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Do limitations on commissions paid to financial advisers reduce prices of financial products and stimulate investment? I examine these questions by estimating the causal effects of regulating commissions for mutual fund distribution. I exploit the unique institutional setting in Israel and the 2013 policy change when the government reduced commissions differently for different fund types. The reform led to a major decline in fund expense ratios and a consequent increase in fund flows. Funds with price-sensitive investors experienced 35% larger inflows. I interpret these results as investor responses to price competition fostered by a reduction in distribution costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although diversity initiatives are considered prominent vessels for addressing inequality and despite massive investments in them, inequality inside organizations persists. Assessments of diversity initiatives often center on economic inequality and view organizations as closed systems to explain why they fail. Building on a 19-month field-level ethnography of the diversity field in Israel targeting Palestinian employment, we examine political inequality and show how it is perpetuated even as economic inequality is dealt with. Our findings reveal that the field is complicit in creating a chasm between the economic and political spheres by positioning diversity initiatives as a means to tackle economic inequality. The field's infrastructure and dominant discourse reinforce this chasm and thereby make political inequality invisible, generating false consciousness. Our study challenges the preoccupation of diversity scholarship with universal best practices, suggests avenues for assessing and managing diversity initiatives while taking stock of political inequality, and directs future research to delve into the relationship between the economic and the political in organizations and our societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategy led by Prime Minister Netanyahu during his 12-year rule (2009–21) was not just a military-security strategy but a grand-strategy of national security. Effectively adopting Mapai's 'practical Zionism' strategy rather than Jabotinsky's 'political Zionism', Netanyahu effectively became the last of the 'Mapainiks' who knew how to establish and develop a state, and fortify its power and position, by virtue of action and by strengthening the 'Iron Wall'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The persecution of Jews under Stalin's regime has been widely taken as proof that antisemitism was an innate element of Stalinism. Reexamination of the tyrant's Jewish policies, domestic and international, would however reveal that Stalin can hardly be defined as antisemitic. The political purge of Jews was predominately caused by his fear of the growing national sentiments of Soviet Jewry following the establishment of the State of Israel (to which he gave decisive support), and driven by his paranoiac desire for internal subservience and political conformity in the context of the early Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes Israel's motives in annexing the Jordan Valley—a plan that, if approved, will eliminate any possibility of establishing a Palestinian state, even on a small part of historic Palestine. This promises to be one of the most critical strategic turning points in the contemporary Israeli‐Palestinian conflict. The analysis reveals that the Israeli annexation decision, even if postponed, has become a reality imposed by Israel on the international community, insinuated into formal and official government announcements and declarations. In addition, the article highlights the danger of imposing Israeli sovereignty over the Jordan Valley since it carries with it a threat to regional stability. As part of this examination, the study traces the development of the positions of successive Israeli governments toward the issue of annexing this region, from 1967 through the dissolution of the Netanyahu government in 2021. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In late 2022, Israel and Lebanon signed a US‐brokered maritime agreement establishing their permanent maritime boundary and exclusive economic zones, and regulating their rights to gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean. Preceding the agreement was a sustained coercive‐diplomacy campaign by Hezbollah. Between June and October, the organization conveyed overt and covert threats, and it pursued actions that were unprecedented in the Israel‐Hezbollah conflict: openly threatening to target Israel's entire gas production and risk all‐out war if Israel proceeded with its plan to unilaterally extract gas from the contested Karish gas field. A textbook case of coercive diplomacy, Hezbollah's maneuver was calculated and deliberate, which reflects the group's strategic expertise. Drawing on open‐source materials and public statements in Arabic and Hebrew, this article analyzes Hezbollah's coercive‐diplomacy campaign and examines its implications for escalation scenarios between Israel and its central military opponent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new conceptual and theoretical outlook on the municipal-demographic phenomenon of mixed cities, in which minority groups penetrate homogenous spaces. The findings show that the penetration of Jewish cities by Arab minorities in Israel has become widespread – especially in the periphery of the country. While the State and local authorities view this phenomenon as problematic – from a national, municipal, and demographic point of view, their solutions are limited to programmes that encourage increased Jewish residence in these cities to preserve the existing demographic advantage. Many of these mixed cities are characterised by increased tension between Arabs and Jews, decreased socioeconomic status, negative migration balance, and Arab minorities settling in the outskirts of the city or weaker neighbourhoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel has been governed by coalitions since its independence. The act of coalition building not only forms governments but also serves as reaffirming the ideological and societal bounds of the state as well as reflecting implicit consensus on the identity of the state. The governance and institutionalization of ethnic and religious cleavages in either form of exclusion or accommodation have historically constructed particular coalition patterns, which this paper critically coins as the 'legitimate circle of coalition building'. The functionality of this circle has declined to the point of being narrowed and destabilised in recent decades and it has become a potential stumbling block