Yes. OK. Good afternoon and welcome everybody. Speaker today is none other than Dr. Arnold Allen was a senior lecturer and the
head of Department of International Politics at City University of London.
I've known his work deals with international relations of the Middle East and foreign policy analysis,
and his publications include three monographs Israel's Foreign Policy towards the PLO.
The impact of Globalisation came out in 2009.
Foreign policy analysis New approaches came with Rutledge in 2016, written with Chris al-Din and most recently,
Israel's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War came with came out with Cambridge University Press last year.
And he's also is also the topic of the talk today, of course. And he's also published in journal such as International Studies,
Reviews in International Politics and the Journal of Strategic Studies Strategic Studies.
I'm not. Thank you so much for coming. Think of it. Well, thank you very much, Yaakov, for inviting me.
Thank you all very much for coming. I'd like to extend a special thanks to Professor Bridgeline,
who helped me throughout the stages of writing the book and also provided a stalwart support throughout my career.
So thank you all very much for coming here.
And I thought I'd start maybe with providing just a very brief context about the starting point of the book,
which is, of course, the end of the Cold War. And the end of this conflict really ushered in a new period in Israeli foreign
policy situating Israel in what I think was undoubtedly an unprecedented,
strong strategic position. The collapse of the Soviet Union, which had supported Israel's Arab foes,
ended effectively the bipolar world order and established the United States, Israel's closest ally, as the world's sole superpower.
And shortly thereafter, in the 1991 Gulf War, a U.S. coalition expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait,
exposed very deep divisions within the Arab world and of course,
weakened the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, or the PLO, which had supported the Iraqi president at the time, Saddam Hussein during the conflict.
Now, I think it's quite important to note that these quite dramatic international shifts were also coupled with changes inside Israel.
There was a very successful restructuring of the Israeli economy via what was termed the 1985 Economic Emergency Stability Plan.
And of course, with the end of the Cold War, we witnessed the arrival of close two million immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
And those, of course, greatly increased Israel's state capacities to seise the opportunities,
but also deal with some of the challenges that were generated by the confluence of domestic and international changes.
Now, as the Cold War really came to an end,
Israeli foreign policy makers were very deeply divided about what foreign policy path Israel should pursue in the wake of these dramatic changes.
And what I really tried to do in the book is look at these paths that Israel pursued in relation to four key arenas the Middle East,
which occupies arguably the majority of the book, but also which occupies, I would say,
the majority of Israeli foreign policy attention, but also three other bilateral.
Relations, if you like, with the United States, irrespective of its role as a mediator or as a player in the Arab-Israeli conflict,
the European Union and two great powers in Asia, which are India and China, and I'll be happy to sort of discuss why I chose them to focus on them.
So set against this background I'd like in the next 40 minutes or so to really do a couple of things.
I'd like to identify the foreign policy postures that Israel adopted since the end of the Cold War,
and also explain why some seem to have succeeded, while others have had a slightly more short lived endurance.
And to do that? I'll try to focus really on three key questions.
First of all, what are the determinants of Israeli foreign policy?
We all know Kissinger's quip.
Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic politics, and I think hopefully I would like to slightly challenge that quote.
Not entirely to refute Kissinger's observation,
because my book does very much hinge on the idea that domestic players and domestic structures
determine Israel's foreign policy in the wake of international events and processes.
So much so that somebody who read my book asked me,
Why didn't you call it inside Israeli foreign policy since the end of the Cold War, which I think might have been a good suggestion.
But if we think about this question more broadly, big events like the end of the Cold War, like the defeat of Iraq in the 1991 war like 9-11,
these are international events which are then interpreted through the prism of domestic players of domestic structures.
And it's that interpretation that in turn often guides and even determines how the country in this case, Israel responds to an international event.
And I think these really different interpretations and actions that are quite interesting to look at.
So first of all, what are the determinants of Israeli foreign policy? That will be one thing I'd like to answer.
The second really is what are the postures that Israel adopted since the end of the Cold War?
And sometimes when one looks at Israel's foreign policy or foreign policy of other countries for that matter,
we might have the impression that these are disorganised on strategic, very ad hoc.
But actually, when I as I sort of delved into the material,
I saw that there was more coherence perhaps than incoherence in Israel's foreign policy position.
So I'll try and outline what are the key postures that I identified.
