Israel Politics

Richard C. Schneider, SPIEGEL-Autor und langjähriger Israel-Korrespondent der ARD, lebt seit fast 20 Jahren in Tel Aviv, kennt Alltag und Geschichte des Landes und weiß um die gängigen Vorbehalte und Vorurteile in Deutschland. Bei den Antworten auf diese fünf Fragen setzt er an, um einige grundlegende Dinge über Israel zu erklären—75 Jahre nach der Staatsgründung Israels und in einem entscheidenden Moment für die Demokratie des Landes.

Über kaum ein anderes Land wird in Deutschland so viel geredet und gestritten: Zu Israel hat jeder eine Meinung. Warum ist das so? Wieso hat der Nahostkonflikt eine solche Bedeutung? Und warum ist die Debatte so emotional – und oft so vergiftet? Als Meron Mendel vor zwanzig Jahren nach Deutschland kam, stellte er überrascht fest, welche Bedeutung Israel im öffentlichen Diskurs hat. Nahezu alle, mit denen er sprach, konnten sehr klare Positionen zu Israel und seiner Politik formulieren.

Vilipendiado por la Iglesia, tergiversado por estadistas y líderes sociales, reconocido como fuente primigenia de la política moderna, Nicolás Maquiavelo goza de ese raro privilegio de no sucumbir a la usura del tiempo. La vida—y sobre todo la obra del florentino—muestra una vigencia creciente. Autor necesario para cualquier curso de teoría política, su obra en conjunto muestra los ángulos clave del precioso arte de la vida en común, por lo que acercarse a él se vuelve una fuente obligada de conocimiento y reflexión creativa.

نجحت الصهيونية في تحقيق المعجزة ، في أن تجمع ملايين اليهود من حول العالم إلي قلب العالم، وأن تربك التاريخ العربي الحديث بما لم يحدث من قبل حتي في عصور تشابهت في الضغوط وتماثلت في الشجون. وقد كان السؤال في إسرائيل.. لقد نجحت الصهيونية وجاءت الدولة.. وماذا بعد؟ وتوزعت الإجابات وكان من أبرزها ذلك الجواب الذي جاء به المؤرخون الجدد.. إنها نهاية الصهيونية وبداية ما بعدها. وعاد السؤال: وما الذي يمكن أن تكون عليه إسرائيل في مرحلة ما بعد الصهيونية؟.

The Conflict over the Conflict chronicles one of the most divisive and toxic issues on today’s college and university campuses: Israel/Palestine.

Diary of a Crisis explores the past tumultuous and traumatic year in Israel-Palestine. The eminent historian Saul Friedländer began a diary of Israeli politics in January 2023 as the country was convulsed by protests against Netanyahu's attempt to overhaul the judiciary. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demonstrate against this threat to democracy. But the protests said nothing about the Palestinian question—the "elephant in the room," according to Friedländer, who resumed his diary after Hamas's October 7 assault on southern Israel.

In Intimate Enemies, Khaled Diab explores the human lives at stake in the conflict. From Palestinians evading checkpoints to attend parties to the different approaches Israelis take in defining personal Jewish identities to the experiences of women from across the region, Intimate Enemies looks at what makes people tick. It also becomes clear in this closer understanding of the people how misleading a simple notion of two opposing sides really is.

At 4:30 AM on Monday, May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos, boarding from sea and air, attacked the six boats of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it sailed through international waters attempting to bring humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Within minutes, nine peace activists were dead. In these pages, a range of activists, journalists, and analysts piece together the events that occurred that May night, mixing together first-hand testimony and documentary record with hard-headed analysis and historical overview.

Many important figures in Israeli history played a part in the establishment of the new state, and among the most iconic is the nation’s first female premier, Golda Meir. Known as the “uncrowned queen of Israel” and “Mother Courage”, Meir was an activist for many years, lobbying for a Jewish state in the Mandate of Palestine. She served in numerous capacities before her appointment as prime minister and remains one of the most revered Israeli leaders from the pre-state years through the long-sought dream of a Jewish nation.

On October 3, 1985, Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled Jewish New Yorker, and his wife boarded the Achille Lauro to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary with a Mediterranean cruise. Four days later, four Palestinian fedayeen hijacked the Italian luxury liner and took the passengers and crew hostage. Leon Klinghoffer was shot in the head, his body and wheelchair thrown overboard. His murder became a flashpoint in the intractable struggle between Israelis and Arabs and gave Americans a horrifying preview of what it means when terrorism hits home.

