Construction Of The Nation Of Israel

It could be called a miracle in the modern history that the emergence of Israel in 1948. It was the outcome of three factors: the struggle of a group of Zionist, the support of great countries and the changing world situation in early 20th century. The special history of Jews and the extraordinary road of its country-building have a huge impact on Israel nation-building. This thesis explores the formation of Israeli nation and the formation of its citizens' attachment to the nation. Under this theme, I choose four pairs of contradictions that beset oday's Israeli society: the controversy of Ideology, the contradictions of national morority Jews and the national minority Arabs, the idea of modeling a single national culture and the reality of pluralistic culture, the conflict of religion and secularism. These topics compose the main body of the thesis.The fact is that, with the development of Israel's economy, the improvement of it's state power and the political system, the state-building of Israel is going to be finished, and achieved noticeable success. While on the other hand, Israel's nation-building is slow, lags far behind its state-building. Ideology, ethnic group and religion mingles with each other, brings many paradox and divergence. This thesis is guided by Marx's materialist conception of history. Through analysis and study, I have reached following conculsion:1,Zionsim is composed of Labor Zionism, Revisism Zionism and Religion Zionism. Under the common aim of building Israel and maintain its development, these three schools collaborate while struggle, and become the main force of Israel nation-building.2,Zionism is the dominant ideology of Israel's political and social life, but the hegemony status of it has been weakened. It has o face the challenge of Neo-Zionism from the redical right camp and Post-Zionsim from the democratic left camp.3,Melting-pot policy is necessary for creat a united national identity and civic culture. Israel's melting-pot policy is directed by the Western and modern culture of Ashkenazi, the outcome is the emergence of ethnic stratification and ethnic identity.4,On the basis of ethnic identity, orential Jews and former Soviet immigrants, as well as Arabs, all build ethnic political parties. The politicizing of ethnic group is the important feature of Israel's political life.5,Under the Zionism ideology , Israel's nation-building is equaled with Jewish re-construction and revival. Arabs are excluded Israel's nation-building as outsiders, and become the "internal colonized" national minority.6,Judaism's great impact on society and religion party's excessive political power make Israel wavered between secular democracy and theocracy. The divergence and conflict of them has led Israel's gravest national identiy crisis, which limits the normal and healthy development of Israeli domestic affairs and foreign affairs.7,In the process of Israel's nation-building, ideology, ethnic group and religion coordinate and condition with each other, there is an interactive relationship among these three factors.