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Presents a concept paper titled `The Palestinian Refugee Problem and the Right of Return' concerning resolutions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Role of the Joint Working Group in Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Resolutions on the issue of Palestinian refugees and the right of return; Assessment of the basic needs of Palestinians and Israelis in addressing solutions to the problem.

This paper revisits the claim that a causal link exists between the inflexibility of land‐use planning and low elasticity of housing supply. A theoretical model of factors impacting district‐level planning is presented alongside a model of the impact of planning delay on housing supply. The models are estimated for the Tel Aviv district using detailed data covering a 12‐year period. Results show significant impacts on planning delay due to plan, municipality and district planning commission characteristics. House prices exert a positive effect on planning speed and municipal funding acts as a supply constraint. While planning delay does not impact housing supply, delay uncertainty has a negative impact and acts as a constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While bioethicist Arthur Caplan claims that "The Nazi analogy is equivalent to dropping a nuclear bomb in ethical battles about science and medicine", we claim that such total exclusion of this analogy is equally problematic. Our analysis builds on Roberto Esposito's conceptualization of immunitas and communitas as key elements of biopolitics. Within public health theories and practices there is an inherent tension between exclusion (immunitas) and inclusion (communitas) forces. Taking the immunitas logic to the extreme, as National Socialist medicine did in the name of securing the German race, is a constant danger that needs to be taken seriously into consideration when discussing public health policies. The tension between the silencing of the Holocaust in bioethical debates on one side, and the persistent use of National Socialist medicine metaphors, on the other hand, is the focus of this paper. By delving into the meanings and the implications of this two‐edged discourse, we argue that comparing post‐war bioethics with pre‐war medical practices from a biopolitical perspective has the potential to depict a more nuanced account of continuities and discontinuities in bioethics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because the number of organs available for transplantation does not meet the needs of potential recipients, some have proposed that a potentially effective way to increase registration is to offer a self‐benefit incentive that grants a 'preferred status' or some degree of prioritization to those who register as potential donors, in case they might need organs. This proposal has elicited an ethical debate on the appropriateness of such a benefit in the context of a life‐saving medical procedure. In this paper we review arguments and ethical concerns raised by scholars, and studies of views of members of the public regarding the prioritization incentive system. We also report on our study of the views of those involved in organ transplant and of other medical professionals in Israel, as over half a decade ago Israel implemented a prioritization incentive system. Bioethicists propose that key stakeholders' views can provide additional arguments and perspectives on controversial issues. Proponents justify the prioritization incentive drawing mainly on arguments related to its potential effectiveness, reciprocity and fairness. Opponents point to the fact that registering is not binding and not an actual donation, and raise concerns regarding equity, autonomy and gaming the system. Ethical concerns raised by the practitioners in the study were examined in light of scholars' arguments and actual registration and donation data. Practitioners involved in transplantation raised ethical concerns corresponding to those raised by scholars as well as additional concerns. They also challenged proponents' assumptions regarding the utility of the incentive system from their own experience and argued that proponents obscure the meaning of reciprocity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The Israeli population, encompassing 9 million citizens, is comprised of diverse communities. The Ministry of Health genetic screening program for reproductive purposes was introduced in 2013. This program is mainly aimed at severe incurable diseases with high rates of infant and childhood morbidity and/or mortality, with a carrier frequency of at least 1:60 and/or a disease frequency of 1 in 15 000 live births. In this paper, we present the results of the national genetic carrier-screening program implementation.Material and Methods: Data acquisition for this study was performed by retrospectively searching Ministry of Health database, which includes the reports of 18 genetic laboratories performing genetic screening tests.Results: During 2015-2017, a total of 919 820 carrier-screening genetic tests were executed. The overall number rose by 14.9% over these years. For about two-thirds of the presented disorders, carrier frequency was within the expected range. A decrease of 57% was noted in the observed number of patients with spinal muscular atrophy born during 2014-2017, compared with the expected rate. Familial dysautonomia, Canavan and Tay-Sachs diseases yielded a very low prevalence.Conclusions: Our results highlight the impact of a national genetic carrier-screening program. Couples at risk of an affected fetus mostly choose to perform preconception or prenatal diagnosis and to act accordingly. Our country has several characteristics