Conceptualizing the foreign policy roles of states dealing with historical traumas: the case of Israel

Abstract

While growing attention has been given to the impact of historical traumas on international politics, we know little about how trauma influences the foreign policy of states that have experienced trauma(s). Challenging the dichotomous conceptualization of traumatized states’ behaviours as either aggressive or pacifist, we show that traumatized states tend to articulate their foreign policy roles in a more complex way. We identify five foreign policy roles reflecting the remembering mode associated with ‘acting out’ (i.e. the role of victim and safe-haven/defender of the traumatized minority), with ‘working through’ (i.e. the role of forgiver, the role of canary in a coal mine and the guardian of the memory) or a blend of the two, demonstrating that both types of remembering modes can be activated simultaneously. The oscillation between these modes of remembering is characteristic of the non-linear process of coping with trauma, explaining the traumatized states’ seemingly inconsistent self-representations. We illustrate our claim with the case of Israel, based on the qualitative content analysis of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speeches to foreign audiences between 2009 and 2021.