A Myth of Peace: ‘The Vision of the New Middle East’ and Its Transformations in the Israeli Political and Public Spheres

Abstract

This article studies the transformations of the narrative of ‘the Vision of the New Middle East’ as a political myth in Israel from its conception in the early 1990s to this date. Borrowing its analytic framework from Georges Sorel's concept of political myth, the article opens by offering a narrative analysis of the paradigmatic vision, as formulated by Shimon Peres (then Israel's Foreign Minister). The article goes on to trace the reception of this narrative and the uses made of it in two of the main arenas of the Israeli political and public spheres: the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and the mainstream Hebrew press. The article argues that, while ‘the New Middle East’ has become an idiomatic phrase synonymous to peace, a closer look at its appearances in the Israeli public and political spheres suggests that the uses and transformations of ‘the New Middle East’ in effect signal its failure to become a politically mobilizing myth or image. Instead, this notion has become an icon of a utopian, abstract, and rather apolitical notion of peace in the Middle East. This case study thus suggests an interesting lesson as to the potential and limitations of using peace as a mobilizing political myth.