Placing Class Politics in Context: Why is Israel's Welfare State so Consensual? Michael Shalev Department of Sociology and Anthropology The Hebrew University of Jerusalem shalev@vms.huji.ac.il December 2003 An initial version of this paper was presented at the conference “Changing European Societies – the Role for Social Policy”, Copenhagen, 13-15 November 2003 My sincere thanks to Noah Lewin-Epstein, Michal Shamir and Stefan Svallfors for supplying me with data and being patient with my many questions over the long period in which this study has been gestating. I am also indebted to Gal Levy and Zeev Rosenhek for stimulating cooperative work in related areas.