Table of Contents

Introduction - David Tal Part I: In or Of the Middle East 1 How it Began: Europe vs. The Middle East in the Orientation of the First Zionist Settlers – Alan Dowty 2 Israel and the Middle East: on the Unresolved Matter of Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation – Aharon Klieman 3 Unfortunate Misplacement: Israeli-Jewish Public perceptions of Israel in the Middle East – Tamar Hermann & Ephraim Yaar-Yuchtman 4 The Israeli Party System in Comparative Perspective: A “Unique case” or part of the West European tradition?- Csaba Nikolenyi Part II: Contested Identities 5 Where East Meets West – David Ohana 6 The Irresolvable Geographies of Mediterranean- Israeli Music – Amy Horowitz 7 The Architect and Critic Leo Adler and the Definition of Tel Aviv as a Modern Mediterranean City – Yossi (Joseph) Klein 8 Double Exclusion and the Search for Inessential Solidarities: The Experience of Iraqi Jews as Heralding a New Concept of Identity and Belonging – Reuven Snir 9 Remote Participants: Lessons about Israeli Identity from the Experience of Israeli Parents in America– Udi Sommer & Michal Ben Zvi Sommer 10 The Israeli triangle: (de)constructing the borders between Israeliness, Jewishness and migrant workers- Robin A. Harper and Hani Zubida Part III: Cinema and Identity 11 Israeli Cinema’s ‘I’m in the East and My Heart in the West’ – Igal Bursztyn 12 Visions of East and West in Contemporary Israeli Cinema and Television – Paul Kubicek 13 MediterEastern Blues: New Discourses of Locality in Israeli Cinema – Miri Talmon Part IV: Arabs and Jews 14 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Psychosocial and Identity Impact on Arab and Jewish Adolescents in Israel – Alean Al-Krenawi 15 Paradoxes of Identity: Jewish/Muslim Interpenetration in Almog Behar and Sayed Kashua - Ranen Omer-Sherman 16 Democracy and Liberal-Democratic Values in Religious- Zionist Discourse: The Case of Halakhic Q&A Websites – Oren Steinitz

About the Author

David Tal is the Kahanoff Chair in Israel Studies and a Professor in the Department of History at the University of Calgary, Canada. He is an expert in the history of the Middle East as well as nuclear proliferation and disarmament. His previous publications include War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy (2004), The 1956 War: Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East (2001), Israel’s Conception of Current Security: Origins and Development 1949–1956 (1998), and The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945–1963 (2008). He is currently working on a history of the strategic arms limitation talks and détente.