Nach Überzeugung des Vatikans kann und darf es sie nicht geben: die sterblichen Überreste Jesu Christi. Doch genau danach sucht die Paläographin Ottavia Salina gemeinsam mit ihrem Mann Farag Boswell und ihrem alten Freund Kaspar Glauser-Röist. Die Spur führt das Trio von der Mongolei über Istanbul bis nach Israel. In den Katakomben des Berges Meron erwarten sie neun mörderische Prüfungen, alle mit Bezug auf die Seligpreisungen der Bergpredigt.

Spannender internationaler Polit-Thriller zum Nahost-Konflikt - fiktiv und doch erschreckend nah an der Realität. Washington, 2018. Als der US-Präsident nach alarmierenden Nachrichten über den Ausbau des iranischen Atomprogramms von den Israelis zu einem Militärschlag gegen Teheran herausgefordert wird, zieht er die Notbremse: Um die nukleare Bedrohung zu verringern, will er einen Abrüstungsvertrag mit seinem russischen Amtskollegen unterschreiben. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt ahnt er jedoch nicht, dass er selbst der ultimativen Krise gegenübersteht: Der palästinensische Top-Terrorist "Der Falke" hat es geschafft, einen Atomsprengkopf in das US-Holocaust-Museum zu schmuggeln.

In Israel and Palestine, religious and political tensions are boiling, threatening to explode an untenable status quo. A renowned baker and his son are at odds, one turning his back on Allah, the other determined to prove himself worthy of God’s love. A rich playboy shatters his life in the States and joins Israel’s special forces searching for purpose and meaning. An Israeli vixen with a tragic past and a penchant for violence finds herself torn between her work for the Russian mob and the people she loves.

Why I Hate Israel: A Candid Account is a fresh look at the Jewish-Arabic Conflict in light of current trends in human rights laws and ethics. Priya Gandhi-Ganesh is particularly insightful in identifying troubling elements that are impediments to peace and human progress in the Middle East and on the global scene. Gandhi-Ganesh effortlessly draws together examples and anecdotes to highlight her points.

"Wer gegen Rassismus und gegen Antisemitismus ist, wer keine blinden Flecken mag, aber dafür gute Sachbücher, sollte dieses Buch lesen". So schrieb 2021 Nele Pollatschek nach dem Erscheinen dieses Buches unter anderem Titel. „Jews don’t count“ – „Juden zählen nicht“ ist nach dem 7. Oktober auch in Deutschland zum geflügelten Wort geworden – und eine bittere Wahrheit von Nahost- bis zu Aiwanger-Debatten. Wir veröffentlichen das bedeutende Buch darum neu mit dem übersetzten Original-Titel und einem aktuellen Vorwort David Baddiels.

The Middle East today is characterized by an astonishingly bloody civil war in Syria, a highly racialized and militarized approach to the concept of a Jewish state in Israel and the Palestinian territories, an Iraqi state paralyzed by the emergence of class- and region-inflected sectarian identifications, a Lebanon teetering on the edge of collapse from the pressures of its huge numbers of refugees and its sect-bound political system, and the rise of a wide variety of Islamist paramilitary organizations seeking to operate outside all these states.

The symbol of the Jewish State was the noble pioneer draining the swamps and making the deserts bloom: the legendary kibbutznik. So what ever happened to the pioneers’ dream of founding a socialist utopia in the land called Palestine? Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel draws listeners into the quest for answers to the defining political conflict of our era. Acclaimed author David Leach revisits his raucous memories of life as a kibbutz volunteer and returns to meet a new generation of Jewish and Arab citizens struggling to forge a better future together.

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin remains the single most consequential event in Israel's recent history and one that fundamentally altered the trajectory for both Israel and the Palestinians. Killing a King relates the parallel stories of Rabin and his stalker, Yigal Amir, over the two years leading up to the assassination, as one of them planned political deals he hoped would lead to peace - and the other plotted murder.

An Israeli government minister is assassinated in the home of his mistress. Days later, a Mossad officer leads his final raid, killing a Hamas leader in his bed and barely escaping with his life. The action moves into the near future, when world leaders, united under the leadership of a visionary female president of the United States, broker a major compromise between Israel and the Palestinian authority. Their hope is to snuff out the violent flashpoint that fuels global terrorism.

The future of the relationship between Israel and America is deeply uncertain: The current political leadership of each country is hostile to the other, there is no longer a sense of shared strategic focus, and demographic changes are forcing the countries further apart with every passing year. Undermining the relationship between Israel and the US is the fact that it was never clearly defined. The ambiguity has been politically helpful but now threatens the future: There is no treaty, no agreed set of obligations, no mutual dependence.