The Israeli Peace Movement: A Shattered Dream

by Tamar S. Hermann

Overview

This books deals with the predicament of the Israeli peace movement, which, paradoxically, following the launching of the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, experienced a prolonged, fatal decline in membership, activity, political significance, and media visibility. After presenting the regional and national background to the launching of the peace process and a short history of Israeli peace activism, the book focuses on external and internal processes and interactions experienced by the peace movement, after some basic postulates of its agenda were actually, although never explicitly, embraced by the Rabin government. The analysis brings together insights from social movement theory and theories on public opinion and foreign and security policymaking. The book's conclusion is that, despite its organizational decline and the zero credit given to it by the policymakers, in retrospect it appears that the movement contributed significantly to the integration of new ideas for possible solutions to the Middle East conflict in the Israeli mainstream political discourse.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521884099
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/14/2009
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tamar Hermann is a Professor of Political Science and Dean of Academic Studies at the Open University (OU) of Israel. She also serves as a Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and a co-director of the Peace Index project at Tel Aviv University. Her present research examines the growing estrangement of citizens in many representative democracies from politics and the politicians and is meant to assess the potential outcomes of this process in terms of democratic governability and stability.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction; 2. Exploring peace activism - a road map; 3. Mapping the Israeli socio-political terrain; 4. Paving the road to Oslo - Israeli peace activism through 1993; 5. The path strewn with obstacles (1993–2008); 6. Exploring new ways or getting lost?; Appendix 1; Appendix 2.

Editorial Reviews

This is as rich, full, detailed, and complex a book on the Israeli peace movement as can be imagined. It is a tour de force….The book is extraordinarily rich in observations and insights….The reader is left with a superbly nuanced and lucid understanding of the virtues and limits of the Israeli peace movement throughout its history.”
– Gordon Fellman, Brandeis University, Israel Studies Forum

“If peace is important to you – or scares you – Tamar Hermann’s hard-nosed assessment of the Israeli peace movement is a must-read. Many of its policy positions have been internalized by much of the public, yet the movement has been impotent in creating the momentum to bring about peace. Hermann’s solid analysis reminds us that being right (correct) on the left demands hard work and political skill.”
– Asher Arian, Senior Fellow, Israel Democracy Institute, and Distinguished Professor of Political Science, City University of New York

“A thorough and theoretically and empirically based – as well as extremely well-informed –analysis, Hermann’s book will certainly stand out as the definitive work on the Israeli peace movement. The author’s sensitivity to the nuances, dilemmas, and complexities of the peace movement in periods of dramatically changing circumstances provides a unique and insightful as well as comprehensive study.”
– Galia Golan, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya

“Professor Tamar Hermann has written a penetrating analysis of the difficulties faced by the Israeli peace movement and the reasons for its political marginalization, despite the impetus it received from the Oslo peace process. This fine book, which also pays due regard to the peace movement’s positive impact, is an important contribution to the literature on social movements and to research on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
– Adrian Guelke, Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict, Queen’s University of Belfast

“This important book seeks to answer the paradoxical question: why did the Israeli peace movement – so critical in the 1980s in building a context and infrastructure for peace in Israel – become so ostracized and begin a fatal decline in the 1990s, just when the prospects for peace seemed brightest? Tamar Hermann assesses the obvious answer – terrorism – but goes far deeper in this rich and highly interesting study.”
– Daniel C. Kurtzer, S. Daniel Abraham Chair in Middle East Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University

From the Publisher