Extremism and violence in Israeli democracy

Abstract

This article was written under the impact of the two most violent acts in Israeli recent memory, the February 1994 massacre of 29 praying Palestinians by Dr Baruch Goldstein in Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs, and the November 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The article explores the role of extremism and violence in Israeli politics since the 1948 foundation of the Jewish state, and tries to resolve the seeming contradiction between Israeli's success to establish the only viable democracy in the Middle East, and the unexpected rise of Jewish violence. Like other writers in this volume, I conclude that democracy does sometimes produce violence, and oddly that violence may on some occasion strengthen the foundations of civic politics and democracy.