New Article: Harpaz and Heimann, Sixty Years of EU-Israeli Trade Relations

Harpaz, Guy, and Gadi Heimann. “Sixty Years of EU-Israeli Trade Relations: The Expectations-Delivery Gap.” Journal of World Trade 50.3 (2016): 447-74.

 

URL: http://www.kluwerlawonline.com/abstract.php?area=Journals&id=TRAD2016020

 

Abstract

This article identifies a common thread throughout the sixty years of European-Israeli relations, namely a gap that has prevailed between the lofty rhetoric of the EU regarding envisaged special trade relations and its much more modest willingness/ability to establish such relations. At various junctures of these relations (three of which are analysed in this article), turgid European promises were not fully realized. Consequently, a wide gap has been created between rhetoric and concrete actions and between the de jure and de facto economic and trade value of the legal regimes governing EU-Israel bilateral relations. The article reveals that gap and offers a typology and analysis of various factors which contributed to the creation and widening of the Expectations-Delivery Gap.

New Article: Heimann, The Negotiations for a Trade Agreement with Israel

Heimann, Gadi. “The EEC Commission and the Negotiations for a Trade Agreement with Israel, 1958–1964.” Journal of European Integration (early view, online first).
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2016.1193175
 
Abstract

This article examines the role played by the European Commission in negotiations between the European Economic Community and Israel concerning a trade agreement. It demonstrates that the Commission’s attitude to such an agreement was far more positive than that of the six member states. The Commission’s leadership pushed the Israelis into pursuing an association agreement, and when this was revealed to be impossible, it took a leading role in concluding a more limited trade agreement. The Commission’s proposal formed the basis for the final agreement, which took shape in 1964. The article attempts to discern the motives behind the Commission’s behaviour; its central claim is that the Commission’s leadership viewed negotiations with Israel and the conclusion of an agreement as a means to achieve their ideological and institutional goals.

 

 

 

New Article: Pardo, Israeli Views of NATO

Pardo, Sharon. “An American Military Organization or a European Political Alliance? Israeli Views of NATO.” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23739770.2016.1158445

 

Extract

In a January 2016 national survey of Israeli attitudes toward Europe and the European Union (EU), 45 percent of those surveyed supported the idea of Israel joining NATO as a full member, simply because NATO countries would help Israel defend itself. Yet, despite this wide public support, NATO has never obtained a central place in Israeli foreign policy, security, political, and social discourse. one of the reasons for this lack of centrality has to do with Israeli perceptions of the Alliance, the three most salient of which are explored in this article. By providing empirical findings concerning the attitudes of Israel public opinion, and that of the political and military elites, this article offers insights into the overall assessment on the part of key Israeli stakeholders of NATO’s global and regional actorness.

 

 

 

Policy Paper: Göbel, The Israeli Lobby for Research and Innovation in the European Union

Göbel, Benedict. “The Israeli Lobby for Research and Innovation in the European Union. An Example of Efficient Cooperation in the European Neighbourhood?” Bruges Political Research Papers 49/2015 (2016).

 

URL: https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/wp49_gobel.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract
Israel figures among the world-leaders in R&D expenditure and has a high-performing scientific community. Since the 1990s it has been associated with the Scientific Policy of the European Union via the European Research Framework Programmes (FP). The cooperation between Israel and the EU in this domain has gradually increased and benefits the scientific communities on both sides. In 2014 the association of Israel to the latest and biggest European FP ever adopted (Horizon 2020) was renewed for the fourth time. Based on all the scientific evidence provided, the elaboration of a European Research Policy can be identified as a highly regulated domain, offering relevant ‘channels of influence’. These channels offer Israel the opportunity to act within the Research Policy system. Being a member of several formal EU bodies in charge of implementing EU Research Policy, Israel is able to introduce its positions effectively. This is accompanied by an outstanding level of activity by Israel in linking concrete EU Research Policy measures to the Israeli Scientific Community at the national level. To carry out this task, Israel relies on an effective organization, which remodels the provided EU structures: European ‘National Contact Points’ (NCPs) are concentrated within the ‘Europe Israel R&D Directorate’ (ISERD). ISERD connects efficiently all the relevant actors, forums and phases of EU-Israeli Research Policy. ISERD can be recognized as being at the heart of Israel’s research cooperation with the EU.

