Search results

On 13 April 1988 the Israeli cabinet approved the modernization program proposed by the general staff of the Israel Defense Force Navy (ID FN). 1 The proposed program included the acquisition of four 1300-ton missile corvettes of the new Saar 5 type and three 1200-ton Dolphin-class submarines. The estimated cost for this ten-year project was $1.5 billion. The government, however, limited procurement to three Saar 5s and two new submarines. 2 This rather controversial decision was reached after eight years of deliberations in the defense establishment. Although opponents of the program continued their efforts to prevent its realization, in February 1989 the Israeli Ministry of Defense finally signed a contract with the U.S. Ingalls Company for the building of the Saar 5s.

This article is based on the author's work and research on investigations into deaths in detention in 1988-89: A total of nineteen prisoners have died in Israeli prisons since the beginning of the Intifada. After five detainees died in the course of one week in August 1988, human rights activists made attempts to set up mechanisms of oversight and investigation, with some success. (DÜI-Hns)

AbstractThe Israeli–Palestinian conflict is generally referred as a territorial conflict, but it is also a conflict over the preservation of identity. This study analyzes the relations of Jews and Palestinians in Israel from an identity security perspective. It sheds light on how the communities perceive actions, discourses, and symbols as a mutual threat to their own identity. Adapting the concept of societal security dilemma (SSD), this study seeks to reveal the patterns of feeling insecure between the groups and to put forth the measures and countermeasures taken to secure identity. This approach contends that the measures and countermeasures taken to reduce the perception of threat do not lead to a feeling of security; on the contrary, it creates a cycle of constant threat perception, making the groups feel more insecure in terms of identity. I argue that this is the case for the Jews and Palestinians in Israel. The analytical dimensions of SSD are applied to the case via process tracing and historical analysis. However, I identify a gap unaddressed by these dimensions of the concept. The present study proposes an additional dimension—confrontation—to fill this gap.