enabling us to achieve this success, including considerable rates of endogamy and consanguineous marriages, increased frequency of founder mutations, and high fertility rates. In addition, wide accessibility of the tests and good compliance of the population must be noted. Still, raising the awareness and continuing education of population and caregivers about the importance and efficiency of carrier screening remains an important issue. Finally, expanding the existing tests into a uniform, wide genetic panel seems to be the next goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To identify variables that can predict proficiency in powered mobility use for children in young adults.Method: Participants included 80 children and young adults (42 males, 38 females; mean age 10y 2mo, [SD 5y 1mo]; range: 2-22y) with cerebral palsy, neuromuscular disease, and spinal cord injury who participated in the ALYN Hospital Powered Mobility Lending Program from 2009 to 2016. Data were collected and compared before and after participation in the program and powered mobility levels were determined by the Israeli Ministry of Health (MOH) Powered Mobility Proficiency Test. Multivariate logistic regression analysis followed by a bootstrapping procedure that was based on 1000 samples were used to determine if the variables were predictive of success on the Israeli MOH Powered Mobility Proficiency Test.Results: Significant variables for predicting success were identified: manual wheelchair propulsion, go-stop voluntarily upon request, and using a joystick. The model was able to correctly identify 80% of the children.Interpretation: Children and young adults with the ability to go-stop upon request, propel a manual wheelchair short distances, and use a joystick to activate the powered wheelchair had a higher chance of becoming proficient. In countries where wheelchair proficiency is a requirement for powered wheelchair procurement, these findings may support policy changes, as they did in Israel.What This Paper Adds: Using powered wheelchairs offers children earlier and more natural practice to determine driving proficiency. Manual wheelchair propulsion, go-stop voluntarily upon request, and using a joystick were predictors of powered mobility proficiency. More than 80% of children use a joystick with their hand to activate a powered wheelchair. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the latter half of the 20th century, Western medicine moved death from the home to the hospital. As a result, the process of dying seems to have lost its spiritual dimension, and become a matter of prolonging material life by means of medical technology. The novel quandaries that arose led in turn to medico-legal regulation. This paper describes the recent regulation of dying in Israel under its Dying Patient Law, 2005. The Law recognizes advance directives in principle, but limits their effect and form through complex medico-legal artifices. It reflects a culture that places high value on both scientific medicine and the sanctity of life as such, and illustrates a medical culture that pitches battle against death. At the same time, the Law constructs the will of the individual in a medico-legal language that is alien to the lay person. The paper suggests an alternative approach to advance care planning that is patient-centred and addresses the psycho-social needs of the individual in terms of her relational autonomy. From this perspective, advance care planning becomes an opportunity to extract the patient from the medical context and allow her to speak about her approaching death with close ones in her own terms of reference. To this end, there is a need for facilitation of an intimate encounter where patients can speak about their concerns with their loved ones. The paper also presents a methodological approach of attentive listening, which can be applied across diverse cultures and circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LINKED CONTENT This article is linked to Lechtman et al and Beenet and Tonesi papers. To view these articles, visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16282 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16320 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LINKED CONTENT This article is linked to Lechtman et al and Ben Tov papers. To view these articles, visit https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16282 and https://doi.org/10.1111/apt.16343 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context In a time of economic austerity, one of the most daunting questions is who decides on healthcare rationing? In the current study, we sought to examine if the public can in fact provide meaningful information regarding healthcare policy issues. Based on theories of public policy, this paper tries to find out if patients behave akin to 'responsible citizens' and can provide differentiated expectations between three healthcare dimensions. Methods One thousand two-hundred eleven individuals participated in a telephone interview. Participants were asked two series of questions, one regarding their views on the primary care, prevention and promotion practices they experience with their healthcare provider and one regarding the importance of these practices to them. We calculated a difference score representing the gap in each healthcare dimension. Findings In all three healthcare dimensions, the mean gap is in the positive side of the axis indicating that the public does not receive what it expects to receive, or in policy terms there is 'a responsiveness deficit'. The mean gap in relation to primary care is significantly lower than the mean gap in both preventive care and health promotion. Conclusions The public can provide meaningful