Reading Iran in Israel

Published by Dar Al-Ahliya, "Reading Iran in Israel: The Self and the Other, Religion and Modernity" by Israeli historian Haggai Ram is a groundbreaking cultural and geopolitical analysis. Ram posits that the Israeli political and cultural obsession with Iran as an existential threat goes beyond conventional security concerns, serving as a psychological reflection of Israel's own identity crisis. The book demonstrates how framing Iran as a religious, fanatical "Other" enables Israel to project itself as a rational, Western "Self," even while grappling with its own internal clashes between secular modernity and religious zealotry. Through a meticulous reading of Israeli media, literature, and policy discourse, Ram exposes the ideological mechanisms used to construct image of Iran to manage domestic anxieties.

It offers an eye-opening, psycho-social critique of Israeli political rhetoric, revealing how foreign policy and enemy projections are directly shaped by internal cultural conflicts.

Scholars of Middle Eastern studies, political scientists, cultural theorists, historians, and readers interested in Israeli foreign policy, Iranian affairs, and identity politics.