Foreign Policy
Israel is entering a new era in its relationship with its Middle Eastern neighbors and theinternational community. The forces shaping these new relationships are far more significantthen the often-overstated ideological differences between the two major political blocs in Israelipolitics: the center-left Labor and the right-wing Likud. One factor that transcends domesticIsraeli politics is the role Israel plays in the post-Cold War international system dominated by theUnited States, which treats Israel as its key ally in a region seen as crucial for American interests. Yet changes within Israel itself, among the Palestinians and elsewhere in the Middle East havealso placed the Israelis at a crossroad in the development of their foreign policy goals and theoptions available to them (Breger 1). Due in part to an electoral system based on proportional representation, Israeli foreignpolicy is driven more by public opinion than is the foreign policy of many countries. In addition,unlike the US , with its strong sense of security made possible by wide oceans and friendlyneighbors, the Israeli public never enjoyed the luxury of placing foreign policy issues low on itsscale of political concerns. As a result, public opi
Foreign policy was essentiallysubsumed by perceived military/security exigencies. Israelnow has full diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan and incipient relations with as many as ahalf dozen other Arab states. Related to this is the deeply-rooted sense by many Jews, basedon historical experience, that no non-Jew can be trusted, and that even those seemingly willing tocooperate on the same level will eventually turn on them. This also implied, as most clearly exemplified in the use of American servicemen manninganti-missile defense in Israel during the Gulf War, the greater dependence on the US wouldrequire further eroding Israel's tradition of independence of action (Sauvant 67). Israel has also been developing close economic and diplomaticrelations with the newly emerging states of Central Asia and has expanded its commercial linkswith China, Japan, and the newly industrialized nations of East and Southeast Asia (Sauvant 45). They have shaken much of the cultural baggage from the Holocaust and arequestioning the cost of the racism and intolerance which the occupation of Arab lands hasbrought onto Israeli society. The Holocaust was just the most extreme ofthe periodic wave of persecution over generations which has left a deep seated level of terror inlarge sections of the world's Jewish population (Twing 7). The Oslo Accords was almostexclusively an initiative at the foreign ministry level, which largely bypassed the Israeli military(Zunes 345). Syria, in particular, hadmaintained its military strength primarily through its close and heavily subsidized strategicrelationship with the USSR It was clear that the regime of Hafez-al-Assad would now beessentially on its own and would need to seek at least some level of cooperation with the Westand a less belligerent stance towards Israel. In any society, whennational security is seen to be at stake, democracy suffers. nion can be a decisive factor in foreign policyoptions available to the government. This has led the foreign ministry to attain unprecedented status. An important manifestation ofthis isolation, combined with the aforementioned obsession with national security, was eclipsingthe foreign ministry during this period to the prerogatives of the military. Several major changes in the international environment in the early 1990s have resultedin the significant changes in Israeli foreign relations: The collapse of the Soviet Union meant thatthe loss of Large-scale Soviet military assistance to some of Israel's most intractable Arabadversaries created a more secure strategic environment for Israel. Due to both the real and perceived strategic vulnerability of the Israeli state, morepluralistic models of foreign policy formulation are similarly challenged by the close andwidely-accepted linkages between foreign policy and national security.
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Acceptance Essays
