The 19th Broadyard Workshop (博雅工作坊), held by the Institute of Area Studies, Peking University (PKUIAS), was held at the Yingjie Exchange Center on May 24th. Focusing on the theme of “The Orientation and New Tendencies of the State of Israel,” more than 10 Chinese and foreign scholars from PKU, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Nanjing University, University of Haifa and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem attended the workshop and engaged in thorough discussion of such topics as Israel’s religious tradition, history, culture, and internal and foreign affairs, as well as the situation in the Middle East.

After Israel’s new parliamentary election in April this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proudly declared that the right-wing camp would continue to lead Israel in the next four years. Lei Yu, a professor of history at Northwest University, opined that the root cause for this state of affairs was that the right-wing parties that emphasize homeland security win, while the support rate of political parties that focus on economic and social issues declines; ultra-orthodox parties have a solid foundation, while Arab-Israelis’ support rate for their political parties has reached a new low over the past decade.

Ever since Netanyahu was elected as Prime Minister of Israel for the second time in 2009, the Netanyahu government has passively dealt with the peace talks between the US and Palestine. After Trump was elected as the US president, the Netanyahu government strengthened its coordination and cooperation with the US, which led Trump to make a slew of major adjustments to its policies toward the Middle East in favor of Israel. She Gangzheng, an assistant professor of international relations at the School of Social Sciences at Tsinghua University, said that Trump’s move was in line with his consistent approach to dealing with the Middle East. Since entering the White House in 2017, Trump has frequently shown his positive attitude to Israel. As a main line in his seemingly chaotic Middle East policy, he has successfully used it in exchange for Israel's support for the so-called “Deal of the Century.” In addition to using Israel to curb Iran’s forces in Syria and other places and ensuring that the US could maintain its strategic interests in the Middle East at a lower cost, Trump’s fundamental purpose has been to cater to American voters to ensure that he will be re-elected in the 2020 election.

Although the US is planning to promote its Middle East peace process through the Deal of the Century, some aspects of this deal worry the international community, and also have met with strong opposition from Palestine. Yang Yang, deputy dean of the School of Asian and African Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, opined that whether the new initiative can be accepted by both Palestine and Israel depends on a number of factors, including whether the agreement meets the minimum demands of both Palestine and Israel, whether it can be supported by major Arab countries, and how the Trump government exerts its influence on both sides; but the most important factor will be the influence of the internal political environment of Palestine and Israel.

Recently, the situation in Palestine and Israel has tightened once again, with conflicts between the two sides occurring frequently and causing a large number of casualties. According to Hillel Cohen-Bar, head of Department of Islam and Middle East Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Palestinian–Israeli conflict is not simply a confrontation caused by territorial and sovereign demands between Palestine and Israel; in fact, religious factors have played a more critical role. On the one hand, the Zionist movement has become Israel’s national movement. On the other, Palestinians and Arabs are almost all Muslims. Therefore, the confrontation between the two sides is actually a continuation of the confrontation between Judaism and Islam, the core of which is, which religion is the “true faith” and is favored by “God,” and thus has the power to dominate the “Holy Land.”

Song Lihong, a professor of philosophy at Nanjing University, analyzed the causes of the Palestinian–Israeli dilemma from the perspective of Jewish fundamentalism. He opined that in recent decades, religion has returned to the public life of Israel. Although the fundamentalists represented by Haredim are not many in number, they are increasingly able to influence the perceptions and values of modern Orthodox Jews. To a large extent, modern Jewish orthodoxy in Israel has favored the ideology of Haredi Judaism and regards settlement by Jews in the ancient Jewish homeland (the West Bank of the Jordan River) as the most important religious commandment and a necessary condition for the belief in Judaism. For Israel, which faces hostility from the surrounding Arab countries, the expansion of Jewish fundamentalism will have a lasting impact on the direction of Israel and the situation in the Middle East.

Scholars at the workshop also expressed their views and had heated discussions on issues such as military service in Israel and the Israeli security environment and related policies. As for the “century problem,” namely the difficulty to build peace between Palestine and Israel, Uri Ben-Eliezer, chair of the Department of Sociology, University of Haifa, gave an analysis from the perspective of the Israeli right-wing political forces. He explained that Israel’s right-wing political forces emerged in the early 20th century, and further developed after the founding of the State of Israel. After the 1967 Six Day War, their power continued to accumulate, and they have thrived in Israel in recent decades. The right-wing tendency of Israeli politics has made Israel’s democratic politics less free, making it impossible  for there to be greater changes. And the country’s political approach to Palestine will continue to be conservative and tough.