Israel is celebrating the 64th anniversary of its establishment and debates about its identity are still under way, Amrani said, adding that Croatia was another such case, given that it was a very young state.
We established Israel as the state of the Jewish people, he said, adding that the process of defining Israel's identity was constantly being questioned.
The dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences, Nenad Zakosek, said both Israel and Croatia were formed in difficult conditions, "Israel before 64 years and Croatia before 21," and that the building of states in Croatia's neighbourhood was still under way.
He advocated intensifying cooperation and said Croatia could learn a lot from discussions on Israel's experience.
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences dean Damir Boras announced a Judaic studies programme for the next school year. "That's our contribution to the 64th anniversary of the State of Israel."
Professor Daniel Gutwein of the University of Haifa department for the history of the Jewish people said that in the era of globalisation, there was growing objection to the concept of the nation state because it was thought that nationalism belonged to the past.
Zionism, as deep civil nationalism, was the generator of modernisation, such as the European national movements in the 19th century, and Israel is still in the nation state phase, like the states in the Middle East and the Balkans, said Gutwein.
The idea of nationalism is political solidarity, i.e. a welfare state, he said, adding that intellectual colonisation and the imposition of social or economic mechanisms always led to tragedy.
Professor Yair Hirschfeld, one of the key architects of the 1993 Oslo agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, advocates the solution of two states - Israel and Palestine.
It is crucial to economically empower the Palestinians, who are existentially threatened, and restore importance to the peace process, he said, adding that the Palestinians should strengthen the idea of building a state, which he said had taken hold in Gaza but not among the rest of the Palestinians.
Asked how the Arab Spring was affecting the Middle East peace process, Hirschfeld said that in the short term, it had weakened the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The participants in the seminar announced lectures on law, economy and possibilities of cooperation between Israel and Croatia.