Israeli Diplomacy Research Articles

Statecraft and international intervention: Israeli diplomacy and UN peacekeeping forces in the 1960s*

ABSTRACT The nature of the relationship between statecraft and third-party interventions is complex and remains an issue that has not been fully explored in the academic literature. Experience shows that the two often interact, at times creating harmonious coordination, at times exacerbating tensions. These actions and reactions were present for Israel after the War of Independence as it worked to form an effective approach to the UN and its peacekeeping forces that were created to supervise implementation of the 1949 Arab-Israeli armistice agreements. This article examines how Israel strove to develop its own foreign policy statecraft strategies and to protect its national and strategic interests in the early 1960s, while contending with the involvement of UNTSO under the activist leadership of Swedish Maj. Gen. Carl Von Horn.

Mediated Audience Costs: Jordan–Israeli Diplomacy before the 1967 Arab–Israeli War

Abstract Audience cost theory remains prominent in scholarship on international crises. However, the theory suffers from several weaknesses, including a lack of historical evidence and concerns about the visibility of audience costs to foreign adversaries. This article engages with both concerns. I theorize that third-party diplomacy can help leaders signal their audience costs by corroborating their vulnerability to domestic punishment. I illustrate this mediated audience cost mechanism with an archival case study of Jordan–Israeli relations surrounding the 1966 Samu incident. I find that US crisis diplomacy helped Jordanian King Hussein to signal his vulnerability to a military coup d’état, and thus his resolve to retaliate against Israeli aggression, which in turn led Israel to refrain from further counterterror raids into the West Bank. The analysis integrates audience cost theory with crisis diplomacy in practice, and suggests several implications for future audience cost scholarship.

Multilingual public diplomacy: Strategic communication of Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in Twitter during Operation Guardian of the Walls

Operation Guardian of the Walls was the most serious military conflict between the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and Palestinian armed groups since 2014. This article aims to explore the Organized Persuasive Communication (OPC) made by IDF, in English, Spanish and French, during the 11 days of the escalation of the war. For this purpose, it has resorted to techniques typical of computational science, specifically the unsupervised machine learning Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and sentiment analysis (multilingual). The data show that there are no significant differences between a range of official Twitter accounts giving a process of information uniformity. The results of the study allow us to know the scope of IDF’s communication within the framework of the so-called new Israeli diplomacy. In addition, this text attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of text mining and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to strategic studies and international relations.

Setting Up Shop for Israel Advocacy—Diaspora “Retailers” and the Israeli “Wholesalers” in the Early Years of Israeli Diplomacy

This article focuses on the immediate repercussions of a reconstituted Jewish State after “2,000 years” on its relations with Diaspora Jewry and its diplomatic relations epitomized by American and Anglo Jewry. The Jewish Agency and Zionist organizations, once effective and indispensable former “retailers” were inexorably and painfully usurped by the new “wholesaler”, the Government of Israel and its diplomats who now appealed directly to all willing to contribute to strengthening Israel, irrespective of their past or present affiliations with the Zionist movement. Israeli diplomats viewed the Zionist organizations as the board of a company, which had been nationalized, had much goodwill, an immense pool of experience, some capital, but no clear idea about what to do with themselves. The path to reach a modus vivendi on delegating and authorizing responsibilities on public relations and Israel advocacy was acrimonious.

Theodor Herzl: Father of Israeli Diplomacy

One hundred and twenty years have elapsed since Theodor Herzl, a young Austro- Hungarian journalist and playwright, convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel.1 Only thirty-seven years old, he ha...

Israeli Diplomacy: The Effects of Cultural Trauma

Summary Israeli politicians are diplomatic agents provocateurs. Presidents, prime ministers and foreign office executives craft diplomatic scenes that betray diplomatic protocol. This article exposes the deep cultural codes that explain the unique behaviour of Israeli diplomacy. It documents different occasions of Israeli exceptional diplomacy and suggests that they reflect the cultural traumas that underlie Israeli culture. The analyses apply a new theoretical framework that dwells on the cultural codes of ‘Israeliness’ while suggesting that the unique style of Israeli diplomacy reflects four such codes: existential anxiety; upright defiance; a dugri (frank) speech culture and a fear of seeming to be a sucker (‘fraier’). By interpreting prominent cases with a cultural lens, the authors provide new insights into Israeli unilateralism, its seeming ‘paranoid’ character, and the reason for Israeli ignorance of international diplomatic codes. Essentially, they suggest that: (a) there is a cultural mismatch between diplomatic protocol and the Israeli national habitus; (b) the more that Israel’s strategic interests are threatened, the more locked it becomes to its post-traumatic habitus and the further its politicians move away from protocol. Israel’s persistent cultural trauma is thus likely to maintain the deviation of Israeli diplomacy from diplomatic protocol.

