“Educating for democracy” in Israel: Combating or perpetuating racism?

Jewish attacks on Palestinians are usually presented by the Israeli government as the acts of marginal figures rather than evidence of a pervasive climate of racism central to Israeli society. To explore this claim, the author argues we must examine the discourse on cultural difference that pervades Israeli society, rather than the “official” discourse on racism (framed as it is in a Holocaust trope). This discourse illuminates the Israeli version of the “new racism” in which cultural difference serves to generate structural inequalities in society. The article traces the development of cultural‐ism in the educational system and states that recent programs to “educate for democracy” demonstrate the ways in which, as in Europe and the U.S., notions of democracy and the state are being manipulated to preserve a racialized status quo in the face of challenges by subordinate groups.

Key words:

• Israel
• the new racism
• Jewish‐Palestinian relations
• politics of education
• deconstructing difference