At the inaugural Younes Nazarian Memorial Lecture of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies on Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel’s 75th independence day, Yossi Klein Halevi contended that mass demonstrations against the proposed judicial reforms of Prime Minister Netanyahu were reanimating the center in Israeli politics.
“To be a liberal Israeli these days is to experience an anguish that I’ve never known in the 40 years that I’ve lived in Israel,” he said. “I never recall losing sleep the way that I do now.”
“What we’re experiencing in Israel is a convergence of assaults. This is the most corrupt, most politically extreme and most religiously fundamentalist government in Israel’s history. Any one of those assaults would be a formidable challenge. Coming together, [they have] really brought us to the edge of what feels like the abyss.”
Read the full article about the program here.
Organized by the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and co-sponsored by the Shalom Hartman Institute, the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies, American Jewish University, Hillel at UCLA, Sinai Temple, Valley Beth Shalom, B’nai David-Judea, Leo Baeck Temple, and IKAR.
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