information even in areas of endless demand and can provide an addition point of view to be considered by policy makers in complicated healthcare rationing decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigated labour market integration of Arabs in Israel using Schnell et al.'s () global segregation/integration index (GSI) that assesses minorities' socio‐spatial integration in multi‐ethnic contexts. The merit of this approach lies in being multifaceted and systematically incorporating socio‐spatial spheres. The study also conducted structured interviews with the respondents (n = 142), and employed GPS loggers to track their weekly movements. GSI socio‐spatial indicators emerged significantly associated with integration in the labour market, with movement in space being the prominent. The study signifies the socio‐spatial approach's application to the study of minorities' labour market integration in metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how different legal instruments affect people's moral intuitions and willingness to engage in social enforcement in the field of environmental law. These instruments vary in terms of their governance technique, the process through which they were enacted, and their allocation of enforcement responsibilities. Their effect on citizens' moral evaluation and emotional reaction to corporate polluting behaviour are examined, based on an experimental survey of a representative sample of 1400 individuals in Israel. Our findings demonstrate that their design influences people's level of moral and emotional resentment when faced by environmentally problematic behaviour, as well as their motivation to engage in private enforcement. The design of the regulatory instrument could thus generate biases in social reactions to polluting behaviour, irrespective of its actual ecological adverse effect. We analyse the moral and psychological mechanisms which underlie these effects and explore their various policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the politics of landscape and nature within the process of nation-building. In it I examine how landscapes can operate in multiple, intersecting ways in the service of an ideological discourse and how the politics of nature, specifically trees, can contribute to the shaping of a new national space and subjectivity. Focusing on the multiple renditions of Palestine promulgated by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) , I discuss how landscapes can entangle diaspora and homeland, aesthetics and embodiment, antiquity and modernity, with both conceptual and material consequences. Drawing on histories of the JNF and on a selection of historic newspaper articles and children's literature, I explore the circulation of aesthetic renderings of Palestine and the performance of embodied landscapes during the children's tree-planting holiday, Tu B'Shvat. I argue that the centrality of trees to the JNF, and the imagery of roots, renewal, family and innocence that they conjure, legitimised Zionist colonisation and naturalised the Israeli nation state and body politic. I also demonstrate how JNF landscapes and afforestation work assisted in the demarcation of Israeli nation-space and therefore in the material dispossession of the Palestinians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper depicts the meanings of human dignity as they unfold and evolve in the Bible and the "Halakhah." I posit that three distinct features of a Jewish conception of human dignity can be identified in contrast to core characteristics of a liberal conception of human dignity. First, the original source of human dignity is not intrinsic to the human being but extrinsic, namely in God. Second, it is argued that the "dignity of the people" has precedence over personal autonomy and liberty, which are core liberal pillars. The third characteristic pertains to the potential conflict between personal autonomy and liberty, and God's commandments. The theoretical analysis of human dignity is then examined in light of several Supreme Court decisions in Israel during the 1990s. I illustrate that Jewish religious and secular-liberal conceptions pull in different directions in the rulings of liberal and religious Justices in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the impact of the Al-Aqsa Intifada on tolerance orientations of the Israeli Jewish public. We rely upon five surveys carried out between January 2000 and June 2002 to study in a real-life setting the amount and nature of change in political tolerance due to the conflict and the mechanisms behind it. Building on theory and research on intergroup relations in social psychology and political tolerance in political science, we focus upon threat and ingroup identification as the two primary factors in the social psychological processes resulting from conflict and leading to intolerance. We set the trends and explore mediation and interaction processes in the impact of this round of conflict on political tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses newly available evidence to shed light on the circumstances and causes of the 6 October 1973 Yom Kippur surprise attack of Egyptian and Syrian forces on Israeli positions at the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights. The evidence suggests that an important circumstance that accounts for the surprise effect these actions managed to produce, despite ample warning signs, is traceable to a high need for cognitive closure among major figures in the Israeli intelligence establishment. Such a need may have prompted leading intelligence analysts to “freeze” on the conventional wisdom that an attack was unlikely and to become impervious to information suggesting that it was