And then in the final part, I'll try and offer some explanations,
which I hope we can maybe debate about why some foreign policy postures prevailed over
others and maybe some thoughts about some reflections for the future with a noted caveat.
Since the demise of the Second Temple about what happens to those who offer prophecies, so I will bear that in mind.
So what have been the key determinants of Israeli foreign policy?
I think if we look very broadly at the literature, there are a few competing approaches which I will really look at very, very briefly.
One is that Israeli foreign policy is determined by the country's security network.
This is some of the stuff that people like Government, Sheffield and Old Block wrote.
There was a famous special issue which talked about an army with a state, right?
So through this prism, this security network is really the main institution that effectively determines Israel's foreign policy.
Another is that Israeli foreign policy conforms to what international relations scholars often like to call a realism.
In other words, there is an abstract national interest which is clear to all.
Prime ministers tend to remind us of this national interest on a daily basis and supposedly a country photos that national interest very coldly.
People like Clive Jones have argued that in relation to Israel.
And then the third approach is that Israeli foreign policy is almost an exercise in muddling through, right?
Very strategic, very ad hoc, a victim of the vagaries of Israeli coalition government.
And that's been the main argument of people like Chuck Freilich, and you'd have been made to mention just a few names.
I think by and large, I do not agree with any of these approaches, as you might not be too surprised to hear.
And instead, what I try to develop in the book is a sort of loose model, if you like,
of understanding Israeli foreign policy through the prism of three concentric circles.
And the first and most influential circle really comprises of the Israeli prime
minister and the circle of confidence and trusted aides around him or her up,
which often certainly in the period that I've looked at, have replaced the official structure of the state both in.
Rate in foreign policy, but also sometimes in implementing it, and I'll get back to this a bit later on.
What is quite interesting about most of the key decisions taken in Israel since the end of the Cold War,
whether or not to respond to the Iraqi attacks in the 1991 war,
whether or not to embark upon the Oslo process, whether or not to withdraw from the Gaza Strip under Ariel Sharon.
Usually, these key decisions were first deliberated within a very small circle of trust and very informal one.
Then they were often coordinated with the United States, Israel's closest ally, and only then they were brought,
often as a fait accompli to the government, the cabinet, and finally not always to parliament for approval.
So I think what's interesting to ask about this very strong concentric circles
is how did it come about and how does it endure and survive for so long?
And I think here the fact that Israeli that Israel's government is formed on the basis
of a coalition government is quite significant because prime ministers often do not
trust their fellow ministers and therefore their fellow ministers are really not a forum
for deliberation of what historian Ian Kershaw has described as fateful decisions.
And I'd like to just share with you one quote from the chief of staff of Ariel Sharon, the vice glass who I interviewed for the book.
And this quote, the sentiment, the flavour of it has been really repeated time and time again in interviews that I conducted for this
research and in relation to whether or not the prime minister can debate or reflect with his colleagues.
This is what he told me.
Quote The Prime Minister will never come to the cabinet with an idea that has not first been tested within his intimate circle.
And then, he continues, Members of the cabinet are not people you can brainstorm with for better or worse in our political system.
They are enemies of the prime minister. But those who sit with him, the prime minister is around the table want to substitute him.
Nine out of 10 want to replace him. Nine out of 10 are legitimately waiting for the prime minister's downfall.
They feel they are not an appropriate forum for brainstorming, and this quote really came time and time again.
I remember. Ethan Habib, who was the chief of staff of Rabin.
When I asked him whether Rabin deliberated with his colleagues, he looked at me quite amazing, said young man.
Mr. Rabin did not trust his own shoes, let alone his colleagues.
So this is the kind of flavour, and I think this profound mistrust has really meant that Israeli prime ministers often
do not deliberate with their colleagues and rather deliberate with this informal forum.
Of course, in the case of an election, it was called the Raj Forum famously, but each of these Israeli prime ministers had his own his own forum.
Now there's another point, of course, which is a vote against the prime minister,
which can of course take place and does often will be also a vote against the US president.
And that is something that Israeli politicians in serving government usually have been reluctant to do.
Not all of them and not all the time, but as a modus operandi, this is usually been the case.
The third factor that really preserves this system is that the prime minister is
the only policy maker that really has the access to the whole picture to all
the information coming both within the state institutions and also from important
international players and several Israeli prime ministers probably owed.
Barak is the most notorious of them, likes to prevent that information and doesn't share it with his colleagues again,
so they really do not have access to the whole picture.
