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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.

The article examines the situation of Palestinian exiles after the occupation of Israel. In 1948, about 78 percent of Palestine's historic land was occupied by the newly established State of Israel wherein the about 60 percent of the Palestinian Arab population of approximately 1.4 million became refugees. The distinct features of the Palestinian exiles were discussed. Information about the two forms of contemporary Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian-Arab relations and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is presented.