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Chapter 6 The Middle East: Israel llan Peleg This chapter is based on two main theoretical constructs. The first is the argument that the long-term stability of a political regime depends, to a large extent, on its ability to generate social legitimacy. The widespread acceptance of the regime's fundamental values is a key for the ability of the polity to maintain its governance patterns; the increasing rejection of those fundamental values by significant segments of the population is likely to generate revisions in those governance patterns. Put differently, erosion in social legitimacy results in increased instability. The second theoretical claim is that in today's world human and civil rights are increasingly important as "fundamental values" of most regimes, especially democratic ones. Therefore, a democratic regime must demonstrate commitment to human and civil rights or it will face certain erosion of its social legitimacy, reflected in powerful challenges from significant segments of the population under its control. Contemporary Israel is an example of a polity suffering from sharp decline in social legitimacy despite (or possibly because of) increasing commitment to human and civil rights on the part ofmany Israelis. It is a polity experiencing a multidimensional crisis of legitimacy, characterized by serious challenge to existing, entrenched political forces by new, rising political forces. The new forces typically demand the redefinition of the polity's patterns ofgovernance, and especially the place ofindividual and collective rights within these patterns. This chapter begins by offering an analysis of Israel's traditional "rights order" (or "rights regime"), emphasizing not only the overall character of the Israeli polity in the country's formative years but its specific approach to civil and human rights. The second section deals with the challenges thrown at the contemporary Israeli polity, and particularly its traditional approach to justice and rights, by various groups under its control. The historical processes leading to the evolution of these challenges will be analyzed , as will the mixed, incomplete, and hesitant response of the system 114 llan Peleg (Peleg 2001). The final section assesses how the Israeli system might eventually redefine its notions of rights, so as genuinely to integrate the challenges into a revamped rights regime. While that regime may not be able to integrate all challenges into a new "rights order," it will surely need to absorb large numbers of these in order to guarantee the survival and stability of the political system. The "old" Israeli regime, still in evidence today in many parts of the Israeli polity, openly privileged Jews over Arabs, Israel proper (pre-1967) over the occupied territories, Ashkenazim (Israelis of European descent) over Sephardim (Israelis whose origins are in Arabic-speaking countries), secularists over religionists, military personnel over civilians, and men over women. Although the precise form and the depth of that discrimination varied dramatically from one group to the other, it existed in all these areas. The current challenge to the established order is seen most clearly in the ongoing rebellion among Arabs in the Territories and inside Israel proper, the demand for women's rights, and other phenomena. Israel~ Traditional Rights Regime The formative period of the State of Israel, starting with the establishment of the state in 1948, is often viewed as somewhat of a political "Golden Age." Subscribing to centrist positions and building political coalitions to sustain such positions, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father and first Prime Minister, is seen by those who promote this perspective as a tough but pragmatic politician. According to this common view, while Israel of the post-1967 era raises "serious questions about the maintenance of the democratic values of liberty and equality, and commitment to the rule of law" (Medding 1990, 229), the Ben-Gurionist era, ending in 1963, is characterized by positive development of a young and vibrant Israeli democracy. From the perspective of civil and human rights, the periodization of Israeli history implicit in this approach has far-reaching implications, many of them relevant for Israel at present and in the future. This approach views pre-1967 Israel (preceding the Six-Day War) positively, emphasizing that the trend during the founding period was in the direction of greater democratization , heightened political competition, increasing autonomy ofvarious social groups, greater media independence, and a more active role for rightprotectingjudiciary (Medding 1990, 226). Where discriminatory practices existed, they are perceived and described as "necessary" (for state security), "modest," or forced on Israel by a hostile environment. Even Ben-Gurion's personal deviation from his commitment to...

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