ABSTRACT
We begin our introduction to this volume with a case study of the short-lived Bennett-Lapid government (2021–2022), which illustrates in detail the challenges of consensus-building in Israel. It demonstrates how the government, burdened by the extraordinary constraints it had imposed on itself, struggled to implement various approaches to consensus-building which had previously been theoretically advanced by Rawls, Habermas, and Lijphart. The introduction presents a snapshot of the current precarious situation of the State of Israel, in which extreme polarization, within the context of cross-cutting social cleavages, exacerbates a complex situation whereby the disintegration of social cohesion threatens the stability of the political system as well as its ability to move toward more consensual management. After the case study, we present a description of the historical cleavages in Israeli society that have led to this situation, followed by an overview of the structure of the volume, divided into sections that illustrate respectively polarization trends, consensus trends and consensus-building, and the maintenance of the status quo. We conclude with an appraisal of the current state of consensus-building and polarization in Israel, and a bleak assessment of future possibilities.