A third sort of element that sustains this very important circle is the fact that Israeli
prime ministers have not only refrained from deliberating with their colleagues,
but have also put in post their own confidants for carrying out sensitive foreign policy missions.
So, for example, the peace agreement with Jordan, the main individual that was responsible for crafting it, was not Israel's foreign minister.
In fact, you almost bungled it. The person who was really responsible for it was then Deputy Olmert.
Sudden this day, a levy Binyamin Netanyahu has had his own lawyer misstates.
Talk more Ariel Sharon appointed no less than his son to go and negotiate with Mr.
Yasser Arafat at the time. So we have you this very interesting system that is almost parallel to state institutions,
which is primarily weakened and harmed the Israeli Foreign Ministry, a weak institution pretty much from the inception of the State of Israel.
Now, of course, the fact that this central circle is so important creates quite significant problems.
First of all, it begs the question who is ultimately accountable for foreign policy?
And second, of course, there is the legal question because the Israeli government by law is.
Responsible for foreign policy and security decisions, so this is the first circle the prime minister and his or her aides and confidence.
The second concentric circle is really the security network and especially the Israeli Defence Force, which has significant power.
But I would caution against seeing the security service and the security network
and the Israeli Defence Force in particular as more stronger than it actually is.
First of all, by law, the Israeli security apparatus is subordinate to the prime.
Second, the security establishment is often divided about what to do in relation to several issues.
A good example of that would be whether or not Yasser Arafat was actually responsible for quote unquote orchestrating the Second Intifada or not.
There was a very, very deep argument and debate within the security apparatus, and Israeli prime ministers have very skilfully been able to.
Benefit from these divisions, but most importantly, I think the Israeli Defence Force,
especially the army, is ultimately embedded in Israeli society and in the economy.
It is not an isolated corporate entity like in a sort of classic military state,
and therefore it is to some degree porous to the influences from civil society and broader society as a whole.
And it's quite interesting to look. When I reflected back again on these key decisions,
how many decisions since the end of the Cold War were actually taken by an Israeli
prime minister against the advice and against the will of the Israeli Defence Force?
The withdrawal from Gaza? As one example, the unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, the army was dead against that.
The beginning of the Oslo process, which the army was not consulted on,
was described by the then chief of staff as a Swiss cheese because of the multiple
holes that the then chief of Staff Mark thought he found in the Oslo Accord.
So I think we should, of course, take into consideration the security network,
but not overstate its power in influencing Israel's foreign policy directions.
And then the third concentric circles, I think, comprises of this very fluid notion that we have as scholars of national identity.
And here in thinking about the links really between national identity and foreign policy, I sort of try to, if you like,
identify five national discourses that I thought at least played out time and time again in Israel's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War,
the first which Yaakov knows much more than I do about. But nevertheless, I will mention is the notion of Israel as a Jewish state.
Right. And I think it has very different manifestations, which I'm having to talk about.
But but Israel's Palestinian Arab minority,
I would say that a broad notion of Israel existing as a Jewish state is shared by the vast majority of Israeli society.
The second notion is Israel as a Zionist state, which is not exactly the same as Israel as a Jewish state.
Also, it has different expressions. And again, for two important groups Jewish, ultra-Orthodox parts of the Middle East.
Not all. And Israeli Palestinians.
Again, the notion of Israel as a Zionist state has been shared, interestingly by the Zionist left so-called liberals and the Zionist right.
The third aspect, which really is a new, I would say,
discourse that we begin to see only with the end of the Cold War is this idea of Israel as the Start-Up Nation, right?
This highly technological superpower that really develops in tandem with the changes in the Israeli economy,
which has been used by Israeli foreign policy makers in forging ties with countries like India like China,
but also have played an quite an instrumental role in clinching the recent Abraham Accords,
especially in relation to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, perhaps less so with the case of Sudan and Morocco.
Now, the fourth national discourse concerns the Holocaust,
which is deeply embedded in Israeli identity via national commemoration days, legislation, museums, the education system and so on.
And what is interesting it is our title as written on this very instructively, is that especially in moments of crisis and conflict,
Israeli foreign policy makers tend to brand Israel's foes once it was the PLO.
Today it is Iran as incarnations of the Nazis.
And what is interesting also is that in Israel,
this discourse around the Holocaust has amplified what is already a fairly high threat perception that Israeli foreign policymakers operate with.
