The 11th Annual Conference of the European Association of Israel Studies will take place from Sunday, 8 October to Tuesday, 10 October 2023 at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva and Sde Boker.

The aim of the conference is to bring together international scholars from a variety of disciplines, who are engaged in research in any aspect of Israel Studies and neighbouring fields such as Palestine Studies and Middle East Studies – including, but not limited to Politics, Literature, Security, Minorities, History, Migration, Gender, Economics, Law, Religion, Anthropology, Language, Culture, Film, Music and Art.

The conference will be held in person and according to any restrictions and regulations being effective during the event.

Conference Outline:

Europe and Israel are increasingly captured by the phenomenon of right-wing populism, which has moved from the margins of society to the heart of the political mainstream. Liberal democracy contestation and different faces of radicalism are challenging the political status quo. The conference will address the problem of multiple challenges to democracy in Israel as well as in other countries. We believe this comparative perspective will allow us to better understand the political and social trends in the contemporary world.

With political polarization at its height, Israeli society has reached a critical juncture. Our conference takes this crisis as a point of departure for a multidisciplinary academic discussion bringing together scholars from different disciplines. We encourage scholars of Zionism, of Israeli and Palestinian society, of Israel-Diaspora relations, of Arab-Israeli relations and beyond to investigate the nature of the challenges which Israeli society is facing. In particular, we are interested in strengthening comparative analyses of Israel’s institutional crisis – what can be learned from other states’ experiences? What impact will the changes in Israel have on the widening gap between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora? Thirty years after Oslo, what effect will Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians have on its international standing and cooperation with foreign partners?

In other words, what might be the societal, political and economic repercussions of the recent developments in Israel – and how the academic world may respond and contribute to finding a solution?

We aim to explore these topics further during the conference. The following subjects will be of particular, but not exclusive interest:

• polarization of Israel’s society and Israel’s political system
• comparative studies of constitutional crises concerning the power relations between parliaments and the courts
• transformation of the Israeli party system
• Israel’s republicanism (mamlakhtiyut)  in historical and contemporary perspectives
• illiberal tendencies in Israel and Europe
• dynamics of the Israeli protest movements
• Israel’s rule over the occupied territories from a comparative perspective
• position and role of elites in Israeli politics, society and culture
• Israel’s transnational diaspora and its relationship with the Jewish State
• Palestinians in the Israeli political discourse
• right-wing radicalism from a comparative perspective
• evolution of Israel’s relations with its international partners
• different faces of “crisis” in the history of Israel

We encourage applications from established scholars, post-docs, and PhD students working on different aspects of Israeli history, society, politics and culture, whether in the field of Israel Studies, Palestine Studies, Middle East Studies and other adjacent academic fields.

Our keynote speaker will be Prof. Andrea Pető from Central European University (Vienna), speaking on the topic of “The Illiberal Script of De-Democratisation: Lessons and Strategies”.