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This article examines current manifestations of Zionist political-economy by analyzing discourses that frame Israel as a "Start-Up Nation"—that is, a unique economic achievement that offers a successful business model for the world. By focusing on the 2009 book from the Council of Foreign Relations, Start-Up Nation, this article theorizes "neoliberal Zionism" as a manifestation of Zionism that valorizes specific kinds of neoliberal rationalities in order to garner support for the State of Israel. In particular, neoliberal Zionism produces an entrepreneurial Israeli citizen-subject whose unique cultural attributes derive from compulsory military service and a Zionist past sanitized of conflict with Palestinians. Further, these discourses position this neoliberal Zionist subject as economically out-competing Arabs and Palestinians. At stake is how neoliberalism and exclusionary nationalism potentially mobilize each other and operate as "management" models for other states to adopt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary populist movements have inspired political pundits in various contexts to opine on the resurgence of victimhood culture, in which groups demonstrate heightened sensitivity to slights and attempt to evoke sympathy from third parties to their conflicts. Although reference to victimhood's politics oftentimes surfaces examples of egregious microaggressions, when victimhood claims are scaled up to the realm of nationalisms, oftentimes so too are their consequences. Current literature on victimhood in international politics, though, lacks a unifying theorisation suitable for the comparative analysis of victimhood nationalisms as important identities in the international arena. This gap prevents scholarship from investigating how the severity of perceived or real suffering relates to the formation of victimhood, as well as how victimhood nationalisms legitimize the projection of grievances onto third parties, potentially sowing new conflicts. This article theorises victimhood nationalism as a powerful identity narrative with two key constitutive elements. First, drawing on the narrative identity approach, it outlines how victimhood nationalisms are constructed via narrations of perceived or real collective trauma. Second, it argues that victimhood nationalist narratives, unlike other narratives of collective trauma, break down the idealized victim–perpetrator relationship and project grievances onto otherwise uninvolved international actors, including other nation-states. The article concludes by offering comparative case studies of Slobodan Milošević's and David Ben-Gurion's respective invocations of victimhood nationalism to illustrate the empirical applicability of this theorization, as well as victimhood nationalism's importance in international politics across time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the food in Israel and the postcards that depict the country's national snack falafel. It analyses the correlation between food and nationalism, as food consumption leaves an impact on the domestic and global politics. Topics include ban on Foie gras that attacks French culture and identity, Thai food's popularity, and international values regarding food.

What do we care about-or pretend to care about-when we try to sway hearts and minds through political action? The question of values and value trade-offs in International Relations is understudied. By examining Diaspora-based Israel advocacy (the set of political and educational activities at the school, campus, community and formal political levels designed to increase support by Diaspora Jews, their co-citizens, and their governments for Israel), this paper interrogates the idea of 'Jewish values,' and theorizes about how actors negotiate among sentiment, aspiration, and values. The evidence suggests that Jews are more likely to invoke 'Jewish values' when engaging in in-group critique, whereas Israel advocates are more likely to draw on universal values to defend Israeli goals and actions to others. The essay identifies five value clusters that appear to structure Israel advocacy activities: nationalism and sovereignty, democracy, science, history, and peace, identifies some potential value conflicts that may result, and raises questions about the strategic use of values in social mobilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a response to Adam Danel's critique of my model of ethnic democracy. Danel argues that the model fails as an ideal type and as a comparative tool because ethnic democracy does not exist anywhere. I show, however, that there are indeed quite a few cases of ethnic democracy, although some are partial and some historical, including Estonia, Latvia, Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1972, Macedonia from 1991 to 2001, interwar Poland, Slovakia, and Malaysia. Danel does not address the real functions of the model as a theory of the emergence and stability of ethnic democracy and as a conceptual scheme for the comparative study of ethnic democracies. The theory accounts for the developments of ethnic democracy in these states and for the conditions for its success and failure. Danel also tries to show that Israel is a Western liberal democracy by overstressing its liberal traits and the non-liberal characteristics of Western democracies. I argue that Israel's ideology, design, policies, and practices as the homeland of the Jewish people, most of whom are not its citizens, and as the “property” of the Israeli-Jewish majority, means that it has a second-rate ethnic democracy and as a state and society does not qualify as Western. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It reveals that the first intifada happened when Yaser Arafat proclaimed the foundation of an independent state in Palestine and recognized the existence of the State of Israel. The second intifada began in 2000 that destabilized Arab and Jewish communities reaching Europe and France. Due to evolution of conflict in the Middle East, Jews started developing their own diasporic nationalism around Israel and achieved their victory in 1967.

A border is an ideological socio‐cultural construct by which communities define and defend their territory. But what are its formal and spatial configurations? How is the border architecturally conceived and perceived? This paper investigates these questions through analysis of three border typologies – the door, the bridge and the gateway – fostering a new discussion of architecture as a border‐making practice. It also relates to how architects and planners contribute to conflict, and to ethnic and physical barrier‐making by not being fully aware of the cultural and political implications of their actions. These ideas are discussed in the context of Israel/Palestine and the dynamic of the demarcation and separation between Israelis and Palestinians since the early twentieth century. It focuses specifically on the border zone between Tel Aviv and Jaffa, the Menshiyeh quarter. By examining border‐making from architectural and urban perspectives, the paper expands the political‐historical discussion of Israeli boundaries and clarifies the relationships between conflict (destruction), architecture (construction) and the everyday life of groups and individuals in today’s world of modern nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with the experience of the Israeli-Palestinian Parents' Circle. Role of social norms and power in regulating the representability of certain forms and subjects of suffering; Causes of the apparent rationality of death; Search for alternative ways to commemorate Jewish World War II resistance among Russian immigrants; Contradictions of trauma-laden nationalism in Israel/Palestine.

Assesses the claim, prevalent in Israel and accepted elsewhere, that Israel's national security is exceptional. Sources of the Israeli belief in exceptionalism; Various elements in the Israeli image of national security exceptionalism; Issues of threat and morality of conduct; Consequences and risks in perceiving Israeli national security in exceptional terms.

In the last issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, two Israeli scholars outlined some new ideas concerning the ascendancy of militaristic nationalism in Israel. Their thesis suggests that Israel's national policies are shaped by strong militaristic tendencies, which are reinforced by a series of military victories and an ongoing flow of arms supply and advanced military technology from the U.S. Professors Shulamit Carmi and Henry Rosenfeld's work is concerned with tracing the roots and origins of these militaristic nationalist tendencies. Their research question, however, is untypical; they do not directly look for the historical, economic and political circumstances, which facilitated the emergence of militaristic nationalism. Rather, they base their study on a counterfactual hypothesis. They argue that militarism and nationalism gained ascendancy over the potential socialist society that could have emerged in Israel. Another premise of Carmi and Rosenfeld is that pre-state Israel should be analyzed in class-conflict terms if one is to understand the issue related to nationalism.