So the past in this sense, the Holocaust. This idea, this notion that is manufactured time and time again of never again is really a long
and threatening shadow that looms quite large over Israel and its foreign policy.
And finally, in terms of these narratives is the notion of Israel as a democracy within the 1967 borders.
You could say that Israel has a free press, free and fair elections, competitive party system,
universal suffrage, respect for freedom of speech and so on and so forth.
But of course, at the same time, Israeli democracy has been very seriously impaired.
Some would say even broken by the prolonged and deepening occupation of the Gaza Strip until 2005.
And, of course, the enduring and deepening occupation of the West Bank, where Palestinians are not granted citizenship, they cannot vote.
They are subject to very severe limitations on their personal movement, their movement of goods.
They operate, in some cases on different transportation systems and legal systems as well.
Now how should we think about these national narratives?
So what I would say is that effectively we should look at them as imposing certain contours around Israeli foreign policy,
and they instruct and are used by political parties to determine what is possible and what is impossible,
what might be a legitimate foreign policy path or what might be an illegitimate foreign policy path.
And really, we see throughout the Cold War,
Israeli foreign policy makers use such categories to justify and legitimise certain foreign policy positions and to suppress others.
And I think a very clear example of this was during the anti-peace campaign led by Likud, the then leader of the opposition, Mr. Binyamin Netanyahu.
And the main arguments that he levelled against the Rabin government was that the Oslo Accords
were under Jewish and Zionist and challenged the very moral foundations of the State of Israel.
So you can see how at least two of these discourses come up very strongly in this example of PLO.
So having said sort of this context for trying to explain Israeli foreign policy as being really if you like,
determined or produced by these three concentric circles,
the prime minister and its confident security service and national narratives,
I think I can now proceed to talk a little bit more about the various postures and positions that Israel adopted since the end of the Cold War.
And I'm sure, as you've seen now,
the book really hinges on the idea that these domestic structures really inform and determine the different responses to very similar events,
for example, the end of the Cold War. So in the book, I really divide Israel's foreign policy positions into three, and they are engagement,
which is one entrenchment, which is another, and unilateralism is the third.
And those are the main foreign policy positions Israel employed towards the Middle East.
And I'll proceed by talking a little bit about them now.
If we look at Israeli prime ministers, which I really think have much more power than perhaps the literature has ascribed to them so far.
So he took Shamir, who was the leader of Likud, Israel's largest Center-Right party,
and of course, Israel's most longest serving Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
Both of them were really the main advocates, and indeed,
embodiments of Israel's foreign policy of entrenchment and entrenchment effectively rests on three very clear principles.
The first principle is that Israel will make peace with Arab states and with the Arab world more generally in exchange for peace,
rather than the principle of exchanging territory that Israel occupied in the 1967 war in exchange for peace.
So this idea is that peace will be struck in exchange for peace, not a territory.
Now, the second principle is that Israel's foreign policy has to remain even under conditions of peace primarily.
Following the notion of building an iron wall of military might, which obvious written so extensively about rather than on diplomacy.
So the notion here is that building a military strength becomes almost an end in itself rather than a means to achieve peace.
But even on the conditions of peace, preserving Israel's iron wall of military might,
let alone in other engagements, which are not in the context of peace.
That is a fundamental of this notion of entrenchment.
Principle number two and principle number three is that the Palestinians residing in the West
Bank and in the Gaza Strip again until 2005 could be granted some dimensions of autonomy,
predominantly economic autonomy, but would remain effectively under Israeli occupation.
So this position sees no tension between Israel pursuing a particular foreign policy and Israel's empowerment of its own democracy.
So it's interesting to think where does this foreign policy derive from?
The first thing is that, of course, it's Shamir and Benjamin Netanyahu, but more as embodiments,
not only as two individuals really represent the notion of the Israeli right,
both religious and secular, that Israel, by virtue of the history of the Jewish people,
has a right to the whole of the land, almost an undisputed right from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River.
So that's one ideological staple of this approach.
The second is that the Arab states, including the Palestinians, cannot be trusted to keep their side of the bargain.
Shamir and Netanyahu have been always very, very suspicious about the real motives of the Arabs in making peace,
and therefore this suspicion brought them to believe that Israel has to hold the territory even in a peace agreement.
And then a third important guiding rule was that time effectively was on Israel's side.
