Tel Aviv and the question of separation from Jaffa 1921–1936

The ordinance granting Tel Aviv the status of local council was given in 1921. Immediately thereafter, the municipal council acted to amend the terms of the ordinance so as to free Tel Aviv entirely from the supervision of Jaffa municipality. Tel Aviv aimed for the status of an independent municipality, but still wished to safeguard its interests in Jaffa. Detachment from Jaffa was for long a central issue for Tel Aviv municipality. The article analyses the Jewish side's stance on Jaffa from 1921 until the outbreak of the disturbances in 1936, when Tel Aviv detached itself almost entirely from Jaffa. In the 1920s, the importance of Jaffa for the Jews was mainly economic, but in the 1930s, the addition of the demographic dimension reflected the growing status of the Jaffa Jewish community and was decisive in increasing the Jewish influence in Jaffa.     

Political Sophistication and Policy Reasoning: A Reconsideration

The sophistication-interaction theory of mass policy reasoning, which posits that the strength of the relationship between abstract principles and policy preferences is conditional on political sophistication, dominates the study of public opinion. This article argues that the sophistication-interaction theory does not hold to the degree the consensus claims. Specifically, it challenges the proposition that sophistication promotes the use of domain-specific beliefs and values. Analysis of 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990 NES data yields two compelling findings. First, a series of confirmatory factor analyses indicate that beliefs about equal opportunity, self-reliance, and limited government in the social welfare domain and about militarism and anticommunism in the foreign policy domain are structured coherently and equivalently in the minds of citizens at different levels of sophistication. Second, structural equation model results demonstrate that political sophistication does not systematically enhance the impact these principles have on policy preferences .     

Party Identification,Issue Attitudes,and the Dynamics of Political Debate

This article investigates whether media coverage of elite debate surrounding an issue moderates the relationship between individual‐level partisan identities and issue preferences. We posit that when the news media cover debate among partisan elites on a given issue, citizens update their party identities and issue attitudes. We test this proposition for a quartet of prominent issues debated during the first Clinton term: health care reform, welfare reform, gay rights, and affirmative action. Drawing on data from the Vanderbilt Television News Archives and the 1992‐93‐94‐96 NES panel, we demonstrate that when partisan debate on an important issue receives extensive media coverage, partisanship systematically affects—and is affected by—issue attitudes. When the issue is not being contested, dynamic updating between party ties and issue attitudes ceases.     

Source Cues, Partisan Identities, and Political Value Expression

This article examines the conditions under which partisan identities shape the positions people express on four political values: equal opportunity, self-reliance, moral traditionalism, and moral tolerance. The theoretical framework posits that (1) party source cues activate latent partisan biases in the minds of citizens, which in turn affect the degree to which individuals express support for these values; (2) out-party cues are more powerful motivators of value expression than in-party cues; (3) value shifts are more pronounced when liberal-conservative identities reinforce partisan sentiments; and (4) partisan cues promote horizontal constraint among these values. These hypotheses are tested using data from a set of experiments appearing on a novel national survey. The empirical results generally support these theoretical expectations.     

Character Weakness,Partisan Bias,and Presidential Evaluation: Modifications and Extensions

In a recent article Goren (American Journal of Political Science, 46, 627–641, 2002) draws upon theories of negativity bias, partisan bias, and motivated reasoning to posit that the more strongly people identify with the opposition party of a presidential candidate, the more heavily they will rely on character weakness impressions to construct global candidate evaluations. This paper modifies the theoretical framework by positing that (1) partisans will judge opposition nominees most critically on the traits owned by the former’s party and (2) partisan bias promotes negativity bias in the evaluation of incumbent presidents seeking reelection and incumbent vice presidents seeking the presidency. Analysis of data from the 2000 and 2004 NES surveys, along with a reconsideration of the results from the 1984 to 1996 period covered in the original piece, yields strong empirical support for these expectations.

