IATF Conference Call: State-Minority Relations and Trends in Arab Political Leadership

The creation, prior to the 2015 elections, of the Joint List out of the smaller Balad, Hadash and Raam-Taal political parties signaled, among other things, a shift towards a common political strategy of integration for Arab citizens of Israel–despite internal ideological differences–that would bridge pragmatic interests of the Arab public with the economic development commitments of the central government. Recently, events like the abstention of the Joint List from Peres’ funeral, and investigation of MK Basel Ghattas for smuggling cell phones to political prisoners, are raising questions about whether the Joint List is still pursuing a strategy of common interests. If not, what are the underlying causes? If so, how can these recent events be understood and what is their impact on state-minority relations?

On Wednesday, January 4th, the Task Force hosted a conference call about recents events in Arab political leadership and state-minoirty relations with Meir Elran, Senior Fellow, Head of the Program on Homeland Security and the Program on Socio-Military Realtions at the Institute for National Security Studies.  

About the speaker

Meir Elran is a senior research fellow and the director of the Homeland Security Program and a co-director of the Society–Security Program of INSS. Elran joined the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in 2003, after he served in senior analytical command and staff positions in the IDF Directorate of Military Intelligence. His last post was the deputy director of MI (1987-1989). Brig. Gen. (ret.) Meir Elran took an active role in the peace talks with Egypt and was an active member (as a reserve officer) of the military delegation to the peace talks with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Following his retirement for the military Elran served as the chief of staff of the Tel Aviv municipality and afterwards as a senior consultant for strategic planning for several government offices, including the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Internal Security and the National Security Council, where he focused on social issues relating to the national security. Elran’s main areas of research are homeland security and societal resilience in face of protracted terror. He is also engaged in the connection between the social domestic aspects of Israel and its defense doctrine and practice. He has published numerous papers on these subjects and edited several memoranda and volumes, among these: On the Second Lebanon War – Strategic Perspectives (with Shlomo Brom, published by Yediot Ahronot and INSS in 2007), and Societal Resilience (with Alexander McLellan, published in 2012 by the Homeland Security and Analysis Institute in the US). Elran served (2006-2007) as a special consultant to the Winograd Commission, investigating the issues surrounding Israeli conduct during the Second Lebanon War. In 2009 he was an International Fellow with the US NDU’s Near East and South Asia Strategic Studies Center, where he produced a comparative research study on chaos management. Elran holds a BA from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Political Science and Middle East Studies (1965), and an MA from Indiana University in International Relations and Russian Studies (1970). He is presently working on his PhD at the Haifa University School of Political Science School, on measuring societal resilience.