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Israeli journalist Ari Shavit interviews author Edward W. Said in New York on Jewish-Arab relations. Topics include cultural autonomy, Zionism, land tenure, exile, the intifada, religion and social problems, and ethnic identification with geography.

By now, many American Jews are aware of a peculiar theological convergence: the alignment of some strains of evangelical Christianity with what has been termed "religious Zionism." (1) This phenomenon [...]

It has been widely reported that evangelicals have a dangerous ulterior motive for backing Israel: the belief that the Jews' return to their biblical home will lead to their mass [...]

The author examines the Israel's jubilee celebration and the success of the Zionist revolution. Topics include national identity, nation-building, and the Hebrew culture.

Since the original goals of Zionism have largely been accomplished or are less relevant today, conditions are ripe for Israel's transition from Zionism to post-Zionism. A post-Zionist Israel -- while maintaining its Jewish character and special relationship to world Jewry -- would be a state primarily committed to protecting and advancing the interests of its citizens, regardless of ethnicity. In a post-Zionist Israel, the status of non-Jewish Israelis would be upgraded and the status of non-Israeli Jews downgraded. Moreover, Israel would be integrated into the region and engaged in normal, peaceful relations with its neighbors. Many forces are promoting this transition, including the peace process, changes in Israel-Diaspora relations, and the liberalization of the society Countervailing forces stem mostly from the ultranationalist and Orthodox religious sectors in the society. To advance the transition, Israel will have to address four major divisions within the society: the divisions between citizens and noncitizens, Jewish and Palestinian citizens, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, and religious and secular Jews.

For some time past I have been occupied with a work of infinite grandeur. At the moment I do not know whether I shall carry it through. It looks like [...]

Items of popular culture in Israel such as film, theater, novels, music and poetry indicate a trend which goes beyond Zionism and negative views of the Arabs. These post-Zionist materials are still very minimal in number and are authored by those who do not belong to Israel's leadership. Nevertheless, this trend shows that Zionism is beginning to lose its identity as Palestinians, some Jews from the Arab states and other Jews are starting to question the validity of Zionist views.

Cultural discourse in Israel on Zionism and Palestinians has undergone changes since the 1980s. The privatization of print and electronic media in the early 1990s, for instance, increased the coverage on human rights abuses against Palestinians and corruption in the armed forces. However, it is argued these changes had no impact on the representations of Palestinians and Arabs in media.

Scholarly debates on Israeli history and sociology were launched by new discoveries in the Israeli archives and propelled by Zionist-critical ideology during the 1980s. The debates were also influenced by economic and sociopolitical transformations triggered by the Oct. 1973 war. 'New historians' and 'critical sociologists' are challenging the Zionist interpretation as well as the role of Israeli academic in furnishing he scholarly foundations for the interpretation.

An expert on Jewish history discusses the shaping of Israeli identity in the post-Zionism period and its likely impact on the Israeli elections and the Middle East peace process. Economic liberalism has impelled a post-Zionist revisionism, which questions the relevance of Zionism in defining Israeli identity. The debunking of Israel's past and the quest for a new Middle East via a driven peace process condones reality and is fraught with risks. The polarization of Israeli society and a new fundamentalist nationalism will crucially impact the elections and core issues in Israel's external affairs.

I write no recipes for the cookshops of the future (Karl Marx).(1) Dreams also are a fulfillment of the days of our sojourn on Earth. Dreams are not so different [...]

A study on whether Zionism is racist is presented. Scholars and some ex-government officials state their opinions and most agree that it is not Zionism that perpetuates racism but the government and its implementation of Israeli laws. The Jewish people only wish to assert their independence as a nation and their right to self-determination as defined by the UN itself. Their discriminatory attitudes do not result from racism but from political and military conflicts between Israel and Palestine.

The analytic framework that guides research and analysis is often value-laden and conforms to a.hegemonic culture or struggling counter-culture. I discuss five kinds of framework decisions: the sociopolitical boundaries of the collectivity under investigation, the historical periodization of the society, the terminology used to characterize sociological processes and phenomena, the way the research problem is posed, and the subjects deemed appropriate for investigation. In a case study of Israel, I show that the Palestinian minority and Jewish-Arab conflict were characterized by mainstream Israeli sociologists in accordance with dominant Zionist perspectives. Cultural commitments, perceived existential needs, and class, ethnic, and national interests, have shaped the way Israeli sociologists portray the basic features of Israeli society.

WHATEVER ITS GOAL--be it to destroy Israel or only reduce its size--the Palestine Liberation Organization is Israel's most intimate and permanent enemy. This makes it especially paradoxical to realize just [...]

In mid-life Sigmund Freud wrote: 'It still strikes me as strange that the case histories I write should read like short stories, and that, as one might say, they lack [...]

The evolution of a Jewish international public movement in Europe and the Middle East in the mid-nineteenth century that led to the transformation of followers into representatives of opinion is described. These Jewish international modernities incorporated religion to construct a later secular Zionism that could enable a transnational unity of Jews.

Four relevant tenets of Israel's Zion traditions are used to explore the correlation between the two distinct divine-warrior panels 59:15b-21; 63:1-6 and the Zion vindication scene in Isaiah 60-62. The traditions best explain the treatment of the nations by the divine warrior and the nations' response to it in a study of Isaiah 60-62.

The article discusses Arnold Schoenberg's path from 'Die Jakobsleiter' to 'Moses und Aron' with reference to his works of spoken drama 'Der biblische Weg'. The path which leads from the religious syncretism of 'Die Jakobsleiter' through Zionism in 'Der biblische Weg' to the negative monotheism in 'Moses und Aron' reveals his German, Lutheran and Judaist influences.

The political, economic, and ideological entrenchment of the Israeli settlement grid are detailed, in response to Yoav Peled's criticism, to insist that the two-state solution is dead. One of the most puzzling of Peled's criticisms is his assertion that the book is written particularly for an American readership, which is a mistake since he overlooks the discussion of the reasons why US policy in the Middle East is deadlocked.

Virginia TilleyEs, book One-State Solution that supports the theory that this solution is the only option for settling Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also that it should not be seen as a threat to the basic aim of Zionism of establishing a national home for the Jews in Palestine is critically examined. Israeli opinion, IDF interests in the Occupied Territories and brute facts of Palestinian defeat weighed against prospects for an equitable outcome are put forth.

In war, said Churchill, the truth is so precious that it should not go abroad except with a bodyguard of lies. But wars are often won or lost, or caused [...]