Abstract
Thus far, on the basis of the preceding chapters, the impression might have been created that Israelis are peculiarly beset by issues of identity. Perhaps they seem neurotically fixated with their own identity, incessantly examining it, and furiously contesting it. Israeli foreign policy, too, might appear to be singularly bogged down in a quagmire of identity politics, with debates over foreign policy hopelessly entangled in the domestic debate over Israeli national identity. Whereas the foreign policies of other states may reflect the cold calculations of Realpolitik, Israeli foreign policy reflects age-old Jewish complexes, and the passions and furies of religious and nationalist zealots. If elsewhere, foreign policy appears to be shaped by reason, in Israel it might seem to be shaped more by emotions, which continually oscillate between undue pessimism and reckless optimism. If this is indeed the impression now in the mind of the reader, it must be immediately dispelled.
At the beginning of the third millennium one senses the coming of a global identity crisis.1
—Thomas M. Franck
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Notes
Thomas M. Franck, “Tribe, Nation, World: Self-Identification in the Evolving International System,” Ethics and International Affairs 11 (1997): 151.
Some scholars contend that Israel is not a democracy because of its discriminatory treatment of its Palestinian citizens (see, Oren Yiftachel, “The Concept of ‘Ethnic Democracy’ and Its Applicability to the Case of Israel,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 15 (January 1992): 125–136;
Asad Ghanem, Nadim Rouhana, and Oren Yiftachel, “Questioning ‘Ethnic Democracy’: A Response to Sammy Smooha,” Israel Studies 3, no. 2 (1998): 253–267).
Although the unequal treatment of Palestinians in Israel certainly damages the quality of Israeli democracy, many states that are considered democratic have poor records in their treatment of minorities (national, ethnic, racial, etc.). Hence, it is better to consider Israel to be a flawed democracy, but a democracy nonetheless (for this argument see, Jeff Spinner-Halev, “Unoriginal Sin: Zionism and Democratic Exclusion in Comparative Perspective,” Israel Studies Forum 18, no. 1 [Fall 2002]: 26–56).
For a review of this debate see, Alan Dowty, “Is Israel Democratic? Substance and Semantics in the ‘Ethnic Democracy’ Debate,” Israel Studies 4, no. 2 (Fall 1999): 1–14.
Herbert Kelman, “The Interdependence of Israeli and Palestinian National Identities: The Role of the Other in Existential Convict,” Journal of Social Issues 55, no.3 (1999): 586. In the United Kingdom, for example, the Scots, Welsh, and English maintain their distinct national identities as well as a common civic identity. One can therefore be both Scottish (a national identity) and British (a civic identity).
This developmentalist view draws heavily upon Erik Erikson’s usage of the term identity crisis in his work on the maturation of children and adolescents. See, for instance, Sidney Verba’s statement: “The question of national identity is the political version of the basic personal problem of self-identity. Erik Erikson has argued that ‘the crisis of identity’ must be resolved if a mature and stable personality is to develop. Similarly one can argue that the first and most crucial problem that must be solved in the formation of a political culture if it is to be capable of supporting a stable yet adaptable political system, is that of national identity.” Sidney Verba, “Comparative Political Culture,” in Political Culture and Political Development, ed., Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965), 529.
Conrad Black, “Canada’s Continuing Identity Crisis,” Foreign Affairs 74, no. 2 (1995): 99–115.
Bhikhu Parekh, “Discourses on National Identity,” Political Studies 42 (1994): 501.
Roxanne Lynn Doty, “Immigration and National Identity: Constructing the Nation,” Review of International Studies 22 (1996): 240.
M.J. Shapiro and H.R. Alker, eds., Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996).
David Morley and Kevin Robins, Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic landscapes and Cultural Boundaries (London: Routledge, 1995).
See also, Robert J. Lieber, and Ruth E. Weisberg, “Globalization, Culture, and Identities in Crisis,” International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society 16, no. 2 (2002): 273–296.
Anthony Smith, “The Nation: Invested, Imagined, Reconstructed?” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 20, no. 3 (1991): 353–368.
John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 390.
Alberto Melucci claims that all social movements have an identity dimension. Alberto Melucci, Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989).
This claim is based upon optimal distinctiveness theory and social identity theory in social psychology. See, respectively, Marilynn B. Brewer, “The Social Self: On Being the Same and Different at the Same Time,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17 (1991): 475–482;
and Henri Tajfel, Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (London: Academic, 1978).
For this argument see, Yael Tamir, Liberal Nationalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993);
David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995);
Margaret Moore, “Normative Justifications for Liberal Nationalism: Justice, Democracy and National Identity,” Nations and Nationalism 7, no. 1 (2001): 1–20.
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© 2006 Dov Waxman
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Waxman, D. (2006). Conclusion: Israel’s Identity Crisis in Global Perspective. In: The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403983473_7
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