- Eyal Lewin is Chair of Department of Multidisciplinary Studies at Ariel University. He is also a research fellow at t... moreEyal Lewin is Chair of Department of Multidisciplinary Studies at Ariel University. He is also a research fellow at the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa, where he manages the implementation and analyses of a national wide annual longitudinal survey. His books and papers concentrate on the political psychology of national resilience.
He has discovered his interest in political science when serving as a personal assistant for a member of the Israeli parliament and head of department in The Jewish Agency, closely encountering political activities in Israel as well as abroad.
Before he completed his PhD studies at the University of Haifa, he managed a private company for business development and the training of marketing managers.edit
Research Interests: Sociology and Patriotism
Research Interests: Sociology and Patriotism
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Almost thirty-five years after Camp David and twenty years after the Oslo Accord, a fundamental question remains unanswered: does the majority of the Israeli public support a left-wing or right-wing ideology? The answer, in a democratic... more
Almost thirty-five years after Camp David and twenty years after the Oslo Accord, a fundamental question remains unanswered: does the majority of the Israeli public support a left-wing or right-wing ideology? The answer, in a democratic system, should be obvious, since elections are supposed to give a clear picture of the political preferences of the voting public.
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Almost thirty-five years after Camp David and twenty years after the Oslo Accord, a fundamental question remains unanswered: does the majority of the Israeli public support a left-wing or right-wing ideology? The answer, in a democratic... more
Almost thirty-five years after Camp David and twenty years after the Oslo Accord, a fundamental question remains unanswered: does the majority of the Israeli public support a left-wing or right-wing ideology? The answer, in a democratic system, should be obvious, since elections are supposed to give a clear picture of the political preferences of the voting public.
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Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost... more
Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost since its formation. The IDF maintains an academic reserve track, where young men and women complete their studies and then serve an extra number of years as professionals. Through in-depth interviews with 30 Druze participants and graduates, this study examines the effects of the academic reserve track on Druze young men, seeking to learn its impact on their future.
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Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost... more
Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost since its formation. The IDF maintains an academic reserve track, where young men and women complete their studies and then serve an extra number of years as professionals. Through in-depth interviews with 30 Druze participants and graduates, this study examines the effects of the academic reserve track on Druze young men, seeking to learn its impact on their future.
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This research focuses on violence by females who were involved in terror attacks in Israel during the Intifada of the Individuals between September 2015 and October 2016. Videos of encounters during this conflict present a sample of... more
This research focuses on violence by females who were involved in terror attacks in Israel during the Intifada of the Individuals between September 2015 and October 2016. Videos of encounters during this conflict present a sample of females perpetrating terror attacks, responding as armed security personnel, or participating (or not) in mob violence following the attack. Using the Three Agent Model of terror attacks, we sorted female modes of participation into "Aggressor," "Disruptor," and part of "Crowd." We analyzed 20 terror attacks with female aggressors and 8 terror attacks with female disruptors, extrapolating the information from analysis of the videos, open-source materials on the Internet, and in-depth interviews. Attacks by female aggressors usually involved numerous "Threat Moves" and were generally disorganized; nevertheless, these aggressors were likely to be killed. Female disruptors were predominantly in uniform and armed. They conveyed a viewpoint of being equal in operational prowess to their fellow soldiers who were male. Some of them expressed an intention to moderate the level of violence during friction, but the video analysis revealed that, like their male fellows, they were likely to inflict lethal violence or to risk being killed. We were not able to locate any evidence of involvement of females in crowd violence following terror attacks, nor that crowd violence by males directed towards subdued female aggressors. We contend that the level of institutional preparation is the most likely explanation for these patterns of aggression on both sides of the political conflict, for women terrorists and women combatants alike. We discuss the utility and limitations of our theoretical and empirical approaches to understanding female aggression.
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Morris Janowitz believed that for an army to be victorious it needs to be led by as many intellectual forces as possible, just as any organization needs organizational intellectualism to prosper. It is agreed in scholarly literature that... more
Morris Janowitz believed that for an army to be victorious it needs to be led by as many intellectual forces as possible, just as any organization needs organizational intellectualism to prosper. It is agreed in scholarly literature that the intellectual must author various articles and manifestos to express their viewpoints, mindset, and philosophy in the public sphere. Based on Janowitz’s belief and using the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as a case study, this research offers a model for a generic research methodology that can be practiced elsewhere. The mission was to find the extent to which the higher echelons of the Israeli military engage in writing academic articles concerning matters of strategy and army professionalism. Among other conclusions, the authors point out that, with certain reservations considered, the number of articles authored by the IDF’s senior officers proved to be low. If publication indeed reflects intellectualism, the few articles produced over seven dec...
