Introduction

Summary

Turbulence seems like the proper word to describe Israel since 1980, and especially the two summers between which this book was written (2005 and 2006). In the summer of 2005, after thirty-eight years of occupation, Israel unilaterally withdrew from the Gaza Strip, demolished the Jewish settlements it had built, and returned to its pre-1967 borders. After months of tension, with various demonstrations and protests, the Israeli army and police moved in to evacuate the settlements, and the subsequent emotional clashes were shown worldwide. Israelis were expecting a quiet summer in 2006, with a new government, elected just four months previously, settling in. However, the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier on the Gaza border on June 25 and the inevitable Israeli retaliation were the prelude to yet more turmoil. Less than a month later, Hezbollah guerrillas on the Lebanese border attacked an Israeli patrol and kidnapped two soldiers. Israel's retaliatory air bombardments and Hezbollah's shelling of Northern Israel escalated into a ground war in Lebanon that ended after a month with a UN-brokered ceasefire. At the time of writing Israel is still painfully researching and debating the causes, management, and consequences of the so-called Second Lebanon War.

Significant changes in the past quarter-century have transformed Israel demographically, spatially, economically, and politically. To a large extent it has since the 1980s evolved into a state and society riddled with existential questions such as “What is Israel?”; “Who is an Israeli?”; and “What does it mean to be an Israeli?”