Differentiated Statehood? 'Pre-States'? Palestine@the UN; EJIL and EJIL: Talk!; The Strange Case of Dr. Ivana Radacic; Looking Back at EJIL 2012 - The Stats; Changes in the Masthead - Our Scientific Advisory Board; In this Issue

Nothing is ever simple in the Middle East in general, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular. The rather tired parable of the frog and the scorpion as applied to this arena (This is the Mid East, not the Mid West, says the scorpion to the frog as they both drown) would be funny if it were not so sad; it can be applied to any number of protagonists in the conflict. Yet, in the case of the UNGA vote to upgrade Palestine to non-member observer state status, the politics are, strangely perhaps, somewhat less knotty than the law. Only the US, Canada, the Czech Republic and a few small Rent-a-States voted against the resolution. A good number of states, among them some undoubted Israel friends, abstained, and a large majority, including some other undoubted Israel friends, voted to accept Palestine to this new status. The EU was all over the place, with member states in all three camps, including key member states such as Germany, the UK, Poland and the Netherlands among the abstentions, and others such as France, Italy and Spain, voting in favour. So much for the Common Foreign Policy. Politically this was said to be a resounding defeat for Israeli diplomacy. That it was; but even the most brilliant diplomacy would probably have been of no avail here. The vote was a universal repudiation of Israel's settlement policy which practically the whole world, including the United States, regards as an obstacle to peace and as illegal international law. Indeed, it is illegal. The recent attempt by the Israeli-appointed Edmond Levy Committee to kosher the pig by resurrecting arguments from the 1970s, which have today even less bite than they had then, has been largely met with derision. Interestingly the Levy Report remains under study by the �

‘Forthcoming three months represent best remaining opportunity for accomplishment’: Israeli diplomacy and the 1948 US presidential election (part II)

President Truman's de facto recognition of Israel on 14 May 1948 did not resolve the critical issues of de jure recognition, the new state's boundaries, the arms embargo, and financial assistance. In an ironic convergence with their frequent adversaries in the US State Department who often alleged that politics was driving Palestine policy, Israeli diplomats anticipated that favourable action from the Truman administration on these issues would be forthcoming in the course of that year's presidential election campaign. This article examines Israel's efforts to secure those objectives in the context of that year's presidential politics and the ongoing tug of war between White House and State Department. Despite persistent and determined advocacy, the mobilization of considerable support from American Zionists, and an apparently favourable political environment, Israel diplomacy was unable to overcome Truman's deference to State Department resistance to Israeli aspirations in the months leading up to his unexpected victory at the polls on 2 November 1948. It would be the success of Israeli arms, not the quest for Jewish votes, that proved to be the key to realizing the unfinished agenda of 14 May.

‘Forthcoming Three Months Represent Best Remaining Opportunity for Accomplishment’: Israeli Diplomacy and the 1948 US Presidential Election (Part I)

President Truman's de facto recognition of Israel on 14 May 1948 did not resolve the critical issues of de jure recognition, the new state's boundaries, the arms embargo, and financial assistance. In an ironic convergence with their frequent adversaries in the US State Department who often alleged that politics was driving Palestine policy, Israeli diplomats anticipated that favourable action from the Truman administration on these issues would be forthcoming in the course of that year's presidential election campaign. This article examines Israel's efforts to secure those objectives in the context of that year's presidential politics and the ongoing tug of war between White House and State Department. Despite persistent and determined advocacy, the mobilization of considerable support from American Zionists, and an apparently favourable political environment, Israel diplomacy was unable to overcome Truman's deference to State Department resistance to Israeli aspirations in the months leading up to his un...

Israeli Diplomacy in a Changing World: From Defensive Posture to Activism and Engagement

(2006). Israeli Diplomacy in a Changing World: From Defensive Posture to Activism and Engagement. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs: Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 26-32.

Towards distant frontiers: the course of Israeli diplomacy

Conventional historical wisdom accords Israeli diplomacy a secondary or even marginal place in securing Israel's national interests. This article argues that despite the dominance of military considerations and some apparent lacunae, Israeli diplomacy has scored some remarkable successes. The article examines the principles of Israeli foreign policy, the domestic and conceptual sources nourishing it, and the problems of international orientation. Israel is accepted, for the first time, as an integral part of the international community, but the prospects for constructing new diplomatic strategies or of finding a proper regional role remain obscure.