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Forty years after its occurrence, the 1982 Lebanon war remains academically understudied with the received wisdom about the conflict largely based on political and journalistic accounts. According to these accounts, the war was a... more
Forty years after its occurrence, the 1982 Lebanon war remains academically understudied with the received wisdom about the conflict largely based on political and journalistic accounts. According to these accounts, the war was a political ploy by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Menachem Begin aimed at achieving far-reaching political goals rather than a defensive attempt to remove the terrorist threat to Israel's northern areas. By placing the conflict within the context of Israeli history and the Arab-Israeli conflict, on the one hand, and the nature and characteristics of modern warfare, on the other, this article offers a more nuanced interpretation of the Lebanon War, showing that it was not fundamentally different from past military encounters.
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Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost... more
Under-representation of minority groups in the academy reflects inequality and lack of social mobilization. The Druze in Israel are a small minority, but they have a unique place in society because they have been serving in the IDF almost since its formation. The IDF maintains an academic reserve track, where young men and women complete their studies and then serve an extra number of years as professionals. Through in-depth interviews with 30 Druze participants and graduates, this study examines the effects of the academic reserve track on Druze young men, seeking to learn its impact on their future.
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Forty years after its occurrence, the 1982 Lebanon war remains academically understudied with the received wisdom about the conflict largely based on political and journalistic accounts. According to these accounts, the war was a... more
Forty years after its occurrence, the 1982 Lebanon war remains academically understudied with the received wisdom about the conflict largely based on political and journalistic accounts. According to these accounts, the war was a political ploy by Defence Minister Ariel Sharon and Prime Minister Menachem Begin aimed at achieving far-reaching political goals rather than a defensive attempt to remove the terrorist threat to Israel's northern areas. By placing the conflict within the context of Israeli history and the Arab-Israeli conflict, on the one hand, and the nature and characteristics of modern warfare, on the other, this article offers a more nuanced interpretation of the Lebanon War, showing that it was not fundamentally different from past military encounters.
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The article reviews the development of the modern idea of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) whose buds appeared after the First World War, matured during the Cold War and demonstrated in 1982 in the First Lebanon War by the Israeli Air... more
The article reviews the development of the modern idea of Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) whose buds appeared after the First World War, matured during the Cold War and demonstrated in 1982 in the First Lebanon War by the Israeli Air Force, and in 1991 in the Iraq War by the American Army. After analyzing the essence of RMA, with reference to the concept of both evolution and revolution of military technologies and doctrines, the article suggests that two types of revolutions should be distinguished. The first is a revolution in military affairs in the broadest sense in which a paradigm shift in the nature of war is occurred, and it is possible to apply it mainly by superpowers. The second, is a limited revolution that is essentially an approach of solving a military problem, suitable for small countries. The article examines these ideas and shows that Operation Mole Cricket 19, in which Syrian missile batteries made in the USSR were destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in 1982, ...
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Patriotism is comprehended by its very definition as the active love for one's country. Anti-patriotism, it goes without saying, is just the opposite: a refusal of any sacrifice that might be demanded. The Israeli case, however,... more
Patriotism is comprehended by its very definition as the active love for one's country. Anti-patriotism, it goes without saying, is just the opposite: a refusal of any sacrifice that might be demanded. The Israeli case, however, enables us to study more deeply what patriotism and anti-patriotism is all about: the experience of wars and terror attacks bears an opportunity to inquire directly the various protagonists and to learn from first hand how patriotic the patriot really is and how anti-patriotic his opponent may be. The analyses of numerous interviews with soldiers and combat veterans as well as the testimonies of pacifists and peace activists reveal a somewhat compound picture: some of the heroes who have excelled in warfare had not necessarily been motivated by loyalty to their country, whereas others, such as those who have refused to fulfill their duty as soldiers, had expressed a very patriotic inspiration. Understanding the complexity that lies within the definition...
Holocaust inversion is the demonization of Jews, who were the major victims of the criminality of Nazi Germany. It is the claim that Israel behaves toward the Palestinians as Nazi Germany behaved toward the Jews. After reviewing the... more
Holocaust inversion is the demonization of Jews, who were the major victims of the criminality of Nazi Germany. It is the claim that Israel behaves toward the Palestinians as Nazi Germany behaved toward the Jews. After reviewing the phenomenon and understanding its psychological, political, and historical origins, this chapter focuses on its strange occurrence in the West, most strangely among the Jewish people, and oddly enough within Israeli society. This study shows how Israeli Holocaust inversion is manifested among intellectuals, political leaders, and most disturbingly among the rank and file of the IDF, even within this institute's educational system.
