An increasingly corrosive expedient? Israel’s evolving relationship with back-channel diplomacy

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper examines Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of ‘Back-channel Diplomacy’ with Palestine and Saudi Arabia. The paper advances a new typology of back-channel diplomacy, which is used as an analytical framework. Those in Israel who favour the so-called ‘two-state solution’ have generally pursued back-channels to explore whether a two-state deal is possible, while those who favour a permanent Jewish retention of much of the West Bank have used back-channels to buy time for this project, including by making secret deals with sworn enemies of Israel’s existence. Former PM Netanyahu’s reliance on back-channels, both for ‘doing business’ with Hamas, and for contacts with Saudi Arabia, was the culmination of the second approach; a strategy intended to both appease his political base and prevent peace with the Palestinians, while seeking to tactically manage relations across the region. However, this strategy contains a fundamental tension which may be difficult to ignore for much longer.