Since its founding in 1948 Israel has faced many political, social and psychological challenges, unfamiliar to other nations on the western democratic political model and peculiar to the Jewish state. This work covers the role of politics in Israel since 1948.

Introduces the cutting edge issues and current scholarship in the interdisciplinary field of Israel Studies.

Binational cities play a pivotal role in situations of long-term conflict, and few places have been more marked by the tension between intimate proximity and visceral hostility than Jaffa, one of the "mixed towns" of Israel/Palestine. In this nuanced ethnographic and historical study, Daniel Monterescu argues that such places challenge our assumptions about cities and nationalism, calling into question the Israeli state's policy of maintaining homogeneous, segregated, and ethnically stable spaces. Analyzing everyday interactions, life stories, and histories of violence, he reveals the politics of gentrification and the circumstantial coalitions that define the city. Drawing on key theorists in anthropology, sociology, urban studies, and political science, he outlines a new relational theory of sociality and spatiality.

The treatment of Arab minorities has been a controversial and contentious issue in Israel. Both during the pre-state era and in its aftermath, the Arabs in Israel were seen primarily as a 'problem' to be tackled and a 'security threat' to be contained. The Arab population in erstwhile Palestine overnight lost its majority status and involuntarily acquired the citizenship of the Jewish state. They suddenly became an ethnic, national, linguistic, religious and cultural minority in a pre-dominantly Jewish state. The emergence of Israel in truncated Palestine was accompanied by political, social and psychological hardships for the Arabs. Was there a systematic policy of discrimination vis-à-vis the Arabs? The first section of this paper discusses the electoral system within which the Arab population operates. Because of the non-constituency nature of the elections, it is possible for a scattered electorate committed to a single political, social or economic agenda to send a representative to the Knesset. The newly introduced direct election of the prime minister has further enhanced the importance of the Arab electorate. The second section discusses the politicization of the Arab sector and the relative importance and performance of the Arab electorate in Israeli elections. The third section focuses on the process of legitimization of the Arab electorates and Arab-oriented parties under the Rabin-led Labor government. Following the 1992 elections, the Arabs emerged as a legitimate force in Israeli politics. For the first time, the Israeli government was willing to acknowledge the inequality between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, and committed to seeking a remedy. The last section analyzes the role of the Arab voters in the closely contested 1996 elections, especially for the post of Prime Minister and represents a tentative projection for the future.