And this approach really subscribes to the view that the more time passes
Israel would be able to consolidate itself further would become much stronger,
much more established, much more recognised.
And eventually the Arab side would come around and recognise that the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is irreversible and therefore make peace.
And of course, the recent Abraham Accords that Binyamin Netanyahu struck shortly before the end of his term were perhaps the strongest indication of
this approach of the ability to strike a peace agreement with important Arab countries without making any territorial concessions,
and with the Palestinian question really figuring very, very low on the order of priorities of all signatures.
So this is entrenchment, something that we will go back to a bit later and the other side of the spectrum we find you will not be surprised.
The notion of engagement in some of you might ask, why didn't I call it striving for peace?
The reason is that in some cases, we know that Israel did strike a peace like in the case of Jordan, that is clear.
But in other cases, it is less clear. Most notably, of course, the Palestinians,
those of you who are familiar with these Rabin's last speech before he was assassinated will note that
he said very clearly that what he's willing to offer to the Palestinians is something less than a state,
something quite similar, in fact, to what Benjamin Netanyahu,
perhaps and Donald Trump had in mind when they devised what was called the so-called Deal of the Century.
And again, going back to the interviews when I interviewed again Rabin's chief of staff,
Ethan Hubbell, I asked him, How did Mr Rabin, how you know, what did Mr. Rabin hadn't have in mind?
So both he and former head of Mossad, Mr. Danny Yatom,
said that what Rabin had in mind really was giving to the Palestinians maximum 60 percent of the territory.
Yet almost all right, this is in his memoirs of the West Bank. Moreover, Habib was a very humorous individual.
He said if he had been would have witnessed what Barak offered the Palestinians,
he would have jumped from the sixth floor of the hotel that we were conducting the interview.
And so you can see how sceptical Habib was.
And again, when asked how would have been, how did I think to actually implement this Habib pose for a minute and said, Well,
Rabin was under the view that the balance of power tilted so firmly towards Israel that when push comes to shove,
Israel would able to enforce this kind of agreement. In other words, 60 percent of the West Bank, no more, no division of Jerusalem,
the Gaza Strip in its entirety to the Palestinians upon the Palestinians.
So that's why I did not really call this. Foreign policy approach, peace, but there was an undisputed degree of engagement under Rabin.
It was the same degree of engagement under Shimon Peres, and even Ehud Barak was an engagement.
Even not perhaps he was not a peacemaker. So you have to engage it because it's not zero percent that he was willing to offer.
Well, it's engagement because we cannot really, we cannot really tell it.
Certainly in the context of the Palestinians that the final aim was the kind of of peace that would be required.
Under the parameters that Israel and the Palestinians had at the time,
and we do not know for sure that certainly Rabin or Paris wanted to follow through
this notion of engagement to the kind of peace that was required at the time.
So following from what been and how said if the Palestinians would not accept the 60 percent offer, so be it.
This was not a peace that was driven out of this notion of reconciliation, but rather a peace by force, a kind of take it or leave it option.
But nevertheless, it's interesting to think why people like Rabin and like Peres and certainly Barak,
who engage significantly with the Palestinians, certainly engage significantly with Syria, try to reach a peace agreement with Syria.
And I would say that the record is more favourable to Israel than in the case of the Palestinians.
Why did they reach such a starkly different conclusion than people, for example, like Binyamin Netanyahu and S.U.?
The first thing, of course, was that they were much more optimistic about Arab intentions.
They were not as suspicious as Shamir and as Netanyahu.
The second, of course, was that they saw the opportunities that the Cold War offered Israel to be much greater than Netanyahu and Shamir envisaged.
But most importantly, perhaps both Rabin and Peres and Barak were very pessimistic about the prospect of
a prolonged occupation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip,
and therefore they pursued what I call this foreign policy of engagement, which was based again on three very clear principles.
First, you make peace with the Arab world in exchange of returning territories, not these territories,
but territories part of them that Israel had occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The second is that you put premium on diplomacy rather than on military force.
When engaging with the Middle East.
It doesn't mean that military force is completely thrown out of the window, but the premium is on diplomacy rather than on military force.
And thirdly, all of them were convinced that the Israeli occupation of Arab lands,
which at the end of the Cold War, including the West Bank, the Gaza Strip is Jerusalem.
The Golan Heights, but also parts of south Lebanon should be downscaled.
They were all under the view that this is against Israel's national interest.
