The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-viii

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 1-14

3. The Construction of Israeli National Identity: From Jews to Israelis and Back Again

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 15-42

4. Between Isolation and Integration: Foreign Policy and Israeli National Identity

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 43-79

5. Out of the Ghetto: The Oslo Peace Process and Israeli National Identity

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 81-107

6. The Crisis of Israeli Identity

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 109-144

7. The Return of the Other

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 145-186

8. Conclusion: Israel’s Identity Crisis in Global Perspective

   • Dov Waxman

   Pages 187-198

9. Back Matter

   Pages 199-254

   PDF

This book offers a theoretically-informed analysis of the way in which Israeli national identity has shaped Israel's foreign policy. By linking domestic identity politics to Israeli foreign policy, it reveals how a crisis of Israeli identity inflamed the debate in Israel over the Oslo peace process.

• desegregation
• foreign policy
• Israel
• national identity
• Policy
• politics

"Rejecting standard 'realist' accounts of foreign policy, which center almost exclusively on a state's 'national interests' and security concerns, The Pursuit of Peace and the Crisis of Israeli Identity argues that national identity is at the heart of Israel's policies regarding the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Foreign policy, in Dov Waxman's view, is less the product of a small number of high officials conferring in smoke-filled rooms, than a broader set of struggles in society over the definition of national identity. This must-read book argues persuasively that resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict demands first that Israelis solve their own roiling conflict over national identity."

- Joel Migdal, Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies, University of Washington"This is a masterful study; seldom if ever have the internal and external dimensions of Israeli politics been tied together so persuasively. Waxman goes to the roots of the Jewish dilemma - which is also the Zionist dilemma - between the pull of universalism and the claims of particularity. But this is not a work mired in abstractions; rather, it traces this dilemma in Zionist and Israeli history with an extraordinary precision and command of events. The analysis of the Oslo peace process, in particular, explains its ultimate collapse with a depth of understanding that few other analyses have approached. This is a book that will be of value to readers on all levels, from the uninitiated to the expert. It should be on everyone's short list of books on Israel."

- Alan Dowty, Kahanoff Professor in Israel Studies, University of Calgary, and President, Association for Israel Studies "Waxman's engrossing account of Israel's foreign policy as a site of conflict over collective identity in analytical and historical perspective is not only a must read for everyone interested in a deep perspective of Israel's passionate search for meaningful national existence, but also a milestone in the development of a 'constructivist' school of Israel Studies."

- Emanuel Adler, Andrea and Charles Bronfman Professor of Israeli Studies, University of Toronto

DOV WAXMAN is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Baruch College of the City University of New York, USA.

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