New Book: Pardo, Normative Power Europe Meets Israel

Pardo, Sharon. Normative Power Europe Meets Israel: Perceptions and Realities. Lanham and Boulder: Lexington Books, 2015.

 

 

The book draws on some of the scholarship in perception studies and “Normative Power Europe” theory. The study of perceptions, although dating back to the mid-1970s, is gaining renewed currency in recent years both in international relations, in general, and in European Union studies, in particular. And yet, despite the significance of external perceptions of the European Union, there is still a lack of theoretical forays into this area as well as an absence of empirical investigations of actual external role conceptions. These lacunae in scholarly work are significant, since how the European Union is perceived outside its borders, and what factors shape these perceptions, are crucial for deepening the theory of “Normative Power Europe.” The book analyzes Israeli perceptions towards “Normative Power Europe,” the European Union, and NATO through five themes that, the book argues, underscore different dimensions of key Israeli conceptions of “Normative Power Europe” and NATO. The book seeks to contribute to the existing research on the European Union’s role as a “normative power,” the Union’s external representations, and on Israeli-European Union relations more broadly.

 

Table of Contents

• Introduction: Normative Power Europe Meets Israel
• Chapter 1: Normative Power Europe in Israeli Eyes
• Chapter 2: The Seventh Would-Be Member State of the European Economic Community
• Chapter 3: Normative Power Europe and Perceptions as Cultural Filters: Israeli Civic Studies as a Case-Study, with Natalia Chaban
• Chapter 4: When a Lioness Roars: The Union’s Guidelines Prohibiting the Allocation of Funds to Israeli Entities in the Occupied Territories
• Chapter 5: An Elusive Desire: Israeli Perceptions of NATO
• Conclusion: Normative Power Europe as Israel’s Negative “Other”

Sharon Pardo is Jean Monnet chair ad personam in European studies in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
 

New Book: Voltolini, Lobbying in EU Foreign Policy-Making: The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Voltolini, Benedetta. Lobbying in EU Foreign Policy-Making: The Case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Routledge/UACES Contemporary European Studies. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016.

 

 

This book examines lobbying in EU foreign policy-making and the activities of non-state actors (NSAs), focusing on EU foreign policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It sheds light on the interactions between the EU and NSAs as well as the ways in which NSAs attempt to shape EU foreign policies. By analysing issues that have not yet received systematic attention in the literature, this book offers new insights into lobbying in EU foreign policy, EU relations surrounding the conflict and the EU’s broader role in the peace process.

The book will be of key interest to scholars and students of political science, international relations, EU politics, EU foreign policy-making, Middle East studies and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

 

Table of Contents

• Introduction: ‘Embedded’ lobbying in EU foreign policy
• 1 Exploring lobbying in EU foreign policy-making
• 2 The EU and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict: An overview of declarations, policies and actors
• 3: Who’s who? Mapping non-state actors in EU policies towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• 4: Trade relations between the EU and Israel: Lobbying on the territorial scope of the EU–Israel Association Agreement
• 5 The Goldstone Report: To endorse or not to endorse it?
• 6 Framing the EU–Israel Agreement on pharmaceutical products: Cheaper medicines, territorial scope or policy coherence?
• 7 Using the national level to lobby the EU
• 8 Conclusions

 

Benedetta Voltolini is Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Political Science, Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

 

 

New Article: du Plessix, The Case of the (Future) Borders of Israel and Palestine

du Plessix, Caroline. “EU3 Resistance to Norms in External Action: The Case of the (Future) Borders of Israel and Palestine.” European Foreign Affairs Review 20.1-2 (2015): 103–21.

 
URL: http://www.kluwerlawonline.com/abstract.php?id=EERR2015027

 
Abstract

This article deals with the resistance of France, Germany and the United Kingdom (EU3) to comply with the EU norms regarding the (future) borders of Israel and Palestine. To do so, it focuses on two cases studies: the issue of Israel’s exports to the EU originating from the settlements, and EU companies operating in settlements in East Jerusalem. The EU3’s reactions differ when it comes to ensure the implementation of the EU soft law regarding the two state solution, and more particularly the issue of future borders. Yet, they all reflect the Member States’ resistance to directly enforce CFSP norms on this matter. In the case of a territorial dispute, the EU’s soft and hard laws are de facto intertwined through EU external action. As matter of fact, the rule of origin defined in EU free trade agreements with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority strongly relies on CFSP positions regarding their future borders. This article argues that conflicting objectives related to this issue between Member States and the EU and among national actors account for the EU3’s resistance attitudes. In other words, a certain form of cognitive distance – the fourth hypothesis of the introduction – between the content of EU norms and Member States’ objectives affects the implementation of CFSP norms. In this case, Germany’s reaction to the Brita case demonstrates its unwillingness to take direct responsibility for setting a precedent regarding the sensitive case of Israeli exports from the settlements, due to its special relationship with Israel. France’s cautious reaction is more particularly related to the latent conflict within its population about this issue. The United Kingdom’s preference for the labelling solution illustrates its liberal nature and its willingness to let British consumers assume the responsibility to decide, though this solution proves difficult to implement in fact. Yet, this article also shows that these resistance attitudes can also lead to the renegotiation of the means of implementation of CFSP norms on this matter, and potentially to their strengthening.

 

 

New Book: Heimann, The End of a Beautiful Friendship (in Hebrew)

Heimann, Gadi. The End of a Beautiful Friendship. Israel-France Relations under de Gaulle’s presidency, 1958-1967. Jerusalem: Magnes, 2015 (in Hebrew).