 

 

 

Policy paper: O’Donnell, The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine

O’Donnell, Hugh. “The European Union as a Mediator in Israel-Palestine: Operations Cast Lead and Protective Edge.” EU Diplomacy Paper 01/2016.

 

URL: https://www.coleurope.eu/system/files_force/research-paper/edp_1_2016_odonnell.pdf (PDF)

 

Abstract
The European Union (EU) has played an important, yet inconsistent role in the Israel-Palestine conflict since the1980 Venice Declaration. This paper analyses how the EU’s role as a mediator has changed more recently in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Specifically, it examines how the ‘Concept on Strengthening EU Mediation and Dialogue Capacities’ adopted in 2009 and the creation of the European External Action Service and the High Representative by the Lisbon Treaty have changed the EU’s resources and strategies as a mediator as well as how these developments improved cooperation and coordination with other mediators. This analysis is done through a comparison of the EU’s role in the Israeli Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009 and Operation Protective Edge in 2014. It is argued that the aforementioned changes made the EU a more capable mediator and facilitated internal coordination. However, these changes did not create more resources for the EU as a mediator, rather they changed how the EU used its resources.

 

 

 

New Book: Wittstock, 50 Years of German-Israeli Diplomatic Relations

Wittstock, Alfred, ed. Rapprochement, Change, Perception and Shaping the Future. 50 Years of German-Israeli and Israeli-German Diplomatic Relations. Berlin: Frank & Timme, 2016.

 

The relations between the two states and societies have been rather complex during both the previous half-century and beyond. Embedded in changing political landscapes, the ramifications reach back to the early 19th century. Yet the uniqueness of the relationship network only shows in light of the wholesale murder of Jews in Europe, the creation of the State of Israel, the discussions surrounding the initiation of diplomatic relations and their arrangement until the present day. The development and intensity of the relations with regard to civil society and politics are quite astonishing when considering the beginnings. Approaches, changes and the in part greatly-varying perceptions of the other side can be observed over the course of 50 years of history, and these give rise to questions concerning the current state of the relationship and its future design.

 

Click here for Table of Contents (PDF).

ALFRED WITTSTOCK is the Director of the Israel Study Unit at the Department of Political Science at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz. Co-founder of the German Study Program “Study in Israel – One year at the Hebrew University Jerusalem”. Teaching activities at several secondary schools and Universities. Research interests: state and society of Israel, role of religions in the Middle East conflict, German-Israeli Relations.

 

 

 

New Article: Martins, Interpreting EU–Israel Relations

Martins, Bruno Oliveira. “Interpreting EU–Israel Relations: A Contextual Analysis of the EU’s Special Privileged Partnership Proposal.” Cambridge Review of International Affairs (early view; online first).
 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2015.1117921
 
Abstract

This article analyses the background, content and implications of the EU proposal for ‘Special Privileged Partnership’ status to be granted to Israel and the future state of Palestine in the event of a successful conclusion to the peace process. It employs a sociological institutionalist perspective to assess the diplomatic manoeuvring in the broader context of EU–Israel relations. The analysis offers an identification and categorization of the constitutive components of the EU–Israel relationship into formal and social elements. It argues that differences in threat perception, Israel’s highly securitized ethos and different interpretations of the security versus legality equation are social, constitutive elements of the relationship that cannot be efficiently changed by a mere upgrade of the formal institutional setting, even if the economic incentives to do so were attractive. In other words, the sources of tension between the EU and Israel observed in recent decades are not likely to be overcome by a discursive or institutional upgrade around the concept of partnership.

 

 

 

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 Article: Voltolini,Non-State Actors and Framing Processes in EU Foreign Policy

Voltolini, Benedetta. “Non-State Actors and Framing Processes in EU Foreign Policy: The Case of EU–Israel Relations.” Journal of European Public Policy (early view; online first).

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13501763.2015.1085429

 

Abstract

This article investigates the role of non-state actors (NSAs) in European Union (EU) foreign policy, focusing on how they contribute to the emergence and codification of new frames that underpin EU external policies. It argues that changes in EU foreign policy are the result of interactions among a frame entrepreneur, often played by an NSA, and policy-makers in situations of cognitive uncertainty and when a policy window opens. The empirical evidence is based on the case of EU–Israel relations: a non-governmental orgaization (NGO) called MATTIN Group acted as frame entrepreneur and contributed to the emergence and codification of a new frame of understanding of EU–Israel relations, redefining them on the basis of a legal paradigm. This clarifies the territorial scope of bilateral agreements and ensures that the bilateral relations are constructed and implemented in accordance with EU legal framework and its commitments under international law.

