Product Description Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss? Explores the complex, tense, and historically loaded relationship between Europe and Israel. Over the years a fissure has developed between their political views. Many believe that it continues to widen and has become an abyss. The introductory essay and the following interviews combine together as a reconnaissance mission into the essence of European-Israeli political relations. In the essay, the author illustrates how Israel and often European Jewry have been made to pay for Europe’s major strategic mistakes in defense, energy, and immigration policies. Europe has acted against Israel through voting for one-sided UN resolutions, political statements from the EU and member countries, and EU financing of NGOs hostile to Israel. Israelis and Europeans should not, however, give up hope for better understanding. Israel should take the initiative to see how the damage can be limited without endangering its vital interests or remaining silent about European injustice toward it. In the second part of the book, fourteen interviewees from Europe, Israel, and the United States discuss major aspects of the European-Israeli relationship About the Author Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is Chairman of the Board of Fellows of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, editor of the Jewish Political Studies Review, and co-publisher of Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism, Jerusalem Viewpoints, and Jewish Environmental Perspective serial publications. He has been an international business strategist for 40 years. His background is in chemistry, economics, environmental studies, and Jewish studies. Gerstenfeld is a former director in a consultancy whose other shareholders included four of the world’s largest banks. He has also been a board member of several public companies including a large investment company. The first of his previous nine books, which have been published in five languages, was the Italian bestseller Revaluing Italy. His other books are: Environment and Confusion; Israel’s New Future: Interviews; The State as a Business: Do-It-Yourself Political Forecasting; Judaism Environmentalism and the Environment; The Environment in the Jewish Tradition: A Sustainable World; Europe’s Crumbling Myths: The Post-Holocaust Origins of Today’s Anti-Semitism; The New Cloths of European Anti-Semitism; and American Jewry’s Challenge: Conversations Confronting the 21st Century.

This is the first in a series of annual reports on European economic developments by an international panel of distinguished economists, writing accessibly. Competitive Disinflation addresses one of the main areas of debate concerning economic developments in Europe: the extent to which the budgetary policy of national governments is competitive rather than cooperative. The discussion focuses on three particular cases, French macroeconomic policy since 1987, the reunification of Germany, and constraints imposed on national governments budgetary powers by membership of the EMU. This is a book about the radical alteration of the environment in which economic policy is formulated, with an analysis of options for action and a consideration of factors limiting the effectiveness of that action. It will be a stimulating read for all those, including students, who have an interest in macroeconomic policy issues in the context of European pressures.