When Scholarship Disturbs Narrative: Ian Lustick on Israel's Migration Balance

In response to Ian Lustick's article on Israel's migration balance in the previous issue of Israel Studies Review, I question the author's (lack of) theoretical frame, data handling, and conclusions, all set up against a robust narrative. I show that, until 2010, Israel displayed a po...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Israel studies review 2011-12, Vol.26 (2), p.1-20
Main Author: DellaPergola, Sergio
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Analysis
Brain Drain
Citizenship
Community Research
Crosscultural Analysis
Demography
Emigration
Federal Republic of Germany
FORUM: Israeli Immigration/Emigration
Human migration
Industrial Societies
International migration
Israel
Jewish diaspora
Jewish migration
Jewish peoples
Jews
Migration
Narratives
Political migration
Population growth
Scholarship
Switzerland
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Description
Summary:In response to Ian Lustick's article on Israel's migration balance in the previous issue of Israel Studies Review, I question the author's (lack of) theoretical frame, data handling, and conclusions, all set up against a robust narrative. I show that, until 2010, Israel displayed a positive, if weakened, migration balance and that immigration trends continued to reflect conditions among Diaspora Jewish populations more than Israel's absorption context. Emigration rates from Israel, while admittedly difficult to measure, were objectively moderate and proportionally lower, for example, than those of Switzerland, a more developed country of similar size, or those of ethnic Germans returning to and then again leaving Germany. The main determinants of emigration from Israel—namely, drain'—consistently related to socio-economic changes and not to security. I also reject Lustick's assumptions about the ideological bias of Israel's research community when dealing with international migration. Scholarship about Israel should not ignore global contextualization and international comparisons.
ISSN:2159-0370
2159-0389
DOI:10.3167/isr.2011.260202