Hasan Bey Shukri and His Contribution to the Integration of Jews in the Haifa Municipality at the Time of the British Mandate

The relations established between the Jews and the Haifa mayor Hasan Bey Shukri were undoubtedly one of the special and fascinating features in the history of the Jewish–Arab conflict at the time of the Mandate. Shukri's ability to create a common language with the Jews made the Municipality an institution graced with cooperation whose like did not exist in other mixed cities in Mandatory Palestine. It was particularly evident in the setting of the escalation in the Jewish–Arab conflict generally. Shukri believed this conflict could be settled, and that the foundation for Jews and Arabs living together lay in the sides talking to each other as a basis for making peace. Now, for the first time in Palestine, the Jewish side had the opportunity to cooperate in a municipality controlled by Arabs by participating in its management. This situation accorded with the assumption prevalent among some of the leadership of the Jewish Yishuv that understanding could be reached with the other side in mixed municipalities. This article sets out to analyze the relations that formed between Shukri and the Jews. It shows that the cooperation that materialized between them was based on mutual trust, stemming from an identical approach by both sides to municipal activity.     

Suicide in children and adolescents at a province in Turkey

Despite the well-documented increases in the rate of completed suicide among children, accurate knowledge of the characteristics of these suicides is limited. We examined all suicides by children and adolescents in Diyarbakir during 1999 and 2001. All of the cases were analyzed regarding the age, sex, method and location of suicide, time of year, and predictive factors. There were 56 children aged 11 through 19 years. Adolescents between 15 and 19 years of age constituted the overwhelming number (87%) of all the childhood suicides. Female children and adolescents predominated among the suicide victims (71%). The most frequent means of suicide were firearms (43%), hanging (28%), and jumping (16%), respectively. The majority of suicides occurred at the decedent's home (88%). Reasons identified were mainly psychiatric disorders, followed by troubles within the family. A prior suicide attempt or a note that was left by the decedent and elucidated the reason for the suicide was rare. There was no seasonal difference in rates of suicides.     

The Second World War as a turning point in Arab–Jewish relations: the case of Jaffa and Tel Aviv

One of the gravest outcomes of the period of the Arab revolt was the heavy economic damage caused to the Arab community. Jaffa, which suffered greatly in the years 1936–1939, sought to rebuild and restore the city to its status as a leading economic center in Palestine. This need intensified still more with the outbreak of the Second World War. Hence, it was in Jaffa's evident interest to bring about an improvement in relations with Tel Aviv and with Jews generally. Problems regarding the proper management of economic life in wartime exercised the Jewish settlement also; therefore, Jewish–Arab cooperation steadily grew in this period. The article gauges the measure of this cooperation and the nature of the ties that consolidated between Arabs and Jews during the war. The situation of Jaffa and Tel Aviv serves as a test case well exemplifying the force of the subsequent change in relations between Jews and Arabs in Palestine.     

The Jewish neighbourhoods of Jaffa and the question of annexation to Tel Aviv at the end of the British Mandate

One of the most complex issues facing British rule on the local municipal level towards the end of the Mandate period was the problem of Jaffa's Jewish neighbourhoods. This question, which emerged with the outbreak of the 1936 disturbances, engaged the government thereafter until the end of the Mandate. The demand by the residents of Jaffa's Jewish neighbourhoods for annexation to Tel Aviv – actually for municipal detachment from Jaffa – constituted the root of the problem. In this setting of the sharpening of relations between the authorities and the Jews and Arabs in 1945–1947, all three involved parties found themselves deeply immersed in it in the attempt to bring about its resolution. The annexation problem ceaselessly preoccupied the institutions of the Jewish Yishuv as a Zionist–Yishuv struggle of the highest order. This period gave rise to a series of unprecedented moves by the Jewish side, which were intended to influence the British government toward solving the problem. The article examines its development of the problem from the viewpoint of the three sides concerned in the years 1945–1947, with the focus on the policy line adopted by the Jewish side, its implications and its results.