 

 

New Article: Horev et al, Preservatives in Cosmetics in Israel Conform to EU Legislation

Horev, L.,  M. Isaksson, M. Engfeldt, L. Persson, A. Ingber, and M. Bruze. “Preservatives in Cosmetics in the Israeli Market Conform Well to the EU Legislation.” Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology 29.4 (2015): 761-6.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jdv.12676

 

Abstract

Background

Preservatives are important and frequent skin sensitizers, found in a wide range of products for personal and occupational use. According to the European legislation, some cosmetic ingredients are restricted in terms of quantity and a detailed list of ingredients must be present on the product or packaging.

Objectives

To examine the use of preservatives in common cosmetics on the Israeli market.

Materials/Methods

Sixty different Israeli brand cosmetics, including shampoos, liquid soaps, body creams and hand creams were randomly selected. Ingredient labels were examined. The products were investigated by the chromotropic acid method for release of formaldehyde and by high performance liquid chromatography for the presence of formaldehyde, DMDM hydantoin and methylchloroisothiazolinone/methylisothiazolinone (MCI/MI) and MI content.

Results

All products but one contained a detailed list of ingredients printed on the package. According to labelling, the most prevalent preservatives in Israeli shampoos and liquid soaps were DMDM hydantoin and MCI/MI. Hand creams and body creams contained mainly parabens but also iodopropynyl butylcarbamate, phenoxyethanol and DMDM hydantoin. Formaldehyde in doses from 4 to 429 ppm, and DMDM hydantoin were detected in 38 and 16 (63% and 27%) of the products, respectively. MCI/MI was detected in 11 (18%) of the products, with highest prevalence in rinse- off products (55%). Excluding one hand cream which measured 106 ppm MI, the amount of formaldehyde, DMDM hydantoin, MCI/MI and MI was within the allowed concentrations by the European directive in all cases.

Conclusions

In Israel, adaptation of the European directive prevails, as shown by the measurements we performed on randomly selected products.

 
 
 
 

New Article: Harpaz, The EU Funding of Israeli Non-Governmental Human Rights Organizations

Harpaz, Guy. “The EU Funding of Israeli Non-Governmental Human Rights Organizations: When EU External Governance Meets a Domestic Counter-Strategy.” European Foreign Affairs Review 20.2 (2015): 207–25.

 
URL: http://www.kluwerlawonline.com/abstract.php?area=Journals&id=EERR2015016

 

Abstract
This article analyses the European Union’s (EU’s) practice of funding of Israeli Human Rights NGOs. It argues that the pursuance of such a model of governance is a natural choice for the EU, yet such pursuance has encountered in Israel a bottom-to-top counter-strategy of delegitimization conducted against the EU, the NGOs and their collaboration. This counter-strategy was found to discredit the NGOs and the EU and render their mutual collaboration less effective.

 

 

New Book: Del Sarto, The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle

Del Sarto, Raffaella A., ed. Fragmented Borders, Interdependence and External Relations. The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

 

 

This edited volume investigates the complex relations between Israel, the Palestinian territories and the European Union. They are considered as three entities that are linked to each other through various policies, bonds and borders, with relations between any two of the three parties affecting the other side. The contributors to this study explore different aspects of Israeli-Palestinian-European Union interconnectedness, including security cooperation; the movement of people; trade relations; information and telecommunication technology; legal borders defining different areas of jurisdiction; and normative borders in the context of conflict resolution and international law. By assessing the rules and practices that establish a web of interlocking functional and legal borders across this space, together with their implications, this volume adopts a novel perspective and sheds light on the complex patterns of interdependence and power asymmetries that exist across these fragmented borderlands.