imminent. The discussion considers the psychological forces affecting intelligence operations in predicting the initiation of hostile enemy activities, and it describes possible avenues of dealing with the psychological impediments to open–mindedness that may pervasively characterize such circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To investigate the relationship between health system structure and citizen participation, in particular whether increased reliance on competition encourages or depresses citizen involvement. Setting The case of Israel’s ongoing health reform, based on regulated competition among sick funds, is examined. Design Interviews with government officials and representatives of consumer groups; analysis of policy documents, judicial rulings, public surveys and journalistic accounts. Results The Israeli reform is based in large measure on a regulated competition model, in which citizens have free choice among highly regulated competing sick funds. At the same time, the reform process has been accompanied by legal, institutional and political frameworks, as well as significant interest group activity, all aimed at increasing public input into processes of health policy making and implementation. The Israeli case, it is argued, lends support to the proposition that citizen participation (voice) and individual choice (exit) are complementary, rather than alternative, modes of ensuring citizen influence over health services. The question is whether the development of multiple avenues for citizen involvement represents disarray or a healthy social learning process regarding the running of the health system. Conclusion This paper expresses cautious optimism that citizen participation is a projection of a healthy social learning process, and suggests directions for public policy to encourage this outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationships between state organizations, big business corporations, non-governmental interest groups and institutional elites in a relatively unexamined site: the Israeli political-economic system. Relationships between the numerous participants in state policy-making are examined through research on policy forums in the economic domain. Policy forums are defined as institutional settings for encounters between state and non-state organizations, through their elites; importantly, these encounters establish exchange relation- ships among the participants in economic policy-making processes. This article homes in on one important dimension of these relationships: the network structure of ties within and among policy forums. Interlocking data serve as indicators of the ties among the participants in policy forums. As the research presented here illustrates, the significance of policy forum networks rests not in their formal functions, but rather in their structure and with the elite persons who sit on their boards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic evaluation of transport projects relies primarily on the impact of the project on road users. Economic benefits are calculated from a reduction in the aggregate value of time saved by the users, as well as from savings on vehicle-operation and maintenance costs, reducion in traffic accidents, and more recently the negative environmental impacts that ensued. Most often the analysis assumes fixed demand. Major mass-transit systems, like the new Light Rail Transit (LRT) currently proposed for the Tel-Aviv Metropolitan Area (TAMA) in Israel, are expected to generate substantial new (induced) traffic. This development will most likely enhance the agglomeration forces at work in major urban concentrations. Agglomeration economies could lead to an upward shift in the production function of the metropolitan area, thus generating substantial additional benefits for the transport project. This article presents the methodology used to estimate the benefits derived from agglomeration economies induced by the aforementioned proposed new LRT in the TAMA. An estimate is made of the increase in the number of employees in the CBD owing to the proposed LRT and their potential contribution to the total annual production of the CBD. Agglomeration economies could add a significant amount of additional benefit to the transport project. In our case study the extent of these benefits increased the benefit-cost ratio from 1.15 to 1.40. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using survey data from Irish and Israeli firms we examine the influence of public policy on the characteristics, location and innovation capability of high-tech firms. The innovation activities of Israeli firms in Israel are found to be much more locationally sensitive than that of Irish companies. Regional policy incentives, involving the dispersal of high-tech firms to peripheral areas of Ireland are therefore likely to have had little negative effect on firms' innovation capabilities. In Israel, however, inducing highly R&D intensive firms to locate away from the main metropolitan areas may be counter-productive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses Israeli foreign policy, with particular emphasis on the influence of U.S. President George W. Bush on Israel's standing in the Middle East. The effect of U.S. foreign policy on the security of Israel is discussed, noting that the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq has created a problematic situation for Israel regardless of whether the U.S. withdraws its troops. The effect of U.S. involvement in the Iran-Iraq War upon the establishment of Iran's nuclear weapons program is mentioned. Also discussed is the relationship between former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and U.S. President George W. Bush.