The Hegemony of Neo-Zionism and the Nationalizing State in Israel

Abstract

Israel has been undergoing major changes in the last few decades. One of these major changes is the rise of a very conservative and even messianic ultranationalistic political block that is dominating center stage in the political system, and turning its ideology into the official policy of the state. This development, which started decades ago and reached a hegemonic position in the last few years, reflects a process according to which Israel has moved into a NeoZionist era, characterized by an intensive “nationalizing” process, manifested in the legal, judicial, and cultural fields. 1 The process of nationalizing, as described by Rogers Brubaker, “is the tendency to see the state as an ‘unrealised’ nationstate, as a state destined to be a nationstate, the state of and for a particular nation, but not yet in fact a nationstate (at least not to a significant degree); and the concomitant disposition to remedy this perceived defect, to make the state what it is properly and legitimately destined to be, by promoting the language, culture, demographic position, economic flourishing, or political hegemony of the nominally statebearing nation.” 2 Since this process of nationalizing is rather too complex to be reflected upon in one short paper, the following pages address it at the legislative level,