 

Table of Contents

PART I: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1. Borders, Power, and Interdependence: A Borderlands Approach to Israel-Palestine and the European Union; Raffaella A. Del Sarto
PART II: SECURITY, SOVEREIGNTY, PEOPLE
2. EU-Palestinian Security Cooperation after Oslo: Enforcing Borders, Interdependence and Existing Power Imbalance; Dimitris Bouris
3. Visa Regimes and the Movement of People across the EU and Israel-Palestine; Raffaella A. Del Sarto
PART III: ECONOMIC BORDERS AND INFRASTRUCTURE
4. Territorial Borders and Functional Regimes in EU-Israeli Agreements; Benedetta Voltolini
5. Bordering Disputed Territories: The European Union’s Technical Custom Rules and Israel’s Occupation; Neve Gordon and Sharon Pardo
6. Between Digital Flows and Territorial Borders: ICTs in the Palestine-Israel-EU Matrix; Helga Tawil-Souri
PART IV: LEGAL AND NORMATIVE BORDERS
7. The Legal Fragmentation of Palestine/Israel and European Union Policies Promoting the Rule of Law; Asem Khalil, Birzeit University and Raffaella A. Del Sarto
8. The Legal Foundations of Normative Borders and Normative Orders: Individual and Human Rights and the EU-Israel-Palestine Triangle; Stephan Stetter
PART V: CONCLUSIONS
9. On Borderlands, Borders, and Bordering Practices; Federica Bicchi

Raffaella A. Del Sarto is a part-time professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, and an Adjunct Professor in Middle East Studies and International Relations at SAIS Europe, Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Contested State Identities and Regional Security in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (Palgrave, 2006).

 

 

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.

 

 

ToC: Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 8.1

Click here for PDF: http://israelcfr.com/documents/8-1/8-1-0-Contents.pdf

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At Issue: Iran

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Iran Thirty-Five Years After the Islamic Revolution: A Conversation

David Menashri

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“Like Two Scorpions in a Bottle”: Could Israel and a Nuclear Iran Coexist in the Middle East?

Louis René Beres

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“No Permanent Allies, No Permanent Enemies, Only Permanent Interests”: Israeli–Iranian Relations

Avi Primor

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Middle East Currents

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Breakdown and Possible Restart: Turkish–Israeli Relations under the AKP

Matthew S. Cohen and Charles D. Freilich

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Egypt’s Quest for Normalcy

David Sultan

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Internationalizing the Arab–Israeli Conflict

Yehuda Bauer

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European Currents and Retrospectives

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Israel and the EU: Beyond the Horizon

Frans Timmermans

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Combating Antisemitism in Europe

Michael Whine

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Two Vignettes on Israeli–European Economic Community Relations in the Late 1950s

Sharon Pardo

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Linking the Vistula and the Jordan: The Genesis of Relations between Poland and the State of Israel

Szymon Rudnicki

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Counterpoints

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Absolving the Allies? Another Look at the Anglo–American Response to the Holocaust

Alexander J. Groth

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Holocaust Rescue Revisited: An Unexplored Angle

Wojtek Rappak

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Reviews

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Israel Has Moved by Diana Pinto

Reviewed by Colette Avital

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Israel in Africa 1956–1976 by Zach Levey

Reviewed by Joel Peters

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The Wisdom of Syria’s Waiting Game: Foreign Policy Under the Assads by Bente Scheller

Reviewed by Dimitar Mihaylov

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Shiism and Politics in the Middle East by Laurence Louër

Reviewed by Harold Rhode

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Beyond War: Reimagining American Influence in a New Middle East by David Rohde

Reviewed by Juliana Geran Pilon

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The Nixon Administration and the Middle East Peace Process, 1969–1973: From the Rogers Plan to the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War by Boaz Vanetik and Zaki Shalom

1973: The Road to War by Yigal Kipnis

Reviewed by David Rodman

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Race and US Foreign Policy: The African-American Foreign Affairs Network by Mark Ledwidge

Reviewed by Fred A. Lazin

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Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals by Richard Rashke

Reviewed by Efraim Zuroff

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The Influence of Airpower upon History: Statesmanship, Diplomacy, and Foreign Policy since 1903 edited by Robin Higham and Mark Parillo

Reviewed by Danny Shalom

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Governments-in-Exile and the Jews during the Second World War edited by Jan Lánič ek and James Jordan

Reviewed by Alexander J. Groth

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Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945 by Rana Mitter

Reviewed by Yitzhak Shichor

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Letters

Bertram Marc Katz, Rafael Medoff, Konrad Baumeister

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