 

 

Τhis book unfolds one of the most interesting chapters in the history of Israel’s foreign policy. Since the Sinai campaign (1956) France had been a friend and an ally of Israel. It supplied Israel with advanced weapons to maintain the balance of powers in the Israeli-Arab conflict, provided crucial political and economic aid, and assisted in building the nuclear reactor in Dimona. The return of Charles de Gaulle to power in 1958, against the background of the Algerian War, presented a challenge for Israeli leadership: in light of the new French president’s determination to renew the influence of France in the Arab world – could Israel preserve its friendly alliance? The book deals with the efforts of Israeli statesmen, politicians and officials to attain this goal. It also discusses the uncompromising policy of de Gaulle to regain a status of a world power for France and the implications for his relation to Israel. The book sheds new light on a puzzle that has occupied many commentators, and still remains very much unresolved: why did de Gaulle decide to give a cold shoulder to Israel in May 1967, as it faced one of the most difficult challenges in its history, and why did his reticent policy intensify after the Israeli victory in the Six-Day War.

 

New Article: Drucker, The Alliance Israélite Universelle and Moroccan Jews

Drucker, Peter. “‘Disengaging from the Muslim Spirit’: The Alliance Israélite Universelle and Moroccan Jews.” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 11.1 (2015): 3-23.

 

URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_middle_east_womens_studies/v011/11.1.drucker.html

 

Abstract

The project of the French Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) in Morocco in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—to win social and political equality for Jews through European enlightenment—was intertwined with the French imperial project. Moroccan Jewish women were assigned, as mothers and wives, a special role in the AIU’s efforts: to help Jewish boys and men pursue commercial or professional careers in French-dominated society The AIU schools set out to win Moroccan Jews away from despised Muslim gender and sexual norms by Europeanizing Jews’ marriage patterns and family forms, combating prostitution, eliminating women’s traditional head coverings, and reining in what the AIU saw as men’s promiscuity and homosexual tendencies. Ultimately, the AIU helped further estrange Moroccan Jews from Muslims but failed to secure Moroccan Jews’ smooth integration into French secular culture. Moroccan Jews in Israel today, faced with persistent discrimination, largely cling to religiously based, conservative gender norms.

New Article: Caquet, Guizot’s Absence of a Plan for Jerusalem

Caquet, P. E. “Guizot’s Absence of a Plan for Jerusalem.” Middle Eastern Studies 51.2 (2015): 224-37.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00263206.2014.972950

 

Abstract

Historians have speculated over the existence of an 1841 plan by the French foreign minister François Guizot to internationalize Jerusalem as a Christian city, a plan holding major implications for the eventual emergence of a Jewish state and for European–Ottoman relations. This article aims, based on fresh archival and other sources, to provide a definitive evaluation of Guizot’s plan, its scope, and its motivations. It broadens the field to encompass other great power plans mooted in 1841, including plans of a Protestant yet Zionist flavour, and it reassesses the political weight of early nineteenth-century European religious impulses with regard to Palestine.

ToC: Journal of Palestine Studies 43.3 (2014)

Table of Contents Alert

University of California Press is happy to notify you that the new issue of Journal of Palestine Studies is now available. The online issues of this journal are hosted on JSTOR on behalf of University of California Press.

Journal of Palestine Studies Vol. 43, No. 3, Spring 2014 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies

Cover Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3 Front Matter Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3 Table of Contents Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3 FROM THE EDITOR Rashid I. Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 5. REFLECTION A Tribute to Eyad al-Sarraj Sara Roy Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 6-8. ARTICLE Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Teaching History in Mandate Palestine Elizabeth Brownson Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 9-25. ESSAY French Intellectuals and the Palestine Question Farouk Mardam-Bey Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 26-39. COMMENTARY: THE KERRY NEGOTIATIONS Chronicles of a Death Foretold Rashid I. Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 40-42. Behind Israel’s Demand for Recognition as a Jewish State Diana Buttu Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 42-45. The Debate about Kerry’s Economic Initiative: Pitfalls, Benefits, and Risks Raja Khalidi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 45-49. Implications of the Kerry Framework: The Jordan Valley Samia Al-Botmeh Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 49-51. It’s Not Over until It’s Over Mouin Rabbani Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 51-55. SPECIAL DOCUMENT FILE Academic Boycott of Israel: The American Studies Association Endorsement and Backlash Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 56-71. RECENT BOOKS Recent Book: The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge by by Ilan Pappé Review by: Gilbert Achcar Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 72-74. Recent Book: Communism and Zionism in Palestine during the British Mandate Communism and Zionism in Palestine During the British Mandate by by Jacob Hen-Tov; Isaiah Friedman Review by: Shira Robinson Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 74-75. Recent Book: Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by by Max Blumenthal Review by: Steven Salaita Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 76-77. Recent Book: Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture and the Youth Movement Jil Oslo: Palestinian Hip Hop, Youth Culture and the Youth Movement by by Sunaina Maira Review by: Loubna Qutami Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 77-80. Recent Book: Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 by by Jacob Norris Review by: Max Ajl Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 80-81. Recent Book: Back Stories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics Back Stories: U.S. News Production and Palestinian Politics by by Amahl Bishara Review by: Mike Berry Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 82-83. SELECTIONS FROM THE PRESS Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 84-103. PHOTOS FROM THE QUARTER Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 104-109. PALESTINE UNBOUND Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 110-117. UPDATE ON CONFLICT AND DIPLOMACY Ben White Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 118-139. CONGRESSIONAL MONITOR Paul Karolyi Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 140-185. DOCUMENTS AND SOURCE MATERIAL Journal of Palestine Studies Spring 2014, Vol. 43, No. 3: 186-208.