And this was the background for historical decisions such as the initiation of the Oslo Accords or Labour.
Governments carried out serious negotiations with Syria.
Even Olmert did that under the mediation of Turkey.
Interestingly, not the United States, and the whole idea was again exchanging land for full peace with an Arab side.
Now here there were some clear successes, of course, as well.
The peace with Jordan was to a large degree facilitated by the breakthrough that was done with the PLO.
Again, merely engaging with the PLO without making full peace with the Palestinians
was enough to get the Israeli Jordanian peace process going and finalising it.
And of course, Israel had significant of what I call dividends of engagement from merely negotiating with the PLO and being
able to forge very close relations with countries like India and like China and developing full diplomatic,
economic, political relations. Whereas prior to the end of the Cold War, Israel had no relations with China or with India.
So actually, once the Cold War ends and once these relations are forged, China here is particularly important.
Israel finally has relations with all members of the Security Council, something that it did not have before the end of the Cold War.
At the same time, of course, the limits to both entrenchment and engagement became quite clear.
A decade more or less after the end of the Cold War.
And this really, I would say, gave birth to a third foreign policy position,
which is unilateralism and unilateralism was most closely associated with Ariel Sharon with his unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip,
but also, of course, who decided to unilaterally withdraw Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000 after 18 years of presence occupation in that country.
Now Israel's, but it was fresh.
Yeah. So Israel's unilateralist foreign policy was also based on this idea that the occupation of our own land had to be downscaled,
but the mechanism would be very different. People like at the end zone like Mark reached the conclusion, rightly or wrongly,
that there was not that they could not make strike an agreement with an Arab partner.
And instead, therefore Israel would negotiate territorial withdrawals, not with the Arab partners, but with the international community.
And this is precisely why Israelis were so pedantic with the United Nations over drawing the border with Lebanon right to the MM.
This is why Ariel Sharon, the father of the settlements, was so adamant on withdrawing a small settlement like the gate,
which really encroached about 100 metres into the Gaza Strip.
The notion was that the international community would give the legitimacy stamp on an Israeli withdrawal.
And of course, it is in this context that Israel withdrew from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
The only snag was and that was quite a significant snag, was because there was not an agreement.
Israel would had to manage the new territorial configuration with other foreign policy tools, military, economic, diplomatic.
And of course, if we look at the outcome of these approaches of these withdrawals, I think I'll return to a bit later.
We see that none of them produce the kind of stability that Israeli foreign policymakers promised when they were going through Lebanon.
Perhaps a bit of a better case than Gaza.
But contrary to Israeli proclamations that this is only because of the withdrawal and the subsequent Israeli Hezbollah war,
one must always remember that the attention of Hezbollah in the last 10 or so years even more was squarely towards the civil war in Syria,
and much less so to Israel in the South.
And I think that provides also as important the important factor of explaining why the Israeli-Lebanese war has been relatively sorry.
Border has been, relatively speaking, uneventful since the 2006 Israel Hezbollah.
So unilateralism, really like engagement,
embodied an understanding which was shared at least by five of the seven Israeli prime ministers since the end of the Cold War.
That the occupation of Arab lands, at least in its entirety, was against Israel's interests.
And I think it's worthwhile to think about why really these prime ministers reach
the conclusion that they did some of them like a mutual but also Shimon Peres.
Having been once supportive of the settlement project, and it's something that sometimes is forgotten,
certainly about Shimon Peres to moving to the to the position,
certainly unexpected in the case of alienation,
of actually uprooting evacuating Jewish settlements from the Gaza Strip and re defining Israel's borders.
So what was the thinking behind that? The first one was, of course,
that the prolonged occupation did pose a threat to Israel remaining a democratic state by virtue of the fact that
it did continue to hold millions of citizens without rights that are normally enshrined in democratic regimes.
The second, of course, and this is something that is quite conspicuous and was conspicuous much more
than now in the Israeli political argument was this notion of Palestinians,
quote unquote overtaking numerically, the number of Israeli Jews that reside between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
And then the question is, can Israel still proclaim to be a Jewish state under these circumstances?
Now, the challenged Israeli democracy and the challenge to the Jewish identity of the state was not only an internal matter,
of course, for people like Sean, for people like, I mean, even for people like Shimon Peres and the.
But both of all of them also understood through their interactions with successive U.S. presidents and of course,
with their counterparts in Western Europe, that the notion that Israel has shared valued shared values with liberal democracies
in the West is being eroded as a result of this enduring and prolonged occupation.
