Hadas Aron is a faculty fellow at the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at NYU. After working for several years as a radio broadcaster, she completed her PhD at Columbia University, and was a Post-Doctoral fellow at the School of Political Science in Tel Aviv University. Her research and teaching focus on populism, nationalism, international security, and social and ethnic cleavages. Her regional concentration is on Eastern Europe, the United States and Israel. Dr. Aron's book project, An Ethno-Nation Deeply Divided- The Center Periphery Cleavage and the Rise of Right Wing Populism in East Central Europe, explains variations in populism and its transformative effect on political systems. Based on interviews and extensive archival work her research shows how failure to integrate deep center-periphery cleavages created two separate national groups within the same ethno-nation. In such cases, radical nationalist leaders could mobilize support against mainstream politicians by presenting the mainstream elite as betraying the “true” nation. In addition to her scholarship, she participates in policy debates in her blog, as well as other publications such as Duck of Minerva, the LSE USA blog, and Newsweek.
For Jewish Israeli politicians the temptation to draw back into what is left of the old ethnic consensus will be great. But including the Palestinian citizens in politics and society is the only way to defend Israeli democracy.