Meron Benvenisti

Meron Benvenisti

Meron Benvenisti (Hebrew: מירון בנבנשתי‎, born 1934) is an Israeli political scientist who was Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem under Teddy Kollek from 1971 to 1978, during which he administered East Jerusalem and served as Jerusalem's Chief Planning Officer. Initially trained as a medievalist, he has published books and maps on the Crusaders period in the Holy Land, he later obtained a Harvard doctorate in conflict management. In 1984 he founded the West Bank Database Project, documenting social, economic, and political developments in the West Bank. Since 1992 he devotes his time to teaching as visiting lecturer (Ben Gurion University 1994-1998, Johns Hopkins SAIS Washington DC 1982-2009), research and writing on Jerusalem, Northern Ireland conflict, Israeli- Palestinian relations, Palestinian vanished landscape, bi-nationalism and restaurant reviews. He was a fellow at The Wilson Center in Washington DC and a Visiting Fellow at Harvard's CFIA and a recipient of research grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the US institute of Peace. Between 1991-2009 he wrote a column for Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading newspaper. He holds a doctorate from Harvard's Kennedy School. He is the son of Israel Prize recipient David Benvenisti.

He has long been a critic of Israel's policies towards Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and is an advocate of the idea of a binational state. In rebutting allegations that Israel is an apartheid state, Benvenisti asserts instead that Israel is a "Herrenvolk democracy" in which Israel behaves 'like a full-blooded democracy' but has a group of serfs (the Arabs) for whom democracy is suspended, creating a situation of 'extreme inequality.' A binational state is, he argues, impossible and the Jewish nation-state doomed. The only solution is to incorporate Palestinians into the state on conditions of equality.

Publications

Books (partial)

• Benvenisti, Meron (1970): The Crusaders in the Holy Land, New York [1]
• Benvenisti, Meron (1976): Jerusalem, the Torn City, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, ISBN 0-8166-0795-8)
• Benvenisti, Meron (1984): West Bank Data Project: A Survey of Israel's Policies, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, ISBN 0-8447-3544-2 [2]
• Benvenisti, Meron (1988): Conflicts and Contradictions, Villard, ISBN 0-394-53647-9 [3]
• Benvenisti, Meron (1995): Intimate Enemies: Jews and Arabs in a Shared Land University of California Press ISBN 0-520-08567-1 [4]
• Benvenisti, Meron (1996): City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem University of California Press ISBN 0-520-20521-9 [5]
• Benvenisti, Meron (2002): Sacred Landscape: Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23422-7 [6]
• Benvenisti, Meron (2007): Sons of the Cypresses: Memories, Reflections and Regrets from a Political Life. University of California Press [7]
• Benvenisti, Meron (2012), The Dream of the White Sabra(Hebrew)

Articles (partial)

• Either a Zionist or a terrorist, 2 January 2002 Haaretz,
• Systematically burying ourselves, 17 January 2002, Haaretz,
• The homeland purified of Arabs, 26 September 2002 Haaretz, (about Sataf)
• Loving `the homeland', 10 October 2002, Haaretz,
• The binational option, 8 November 2002, Haaretz,
• The never-ending enterprise, 21 November 2002, Haaretz,
• A tank under the Christmas tree, 19 December 2002, Haaretz,
• Prime minister of what?, 13 March 2003, Haaretz,
• The true test of the imperial pretension, 10 April 2003, Haaretz,
• The capital nobody wants to lead, 24 April 2003, Haaretz,
• The High Court and fear of return, 3 July 2003, Haaretz, (about Ikrit)
• When will Israel become a homeland?, 31 July 2003, Haaretz,
• : Cry, the beloved two-state solution (Part 2), 8 August 2003, Haaretz,
• A wall against fear, 28 August 2003, Haaretz,
• Defensive walls of self-righteousness, 6 November 2003, Haaretz,
• Which kind of binational state?, 20 November 2003, Haaretz,
• Bantustan Plan for an Apartheid IsraelThe Guardian April 26, 2004.
• The hypocrisy of tolerance, 9 February 2006, Haaretz, (about the Museum of Tolerance, Jerusalem)
• A lull of no return, 29 May 2008, Haaretz, (on the possible/probable de facto long-term political division between Gaza and the West Bank and its effects on both Israel and the Palestinians)