Israel under Siege: The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of the Israeli Neo-Revisionist Right

296 Pages·2017·1.756 MB·English

by  Raffaella A. Del Sarto

ISRAEL UNDER SIEGE
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ISR AEL
UNDER SIEGE
The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of
the Israeli Neo- Revisionist Right
RAFFAELLA A. DEL SARTO
Georgetown University Press | Washington DC
© 2017 Georgetown University Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
The publisher is not responsible for third-party websites or their content. URL links were
active at time of publication.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Del Sarto, Raffaella A., author.
Title: Israel under Siege : The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of the Israeli
Neo-Revisionist Right / Raffaella A. Del Sarto.
Description: Washington, DC : Georgetown University Press, 2017. | Includes bibli-
ographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024176 (print) | LCCN 2016040475 (ebook) | ISBN
9781626164062 (hc : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781626164079 (pb : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781626164086 (eb)
Subjects: LCSH: Israel—Foreign relations—21st century. | Israel—Politics and
government—1993– | Right and left (Political science)—Israel. | National security—
Israel.
Classification: LCC DS119.6 .D45 2017 (print) | LCC DS119.6 (ebook) | DDC 327.5694—
dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024176
♾ This book is printed on acid- free paper meeting the requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
18 17 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
First printing
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Martyn Schmoll.
Israel–Egypt barrier, Wikimedia Commons image (ISR-EGY border 6521a.jpg)
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported,
2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
To N.
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CONTENTS
Preface ix
A Note on Transliteration xiii
Abbreviations xv
Introduction: Israel’s New Foreign Policy Consensus
after the Oslo Peace Process, 2000–2010 1
1. F eeling under Siege: Conflicts, Threats,
and Regional Order 21
2. I srael’s Foreign Policy Consensus:
Impact and Implications 96
3. A New Domestic Hegemony: Factors and Explanations 149
4. T he Return of Dissent? 2010 to the Present 187
Conclusions: Insecurity and the Power
of Neo- Revisionist Hegemony 211
Appendix A: Key Political Figures 227
Appendix B: Chronology 241
Bibliography 255
Index 269
About the Author 279
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PREFACE
The idea for this book first emerged while I was a Pears-R ich Fellow in
Israel and Mediterranean Studies at the Middle East Centre of St. Ant-
ony’s College at Oxford University between 2007 and 2011. In that period,
the first Gaza war between Israel and Hamas took place, termed Oper-
ation Cast Lead by Israel and lasting from December 2008 to January
2009. In September 2009 the so- called Goldstone Report of the UN Fact
Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict was published, accusing both the
Israeli army and Palestinian militants of war crimes and possible crimes
against humanity during that war. In May 2010 the Israeli navy stormed
the Turkish- owned flagship of a flotilla of vessels, the Mavi Marmara,
which was crewed by pro-P alestinian activists trying to break the Israeli–
Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip; nine Turkish citizens were killed in
the incident. The heated discussions about these and other Middle East
events with students, colleagues, and friends in these years convinced me
that specific notions and policies, together with the question of who is to
blame, had become “common sense” and were thus widely uncontested
in Israeli politics and society. However, from an outside perspective, Is-
raeli policies were becoming increasingly incomprehensible. Fierce and
polemic disputes between supporters and critics of Israeli policies, with
their respective justifications, characterized that period and the follow-
ing years. The growing international criticism of Israeli policies would,
however, only reinforce the domestic consensus in Israel, together with
the sense of besiegement that had taken hold of Israeli society in those
years. Toward the end of the 2000s, the Israeli body politic had thus con-
siderably changed from the Israel I had come to know earlier, while living,
studying, and working there (and in the Palestinian territories) for almost
eight years. That period comprised the years of the Oslo peace process, in
which cooperation with the Palestinians, however difficult, was a reality.
It was also a time in which contestation and heated debates in Israeli pol-
itics on anything related to relations with the Palestinians and the wider
region, the future borders of the state, and Israel’s place in the region were