to the formation of consistent governments. This article claims that Israel's recent political deadlock is the latest indicator of such dysfunctionality. To support this claim, this article first provides an historical account of governing contending variants of non-Zionism by putting Arab and Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) parties in its centre to decode the traditional limitations and Achilles heel of the coalition building activity. Second, the puzzling election trio of 2019-20 is analysed as an affirmative case by examining the campaign discourse of the political parties, the election results and the allocation of parliamentary seats, as well as inconclusive negotiation talks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do we assess the power of governments to control and set the agenda in parliaments? How do we assess the power of oppositions to present their agenda? Cox and McCubbins' cartel model used a roll rate analysis of legislation, while Krehbiel suggested the use of non-legislative tools. Based on this advice, this article investigates the use of a non-legislative tool – motions for the agenda – in the Israeli Knesset, or more specifically: 'the agenda power of non-legislative tools' defined as the ability to block or significantly delay motions from reaching a debate in committee. Using data from the Knesset, in which the opposition operates in a parliamentary system with multiparty coalition governments, it demonstrates that opposition legislators utilise these non-legislative tools more extensively than coalition members to wield their agenda power. The findings support the addition of this tool to the cartel model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decades before he was known as a historian or as an early neoconservative thinker, let alone as the father of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Benzion Netanyahu was a young student and journalist in British Mandatory Palestine. In this tumultuous period, reaching its peak with the 1933 murder of Haim Arlosoroff, Netanyahu dwelt at the margins of Zionist politics, belonging to a group of well-educated, right-wing, young outsiders—students, poets, journalists, intellectuals, and pseudo-intellectuals—all of whom rebelled against their current and former Hebrew University professors. This study examines the crystallization of Netanyahu's worldview and his Zionist ideology by focusing on three events between 1932 and 1935 that shaped his hostility toward the left and, much later, which became integral components of politics in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debate over the present-day meaning of the traditional political terms 'left' and 'right' has been ongoing for at least three decades. Many claim that these labels have lost their former relevance. This article offers a comparative analysis of the Israeli, Polish, and Hungarian party systems. Using qualitative content analysis, it examines party platforms and politicians' speeches in order to assess the significance of political labels both in political narratives and academic debate. Two main research topics concerning political systems of the three countries are explored in the article: the blurring of the traditional left-right divisions and the partial adoption of an anti-establishment agenda by mainstream parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Israel's policy toward the region of East-Central Europe (ECE) started changing notably from 2004 onward, in response to the European Union (EU) enlargement process. The following years brought a further development of Israel's position toward the region and substantial changes in Israel's European policy. This article aims to track this evolution: not only Israel's position but also the shape as well as the content of bilateral and multilateral relations between Israel and selected ECE states. For the purpose of this analysis, special attention is paid to Israel's relations with Poland and Hungary, with primary focus on Israel's approaches and policy orientations. The article argues that while the ideological changes that occurred almost simultaneously in Poland, Israel, and Hungary at first created favorable conditions for the strengthening of bilateral and multilateral relations between all three countries, they soon became a divisive factor and obstacles to cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the strategic calculations, assessments and dynamics behind Israel's decision to establish the so called "Southern Syria Region" (SSR) as an undeclared security zone on the Syrian Golan Heights with the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War. The article likewise considers Israel's policy vis-à-vis various rebel groups and other actors in the SSR and ultimately, what led Israel to end its intervention once the Syrian army returned to the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates the rising influence of the Herut-Liberal Party's student organization. It focuses on the remarkable achievements of young activists who garnered ideological support for the party and were instrumental in the coming to power of a new leadership in the Likud-led government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last decade has seen an upswing in and expansion of party primaries as a means of selecting legislative candidates in many parliamentary democracies. Yet, while most democracies around the world regulate the financial aspects of general elections, the same cannot be said for these intraparty contests. The absence of financial regulation in party primaries may explain why the effect of candidate spending on success has received so little attention in the literature. The current study seeks to investigate to what extent candidates' spending affects their success, focusing on Israel's legislative primary elections. Although the Israeli Party Law sets expenditure ceilings with the aim of leveling the playing field, there is considerable variance in the amount of money candidates raise, invest, and spend. This variance allows us to test the relationship between candidates' expenditure and their success. Based on reports by the State Comptroller and on formal results of primary elections, we analyze seven primary contests that were held in three political parties between 2008 and 2015. Candidates' success is measured in two ways: (1) the number of votes each candidate received, and (2) whether the candidate was elected to parliament. Our findings point to a strong positive correlation between the amount of money spent and the number of votes received. However, when factors such as incumbency and public familiarity are considered, the picture is more nuanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]