Does culture really matter for contemporary peacebuilding and, if so, why? What is cultural peacebuilding? What are some possible challenges and impacts of cultural peacebuilding on postconflict political and socioeconomic processes? Certainly, cultural peacebuilding deserves and needs a thorough scholarly problematization, and its further integration with existing conceptual and policy studies on contemporary peacebuilding will, it is hoped, support and provide a new trend in peace research. As a part of active discourses on peacebuilding from 2016, the editor of this volume organized an international workshop in Atlanta in order to bring together and understand the prospects for contemporary peacebuilding that are being developed in various theoretical schools and regions; for the purposes of this chapter, four questions arising from the workshop will be addressed. Along with the chapter’s objectives, these questions will guide this study.

Chapter 1 examines Israel’s foreign policy response to the end of the Cold War. It analyses events such as the 1991 Gulf War and the ensuing Madrid peace conference. It explains how domestic factors drove Israel to adopt a foreign policy of entrenchment amid events related to the end of the Cold War. This stance hinged on basing Israel’s regional foreign policy on its iron wall of military might rather than on diplomacy, and making peace with the Arab world in exchange for peace, not territory. The Palestinians residing in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel had captured during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, would be granted limited autonomy, but remain under Israeli military occupation.The chapter engages with and adds to the literature on specific episodes including Israel’s response to the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, the 1991 Gulf War, and the Madrid peace conference.

Chapter 7 traces the rise to power of Binyamin Netanyahu and the ‘presidential’ decision-making structure he established to bypass his ministerial colleagues whom he regarded as his rivals. It explores key events, including the opening of the Hasmonean Tunnel, the October 1996 Washington summit, the signing of the revised Hebron agreement, the construction in Har Homa/Jabal Abu-Ghneim, and the protracted delay in the implementation of the Oslo II agreement. The chapter provides new information concerning the decision-making process in relation to each of these events. In addition, it exposes, for the first time, that Prime Minister Netanyahu rejected an offer from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to replace the Oslo process with Madrid peace conference negotiation framework, which Likud was a part of. It is argued that Israel’s foreign policy reflected Prime Minister Netanyahu’s fundamental opposition to Israel’s engagement foreign policy stance, which he successfully frustrated.

Chapter 3 examines the evolution of Israel’s foreign policy of engagement under the Rabin government. It explains why the Israel-PLO and Israel-Syria peace processes remained contested, while Israel’s negotiations with Jordan yielded a peace accord. The chapter uncovers the deepening tension between the government pursing Israel’s policy of engagement and the domestic opposition it unleashed. It concludes that Israel’s foreign policy transition from entrenchment to engagement remained reversible. On the one hand, Israel concluded a peace agreement with Jordan, continued negotiations with the PLO and Syria, and engaged in budding negotiations with Arab countries in the Gulf and the Maghreb. On the other, however, nearing the brink of peace obscured a less visible, but highly significant fact, namely, that the Arab-Israeli peace process was enfeebled by domestic challenges. These included, for example, the deadly terrorist attacks launched by Hamas, hostile public opinion, and mounting political opposition in parliament on the grounds that engagement posed security risks to Israel and was anathema to its Jewish and Zionist identity of the state.

This chapter traces the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a global norm informing the practices of international business.While acknowledging historical instances of CSR, the emergence of CSR as a global norm can be traced to the 1970s, with the advent of globalisation, alongside important intersecting developments such as the rise of environmentalism, the growing role of non-state actors in global governance, and the expansion of production into the developing world.Since the 1970s, the scope (from labour to environmental to human rights responsibilities) and geographic reach of CSR expanded to the point that by the late 1990s, CSR attained global normative status.Far from being a linear progression, the meaning and scope of CSR remains contested and manifestations of global CSR reflect broad tendencies in the assignment of responsibility across actors and the role and prominence of the state in the proliferation of collaborative global governance initiatives.

Chapter 14 is devoted to the resurgence of unilateralism during Ariel Sharon’s second government. It provides new information on the decision-making process leading to Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza Strip in August 2005.The account exposes how Sharon and his circle of confidants secured the support of the USA and Egypt before informing the Israeli government, the security network, and the Israeli public of the plan to withdraw unilaterally from the Gaza Strip.This prompted significant opposition within the security network and a fierce political response from within Sharon’s own party, Likud. The chapter examines how Sharon and his confidants overcame these domestic obstacles while liaising informally with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority on a successful unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. By way of a summary, the chapter outlines the consequences of disengagement, which included strengthening Israel’s grip on the West Bank, dividing the Palestinians and redrawing Israel’s southwest border.

Chapter 15 examines the rise of Ehud Olmert as prime minister and primary decision-maker after Ariel Sharon fell into coma. The chapter focuses on the defining event of Ehud Olmert’s first months in office, namely, the Israel-Hezbollah 2006 Lebanon War. The chapter contributes to the literature by providing a detailed examination of the decision-making process that led to the war and its conduct. The chapter demonstrates that Israel embarked on a botched war of choice and provides a comprehensive analysis of why the IDF performed poorly in the conflict against Hezbollah. Finally, it offers the first account of how the outcome of the 2006 Lebanon War significantly weakened the domestic support in Israel for its unilateralist foreign policy posture and for the leading Israeli troika during the war: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Amir Peretz, and IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz.

The chapter traces the history of responsibility in the field of security through the development of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). By using the idea of ‘responsibility’ as a lens through which to assess which and whose interests, objectives, and aims the R2P was designed to advance, and how this was articulated in the inception of R2P, I show that in spite of claimed ancestry, R2P was a product of the late 1990s and the aim to address the lack of international response or intervention in the humanitarian crises of that decade. In so doing, the chapter contributes to broadening our historical account of R2P by linking and situating aspects of R2P to and alongside earlier initiatives of the 1980s.

Unimpeded by questionable “general” theories, the Conflict Management Approach (CMA) holds that conflict is normal, structural, and behavioral and has to be managed in its own terms.The idea that peace is divisibleinto negative and positive phases, though creativein Galtung’s time, is unrealistic. Peace to needs to be broken down further, into more helpful sequences, with more sophisticated distinctions.This chapterdescribes what is meant by the CMA, and compares it tothe other primary theoretical approaches analyzed in this volume. This chapter focuses on the importance of CMA as a hybrid approach, which is liberal in its view of feasibility, realist in its view of the problem, and cosmopolitan in its view of responses.This essay alsoaddresses some of the challenges CMA faces from the “New World of Disorder” and concludes with a brief discussion about the possibilities CMA has as the new “ideal type” for the future of peacebuilding.