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Abstract Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon is one of the most controversial events in its history. It is considered the war of Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, and hence a war of choice. One of the... more
Abstract Israel’s 1982 war in Lebanon is one of the most controversial events in its history. It is considered the war of Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his defense minister, Ariel Sharon, and hence a war of choice. One of the historical questions concerning that war revolves around its origins. The widespread assumption is that the roots can be found in 1981, the year in which Israel was on the verge of war with both Syria and the PLO. However, this article claims that the 1967 Six-Day War was the point of departure to the 1982 Lebanon War when the PLO settled in Lebanon. The issue of the origins of the 1982 war is not an exclusively historiographic matter. It has broader implications concerning the nature of the war. If the roots of the conflict can be found in 1967, then the war was a result of a prolonged process. Indeed, Israel started the war, but it was only after other options that it exercised had failed. Hence, it was not at all a war of choice.
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1 * Abstract: Focusing on one historic but unsuccessful effort to achieve peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the 2000 Camp David summit, this paper pres- ents a systematic framework for future analyses of the conflict. An analysis... more
1 * Abstract: Focusing on one historic but unsuccessful effort to achieve peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the 2000 Camp David summit, this paper pres- ents a systematic framework for future analyses of the conflict. An analysis of the failure of the Camp David summit enables us to spotlight some of the deep- seated essential problems of war and peace in the Middle East. An inquiry into the substance of the summit reveals how, all in all, the conflict is based on six major issues: (1) the establishment of a Palestinian state, (2) the location of land for the Palestinian state, (3) the evacuation of Israeli settlements, (4) the partition of Jerusalem, (5) Palestinian custodianship over the Temple Mount, and (6) the refugee problem. Emphasizing the importance of national ethos, this paper de- fines the above mentioned six major issues in dispute that constitute the Israeli- Palestinian conflict by viewing them through the eyes of each of the rival parties. This article expla...
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This article examines the idea of buffer zones as a vehicle for dialogue and coexistence. In particular, it raises an assumption that bottom-up developments, rather than top-down policies, are liable to turn buffer zones into bridges for... more
This article examines the idea of buffer zones as a vehicle for dialogue and coexistence. In particular, it raises an assumption that bottom-up developments, rather than top-down policies, are liable to turn buffer zones into bridges for coexistence between rival parties. We examine two Middle Eastern case studies: The Good Fence policy that Israel practiced in South Lebanon during the 1970s, and the Israeli Good Neighbor Administration that was in effect along the Syrian border from 2016 to 2018. These case studies reveal a peculiar model: the social-humanitarian buffer zone, which was located where combat took place, and evolved through decisions that were made by the official leadership, but were actually dictated by lower-ranked social agents. We conclude that a social-humanitarian buffer zone, advancing in a bottom-up direction, has the capacity to reduce regional violence and to weaken hostility.
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The 2013 election campaign in Israel shows, at first glance, some unanticipated results and unexpected reactions of several political actors. Three events in particular can be noted: (1) the rise of a significant centrist middle-class... more
The 2013 election campaign in Israel shows, at first glance, some unanticipated results and unexpected reactions of several political actors. Three events in particular can be noted: (1) the rise of a significant centrist middle-class party; (2) the association of the newly elected right-wing Prime Minister with his left-wing rivals; and (3) the revival of a national religious party after years of decline. A broad overview, however, reveals that from many perspectives numerous key elements of Israeli politics have remained broadly the same over the decades. Some unanticipated outcomes of the elections are to a substantial extent repetitions of past events, referred to in this paper as historic recurrences. In order to establish this claim about historic recurrence, each event is compared to past events with which several striking similarities are found. In order to explain the phenomenon of historic recurrence in Israeli politics, two sets of concepts are applied: the sociological terminology regarding reference group and collective identity, and rational choice theories about voter behaviour and the preferences of political actors.
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This is my fifth book, part of an ongoing project in which I inquire the phenomenon of self-hatred among Jews. The focus here is on Jewish Holocaust inverson, as an apetiser for the wider historical review of Jewish anti-semitism.
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A look into the combination of sociology and technology in the development of special military forces, through the unique Israeli case study of the Haruv reconnaissance unit.
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An editted book (I co-authored with Udi Lebel) that takes the 1973 trauma as a watershed in various dimensions of social life in Israel.
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A book review by David Rodman about my book
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This is a chance to join a young and very special group of researchers!