Realpolitikand the Burden of the Past: Israeli Diplomacy and the ?Other Germany?

POLITICAL SCIENTISTS C.S. LIEBMAN and E. Don-Yehiya, in their pioneering studies on the role of Holocaust memory in Israel's formative years, asserted that the memory of the Holocaust was not a major component of Statism, the ideology of Ben-Gurion and the Mapai governments that enshrined the state and state-building as of prime importance. Hence the Holocaust found little place in the myths and the ceremonies of Israel in the 195os.' Maoz Azaryahu, researcher of Israeli culture, in State Cults, also emphasized the marginality of the official commemoration of the Holocaust as opposed to the centrality of the Day of Independence and the creation of what historian George L. Mosse called the of fallen soldiers.2 Although the idea of the marginality of Holocaust commemoration in the state's cult in the 1950os appears in various sources,3 the attitude toward the Holocaust held by Ben-Gurion and the leadership of Mapai was not unequivocal. On the one hand, the government, from the beginning of statehood, recognized their historical and moral connection with the memory of the Jewish communities that had been annihilated and with the millions murdered in the wake of the Final Solution. Ben-Gurion held

Realpolitik and the Burden of the Past: Israeli Diplomacy and the 'Other Germany'

Realpolitik and the Burden of the Past: Israeli Diplomacy and the 'Other Germany'

Zionism and the Foundations of Israeli Diplomacy (review)

Zionism and the Foundations of Israeli Diplomacy (review)

Zionism and the foundations of Israeli diplomacy

by Sasson Sofer. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 449 pp. $59.95 (c).Theodor Herzl enjoys a well-deserved reputation for prescience. One of his works, Altneuland, anticipated a characteristic that is vital for understanding contemporary Israeli politics: even though the Jewish state is a new country its politics are not. How old they are is a matter for debate. Whether or not one finds the antecedents of the Israeli political process in the Bible, there can be no doubt that governing after 1948 was in many respects a continuation of processes that became well established during the Mandate period. Among the areas of continuity was ideology. Indeed the emergence of the various Zionist ideologies goes back to the very early days of the Zionist movement. However, until the creation of the Mandate, these ideological positions did not have to be tested against the realities of life in Palestine. The encounters with the real world in Eretz Yisrael between 1920 and 1948 led to substantial changes in the various ideologies, often accompanied by organizational ruptures and mergers, not to mention the solidification of intense antagonisms among many of the protagonists. There were only about 600,000 Jews in Palestine in 1948 and far fewer at the beginning of the Mandate. It is truly amazing that such a small community could generate such variegated and intense ideological positions as the Yishuv did. It is even more amazing that Israel has been able to function politically with any degree of unity in light of that history of multiple divisions. The challenge to diplomats to represent such a country has been a mighty one. Even more difficult has been the task of government leaders, who have had to fashion foreign policies in a coalition environment that has often reflected the intellectually competitive atmosphere of a Zionist Congress.Sasson Sofer thoroughly examines the ideological varieties during the years before statehood while focusing on the development of a diplomatic tradition. Even though his main interest is foreign policy, his discussion necessarily deals primarily with the meaning of Zionism for the various groups, how they relate to Jewish history, the personalities identified with each of the positions, and the organizational machinations associated with the various groups. His approach differs from that used in other works on Zionist ideology, such as those by Arthur Hertzberg and Shlomo Avineri, in that he does not examine a limited number of thinkers in some depth but rather tries to identify nearly everyone who exercised some ideological leadership and gives at least a brief summary of their ideas. Moreover he incorporates political leaders who were not necessarily innovative ideologically and tries to explain how the various organizational schisms and amalgamations occurred. Thus he has produced a rich ideological history of the Yishuv, one that ends in 1948 despite a concluding chapter in which he attempts to relate his study to the unfolding events of the subsequent 50 years.The book is certainly a learned analysis of the various positions. Sorer systematically goes through every conceivable ideological position, to the extent that he even offers chapters on such diverse groupings as Lehi, the Communists, the farmers and Sephardi notables, and Canaanites and Semites. Naturally all of the more consequential groups are included as well. The problem is that most of the groups that he identifies have had little if any impact on Israeli diplomacy. Arguably he should have devoted more attention to those groups that have been prominent in government and less to the groups that have not. One gets the impression that Sorer wrote the book that he wanted to write but that the title is not very descriptive. …