And even Ariel Sharon confided to his very loyal aide device class and told him, You know,
what changed my mindset was my continuous encounters with U.S. officials and my recognition,
which, of course, Binyamin Netanyahu would say that even Sharon was wrong.
But this is how Sheldon felt that even the United States could not be brought around to support Israel's prolonged.
Occupation and deprivation of Democratic basic democratic rights of the Palestinians in the long during.
Now, I think. Thirty years after the Cold War, it does look or does seem that Israel's foreign policy of entrenchment has prevailed,
perhaps over engagement and over unilateralism.
If you look at the foreign policy record,
the only peace agreement that remained from the engagement stance is Egypt before the end of the Cold War and, of course, Jordan.
The other attempts by Palestinians and Syria were unsuccessful.
And by contrast, the Abraham Accords, probably the vindication of entrenchment have been the most recent success,
together with Sudan and with Morocco. So I think it's an interesting question to ask Is that the case?
If so, why is it the case and perhaps offer some thoughts, at least of what might be the implications for the future?
So why is it really that entrenchment seems to have prevailed?
I think the first thought that I have on this matter is that really relates to Israel's definition as a Jewish and democratic state.
And if we look at the peace agreements that have succeeded and those that have not, especially with the Palestinians,
a peace agreement with the Palestinians would have entailed if one would forge one dividing Jerusalem,
which is the holiest city, the Jews and of course, the third holiest city for Muslims.
It would mean relinquishing the vast majority of the West Bank,
at least if you look at the negotiations that began in the 2000 Camp David summit and onwards, which of course, is replete with religious and Jewish.
Historical and religious symbols, and in a way, if you look at the critique that was levelled against the ENGAGES,
this type of foreign policy outcome was constantly seen as an attempt to rebalance Israel's
definition of being much less Jewish and much more democratic and open to the world.
And in hindsight, I think that whereas the majority of the Israeli prime ministers, the vast majority of whom, by the way, were completely secular,
reached the conclusion that they would be content with this rebalance, the vast majority of the Israeli Jewish society was certainly not.
And this was the background for the very vile campaign against talk being.
The settler movement played a very significant role in it.
And of course, the emoting, the emotive elements that identity so often invokes were a constant and very powerful obstacle to realising
Israel's foreign policy of engagement and subsequently perhaps a peace with the Arab sides of the Palestinians.
This, of course, is not the only matter. The second factor,
I think equally important was that the peace negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians were constantly accompanied by
military confrontations with Hezbollah in the north around Lebanon and simultaneously with the negotiations with Syria.
And Hezbollah, of course, was seen to be an ally of the Assad regime, as indeed it proved to be.
And of course, in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, both Israelis and Palestinians.
But if we're focussing now on Israel, the continuous waves of attacks by militants, some would call them terrorists,
especially during the 2000s and certainly following the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in the
form of the second Palestinian Intifada and the 2006 Israel Hezbollah war created within the Israeli public.
A very clear perception which was exploited by politicians, namely that every time Israel withdraws from territory,
the security risks become greater and therefore any further relinquishment of land would in fact not result in a peace process,
but in fact would result in an exacerbation of Israel's already complicated security challenges.
And this narrative became etched in the Israeli political discourse, certainly during the Second Intifada following the Second Lebanon War 2006.
And Binyamin Netanyahu has really done a very effective job in literally instilling this narrative as the only narrative that really should matter.
And in his opposition to peace, which, by the way, has been very strategic, very consistent.
He has not changed his views since he published his blueprint, a place amongst the nation.
He's not changed his views.
He has been very clear that from his point of view, any withdrawal from territory would result in the security risks becoming far greater.
Now, a third factor that helps explain the sort of relative success of entrenchment is that going back to this notion of engagement,
you really didn't have to make full peace to enjoy quite a lot of benefits already.
Engagement, as I've said before, already was critical in facilitating the peace agreement with Jordan.
Once the PLO agreed to recognise Israel countries further afield, certainly like India and China,
who once upon a time were part of the Non-Aligned Movement Anti-imperialism said If the PLO recognises Israel, why shouldn't we?
And this was really pivotal in also breaking the Arab opposition and Arab reaction to countries like China and India,
making peace and subsequently developing very deep relations with Israel since the end of the Cold War.
