The Globalization Of Israel

This book focuses on how globalization is impacting contemporary Israel. It is a concise and originally argued introduction to Israel, but the author, Uri Ram, is careful to frame his analysis in a broader discussion of Israeli history and broader social currents. Focusing in particular on two defining – and conflicting – contemporary trends; one toward advanced liberal democracy with a cosmopolitan edge, and the other toward ethno-religious traditionalism and rejection of the secularism associated with market driven globalization. The cosmopolitan, high-tech driven city of Tel Aviv represents the former trend, and Jerusalem – a city increasingly dominated by orthodox Jews – represents the latter. Using Benjamin Barber's Jihad versus McWorld thesis to good effect, Ram's book will stand as an ideal introduction to contemporary Israel and its place in the world.

A rigorous analysis of the role played by globalization in key episodes in the development of the Israeli economy, from hyperinflation crisis to high-tech surge. Anti-globalization sentiments are rising, especially in Europe and the United States, with the increasingly integrated global economy blamed for domestic economic distress. In this book, Assaf Razin argues that Israel offers a counterexample to this view, showing decisively positive economic effects of globalized finance, trade, and immigration. He offers a rigorous analysis of the role played by globalization in key episodes in the remarkable development of the Israeli economy. His findings may hold lessons for productivity-challenged advanced economies as well as for other countries such as China currently making the transition to fully developed economies. Razin examines the wave of immigration after the collapse of the Soviet Union, as highly skilled Soviet Jews migrated to Israel and the effect on income inequality; the Great Moderation of inflation and employment in advanced economies, as Israel's inflation converged in parallel with low world inflation rates; Israel's robustness in the face of the deflation shocks of the 2008 financial crisis; and technology transmission through foreign direct investment, reinforcing Israel's high-tech sector surge. He also considers such ongoing challenges as high fertility and low labor market participation and the economic costs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The debate about globalisation and its discontents

Mass communication has long been recognized as an important contributor to national identity and nation building. This book examines the relationship between media and nationalism in Israel, arguing that, in comparison to other countries, the Israeli case is unique. It explores the roots and evolution of newspapers, journalism, radio, television, and the debut of the Internet on both the cultural and the institutional levels, and examines milestones in the socio-political development of Hebrew and Israeli mass communication. In evaluating the technological changes in the media, the book shows how such shifts contribute to segmentation and fragmentation in the age of globalization.

In America in JeruSALEm, the authors examine the effects of globalization and Americanization on the national identity of small nations. Using Israel as a case study, First and Avraham analyzed the changes in Israeli advertising over the past two decades. They found that since the '90s, Israeli advertisers began using American symbols, values, sights, and heroes to promote diverse products without any consideration of the place they were actually made. The perspective offered in this book--a consideration of advertising as a locus of the tension between national identity and globalization/Americanization--is an innovative one, generating a model that can be used to analyze national identity through advertising in the age of globalization/Americanization. Although many books have focused on numerous aspects of Israeli society, America in JeruSALEm offers a new and accessible perspective on the changes in Israeli identity.

Now in paperback, this detailed examination of Israeli foreign policy towards the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) - between the 1967 war and the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip - focuses on the impact of the process of globalization on the Israeli state's politics, economy, society, and culture. In order to determine how interfacing developed between foreign policy and globalization, a theoretical framework is presented that brings together two established approaches that hitherto have been advanced in parallel: Foreign Policy Analysis and Globalization Theory. Causal relationships underpinning Israeli foreign policy - involving government, the state, the economy, social stratification, and the media - are linked to globalization by specific example. Conventional accounts of this relationship strip military and political factors of any significance, in terms of the conceptualization of globalization and its causes, in favor of spatio-temporal and economic dimensions. The state is viewed as being compelled to transform in response to the pressures of globalization. But in the case of Israel, the state acted proactively by using foreign policy towards the PLO as a key site of action to capture the opportunities and cope with the challenges presented by globalization. This study shows that the increasing impact of military and political globalization during the Cold War on the Arab-Israeli conflict resulted in Israeli foreign policy towards the PLO becoming entwined from the early 1970s.

Examining Israeli foreign policy towards the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) between the 1967 war and the 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, this work focuses on the impact and process of globalisation on the Israeli state's politics, economy, society and culture.

In this book Ari Ofengenden examines the ways that Israel’s integration into global economy has affected its main stream culture. Ofengenden uses works of Israeli film, literature, and television, from the past 30 years to conceptualize the changes in Israel’s culture. He analyzes the central phenomena associated with Israel’s integration into the global economy including: the demise of realism and the rise of commercial culture, the production of film, television, and novels for western audiences, and the critiques of capitalism in media. Ofengenden also explores the refiguring national identity through critique of masculinity. The book also discusses the affect globalization and marketization has had on modern narratives of the Arab-Israeli conflict.