, 4. The Palestinian National Movement: A Short History, 5. Israel's Foreign Policy: The Historical Mound, Part 2: Institutions, 6. The Political System and Political Parties, 7. Israeli Organized Civil Society: Trends and Challenges of the Nonprofit Sector, 8. Major Contemporary Trends in Civil-Military Relations in Israel, 9. Israel's Legal System: Institutions, Principles and Challenges, 10. The Israeli Education System, 11. How the people of the book became the people of the media: The Israeli media landscape, Part 3: Foreign Relations and Policy, 12. Israel and the Palestinians, 13. Israel and the Arab World - from War to Peacemaking, 14. The Special Relationship between the United States and Israel, 15. The Rubik's cube of Israeli-European Union relations, 16. Israel-Russia Bilateral Relations: Market Rationality and Political Affinity, 17. Better Late than Never: China-Israel Diplomatic Relations in Perspective, Part 4: Divisions and Schisms, 18. Leadership Legitimacy, Responsiveness and Representation in Palestinian Society in Israel, 19. Religious Zionism - Romantic Religious Nationalism in Israel, 20. Religion in Contemporary Israel: Haredi Varieties, 21. Israel: Between Religion and Secularism, 22. Haredism vs. Traditionalism: A New Reading of Mizrahi Religious Politics at the Start of the 21st Century, 23. The Ethiopian Jews in Israel, 24. Acculturation as a two-way process: Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union in Israel, 25. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back: Gender Relations in Contemporary Israel, 26. Paradoxes of control: Incorporating precarious migrants in Tel Aviv in times of restrictive migration policies, 27. Demographic Trends in Israel, 28. Israel's Economic Development - an overview, 29. The Israeli Labor Market, 30. The Startup Nation: Myths and Reality, 31. Neoliberalization of Welfare and Social Protest, 32. Peripheralities, Part 5: Culture, 33. Desert, Hill, and Sea: Cinematic Visions and Re-Visions of War, 34. Bass and Silsulim: Israeli Music after muzika Mizrahit, 35. Who Killed Poetry? An Israeli Perspective, 36. Large, Cheap and Mizrahi ("Oriental"): Israeli Cuisine