So if you like the dividends of engagement without having to make peace played a significant
role in creating for Israel great opportunities far beyond the Middle East and of course,
also helped consolidate and preserve Israel's relations with the United States, and to some extent, I would say.
I would not say I would say smoothen some of the acrimonious that existed with the European Union in a very
interesting formula whereby Israel continues to deepen and expand economic and social relations with Europe.
Israel, by the way, is the greatest non EU scientific partner with the European Union, probably more than Brexit Britain.
That's probably for another conversation, even though politically there could be quite a lot of acrimony, but socially and economically.
Israel and the US have grown much closer since the end of the Cold War, even though peace has not been achieved.
I think a fourth factor that helps understand the sort of relative success of
entrenchment and ill success of engagement has to be the role of the US as a mediator.
This is something I followed quite closely in the book,
but it's quite interesting to see this significant gap between the political power and economic power and security.
Insurance that the US provides Israel and Saudi and Egypt.
So there's a gap between that very powerful material,
United States and its ability to leverage that material advantage to push the sides to actually make peace.
And if you look at the United States, and I would give huge credit to Dennis Ross for writing his memoirs, which are very illuminating in the sense.
But he even he has been very candid that the United States,
under his leadership as the chief peace negotiator and under the presidencies of Clinton and even Bush subsequently was too reactive,
was too much taken by events, did not pressurise Israel sufficiently, and the memoirs of Aaron David Miller are even more forceful in that regard.
And I think even if one is a is a is a is a strong critique of Donald Trump, as I certainly am myself.
One cannot notice the difference can not notice the difference between the Trump administration effectively.
Departing from the role of the U.S. as an honest broker, he said upfront, we're no longer an honest broker.
That's it. We're done with that.
What we are going to do is offer very clear material dividends to any Arab country who wants to sign peace with Israel.
So the United Arab Emirates got a lot of weapons and a bit more shield from the presidency.
Sudan got kicked off the terrorist list and the US at least extended its recognition to Western Sahara,
supporting Morocco in the context of this conflict. Morocco has with Algeria over that piece of land,
so I think certainly there were a lot of factors that help understand why entrenchment in
effect became the prevailing foreign policy position over engagement and unilateralism.
So let me end,
perhaps in two minutes by posing the question about whether this means that entrenchment is indeed the preferred foreign policy option for Israel.
As Benjamin Netanyahu tends to remind us,
or tended to remind us time and time again belittling the merits of peace with the Arab world, especially with the Palestinians.
And I would say that probably that is not necessarily the case, and I would offer three reflections on that.
First of all, entrenchment does not deal with the challenges that occupying the Palestinians pose to Israeli democracy,
to the Jewish identity of Israel.
And it certainly undermines, in the long run the notion that Israel has any shared values with liberal democracies in the West.
This is certainly something that is impossible to sustain.
And I think the discourse around the question of whether the two-State solution can be resolved is is a bit anachronistic at the moment.
The question that really should be raised is Israel is currently one state of Israelis and Palestinians.
The question is how this how is Israel going to organise that state?
Is it going to be a highly stratified, unequal segment of states where some groups,
Jews have greater rights than other groups, which in some cases have no rights?
Or is this entity going to be reorganised in a different way?
But the notion that, you know, let's think about two states is probably anachronistic at this point and entrenchment.
Does nothing to resolve that. If anything, it only deepens these challenges to Israel's core identity and Israel's so-called democratic credentials.
And of course, to this notion that Israel has shared values with liberal democracies in the West.
Now, of course, these weakened ties with traditional Western allies, assuming of course they are weakened,
would be a significant departure in the diplomatic history of Zionism,
which historically has always made sure that Israel would be backed at least by one superpower.
That was the idea of Zionism and gradually sliding into a position that actually you are not backed by a
superpower because your values have been so significantly eroded would put Israel in a very precarious position.
Specifically, of course,
if the current trends of U.S. disengagement from the region and the commensurate re entrance of Russia as an important power in the region,
Iran becoming further entrenched in places like Syria will continue.
And therefore, if you like in the long run, Israel's so-called victories in the form of the Abraham Accords might be likened to the army of
Napoleon back in its Russian winter of an army charging towards one victory after the other,
which ultimately might leave Israel. In this case, in a very dark and cold winter characterised by instability nuclearized Middle East,
with its former great power gradually disengaging and new powers with which Israel has no natural proximity being ever closer.
They got into that thanks.