Ira Sharkansky is professor emeritus of political science and public administration at Hebrew University.
His books, which are available on Amazon, include:
*Alternative federal solutions to the problem of the administered territories
*Ambiguity, Coping, and Governance: Israeli Experiences in Politics, Religion, and Policymaking
*Ancient and Modern Israel: An Exploration of Political Parallels
*Coping with Terror: An Israeli Perspective
* Governing Israel: Chosen People, Promised Land and Prophetic Tradition
*Governing Jerusalem: Again on the World’s Agenda
* Israel and its Bible: A Political Analysis
* Maligned States: policy accomplishments, problems and opportunities
* Policy Analysis in Political Science
* Policy and Politics in American Governments
* Policy Making in Israel: Routines for Simple Problems and Coping with the Complex
* Politics and Planning in the Holy City
* Politics and Policymaking in Search of Simplicity
* Public Administration: Agencies, Policies, and Politics
* Public Administration Policy Making in Government Agencies
* Public Administration (2nd Edition): Policy Making in Government Agencies
* Regionalism in American Politics
* Rituals of Conflict: Religion, Politics, and Public Policy in Israel
* Spending in the American States
* The Policy Predicament: Making and Implementing Public Policy
* The Political Economy of Israel
* The Politics of Religion and the Religion of Politics
*The Politics of Taxing and Spending
* The Routines of Politics
* The United States: A Study of a Developing Country
* The United States Revisited: A Study of a Still Developing Country
* Urban Politics and Public Policy [Robert Lineberry]
* What Makes Israel Tick: How Domestic Policy-Makers Cope with Restraints
* Wither the State: Politics and Public Enterprise in Three Countries
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Neither the Jews nor the Palestinians have been masters of their fate. Both are small nations, subject to forces much more powerful. But the grandchildren of miserable Jews who came to Israel in the 1940s and 1950s as refugees from the Holocaust and Muslim persecution have created a vibrant democracy, ranked […]
Pragmatism may serve both sides in Mideast conflict Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — I’ve recently received notes from two of my Internet friends suggesting that the usual tension among Jews has reached a point of high fever. Involved in the uptick is the continuing issue of Israel not doing enough to accommodate Palestinians, and the election of Donald Trump. Both notes come from Jews
Divisions among Jews focus on U.S., Israel leaders Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — One of my correspondents provoked this column with the following response to what I had written previously. “I read your article about who is Donald Trump. and it leaves me confused , for once America has a president that is for Israel and you want to pick him apart? The American people
Why Israelis, happy for support, still worry about Trump Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM –It’s not feasible to summarize in any facile way a country of 320 million with the cultural diversities of the United States. Yet it is useful to describe prominent divisions in the society that have roots in the country’s history, are currently competing for control, and are likely to be with
The Americans of Trumpland and Obamaland Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The still unfolding story of Elor Azaria is only the latest saga reflecting the difficulties faced by Israel, and the struggle of officials and others to deal with contending values and aspirations. Azaria was an IDF draftee who became the center of events that seem to have been beyond the
Azaria case points up Israel’s complexity Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It’s not an easy time for someone in the wide center of Israeli politics. The area at issue is fuzzy, with a shifting collection of political parties, party factions, and individuals. At its greatest, it includes much of the Knesset delegations of Likud, Labor (i.e., Zionist Union), and the parties
While Bibi meets Trump, Knesset opponents plot Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Less than a month into his presidency, the dust isn’t settling. It’s still rising. The man is riling things domestically and internationally, by changing, or trying to change some rules or widely accepted ways of doing things. An early poll by CNN shows approval and disapproval about where they were
Assessing Trump’s first month Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It’s one of the greatest of conundrums, or problems that appear to be insoluble. Or at least insoluble in anything like the current situation. And the current situation is not something of this morning or yesterday. It’s been with us, depending on when you begin counting, for 70 years or
The problem of Jerusalem in internat’l law Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The unique opportunity of an Israeli/American political scientist, even of the retired kind, is to observe two heads of government who seem to be on the edge or beyond what is customary or possible. Barely a week into his presidency, we read of efforts to impeach Donald Trump, or to
Trump, Netanyahu seem ‘beyond the edge’ Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — One of the most curious findings about the 2017 election is that 53 percent of White women voted for Trump. Traits associated with education were influential. Sixty-two percent of White women without a college degree voted for Trump. We may see changes in the data as more sophisticated analyses appear. However,
Why did most white women vote for Trump? Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — The world will be fluid for some time. Barack Obama downsized the weight of the US. We’re amidst an upsurge in Muslim violence, chaos in a number of Middle Eastern countries, plus the resurgence of Russian power in Ukraine, Syria, and Libya, all this against the milk toast approach of Obama
The political world is in its fluid state Read More »
International, Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Much ado about nothing “Sound and fury signifying nothing” Also relevant is Murray Edelman’s Symbolic Uses of Politics. The point of them all is that expressions or events that amount to little or nothing in a substantial or material way may move individuals to expressions of high emotion and extreme acts.
Fight over U.S. embassy symbolic and emotional Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USABy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Only three days passed between the political storm triggered by the verdict against Elon Azaria and the terror by heavy truck that killed four IDF officer cadets and wounded others. Immediately after the attack some of the cadets found themselves criticized for seeking cover rather than opening fire against the
Terror, political intrigue keep Israeli pot boiling Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Some nine months ago, when the “stabbing intifada” was still a near daily phenomenon, two Palestinians sought to do their work among soldiers on guard duty in Hebron. The Israelis were alert, killed one of the attackers and “neutralized” the other. According to testimony and a cell phone video supplied
Azaria case roils Israeli politics Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East