دانلود کتاب پس‌رفت دموکراتیک در اسرائیل و صلحِ دست‌نیافتنی

This book originates from a workshop held in May 2023, which examined the mass protest movement that emerged in Israel earlier that year in response to the government’s proposed judicial overhaul. These demonstrations highlighted the deep structural tensions shaping Israel’s political trajectory. The contributions analyze the intersection of three overarching themes: the contestation surrounding Israel’s national identity, the patterns of democratic backsliding, and the enduring impact of the protracted Israel–Palestine conflict, which renders peace elusive. Together, these aspects define Israel’s core dilemma: how a state dedicated to Zionism and liberal democratic principles navigates persistent internal divisions and contradictions amid ongoing military occupation and protracted conflict with the Palestinians.
Since its establishment in 1948, the State of Israel has been guided by the dual aspiration to serve as a national homeland for the Jewish people while upholding democratic principles. Yet, this duality has long created conceptual and political tensions. Scholarship has highlighted ongoing ambiguities in Israel’s constitutional order, particularly regarding the balance between ethnic-national identity and civic equality, the role of religion in public life, and the status of non-Jewish minorities (see, for example, Kimmerling, 2001). Periods of intense external security threats have often subdued these internal tensions, but many analysts have warned that their re-emergence in times of reduced conflict could reveal deep disagreements over the nature of the state, potentially leading to domestic unrest (Kimmerling, 2001). The events of 2023 made this latent conflict evident.
The internal conflict that emerged in early 2023 marked one of the most significant challenges to Israel’s democratic institutions since its establishment. The government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and regarded as the most far-right coalition in Israeli history, advanced a series of judicial reforms aimed at fundamentally reshaping the distribution of power within the political system. Key elements included restricting the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, altering the composition and appointment procedures of judicial bodies, and introducing an override clause that permits the Knesset to reinstate legislation invalidated by the Court (Roznai & Cohen, 2023). These proposals sparked an unprecedented wave of social mobilization. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis from various professional and political backgrounds participated in sustained protests to defend judicial independence. Critics warned that the reforms signaled a clear trajectory of democratic decline, undermining the separation of powers and weakening institutional safeguards vital for minority protection (Haklai, 2024). The crisis thus sharply underscored the unresolved question of whether Israel can uphold its identity as both a Jewish and a liberal democratic state, or whether demographic, ideological, and territorial aspects will force a redefinition of this balance.
These internal debates occurred alongside the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to significantly influence Israel’s political system, security policies, and societal cohesion. Years of stalled negotiations, expanded Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and the marginalization of Palestinian aspirations for national rights and statehood have widened the inequalities between Israelis and Palestinians. Although these dynamics have long been one of the main sources of regional instability, they were often overshadowed in Israeli political discourse by the perceived strategic threat from Iran and its regional proxies. The Hamas attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 radically altered this situation. The killing of more than 1200 Israelis and the kidnapping of over 250 civilians and soldiers to Gaza, widely regarded as the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, shattered public trust in Israel’s security doctrine, especially the longstanding “Iron Wall” strategy (Shlaim, 2000).
Israel’s response and subsequent military campaign in Gaza have resulted, as of November 2025, in over 70,000 Palestinians killed according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry. The majority of Palestinians in Gaza are internally displaced refugees, often multiple times, alongside an almost total physical destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure (OCHA, 2025). Since December 2023, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been investigating allegations of genocide in Gaza and in the summer of 2024, the ICJ issued a clarifying statement asserting that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem is illegal and must end immediately (International Court of Justice, 2024). Additionally, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for leaders of both Israel and Hamas, citing alleged war crimes committed in Gaza and Israel (Gitten, 2024).