Demographic changes inside the Jewish society produced a new political force in Israel, defeating any chance of a liberal Zionist approach towards the Palestine Question. The last liberal Zionist bid was the Oslo Accord that dismally failed. The occupation after Oslo became much harsher as were the discriminatory policies towards the Palestinian minority inside Israel.

The Israel Jordan peace treaty is an example of the role precedent can play in international law. Although precedents are not binding, nevertheless major parts of the Israel Jordan treaty are copied verbatim from the Egypt Israel treaty. This was done for a variety of reasons. Jordan was a far smaller and weaker State than Egypt, and it was convenient for Jordan to rely on text that had been agreed upon by the stronger brother Arab State. Diplomats and international lawyers are, mostly, a conservative group and are happy to follow a beaten path. The Egypt Israel treaty had been signed fifteen years before the treaty with Jordan and had proved itself as viable. An example of this viability is the settlement of disputes clause. The clause in the Egypt Israel Treaty had an element of ambiguity, and Jordan suggested changing it. The Jordanian negotiators agreed to accept the text of the clause in the treaty with Egypt after the Israel negotiators pointed out that the clause in the treaty with Egypt had enabled the parties to successfully submit the Taba dispute to arbitration.

Chapter 4 exposes the growing contradiction in Israel’s engagement foreign policy stance, which, in certain respects, was advancing. By September 1995, Israel and the PLO had concluded the Oslo II interim agreement; Israel’s emerging ties with Arab countries in the Gulf and the Maghreb were continuing; and negotiations with Syria at an ambassadorial level and between the respective countries’ militaries’ chiefs of staff were maintained. At the same time, the domestic challenges to Israel’s policy of engagement intensified, prompting a flawed response from the Rabin government. Amid deteriorating security, Israel deployed coercive measures against the Palestinians, undermining the political standing of the Palestinian leadership, economy, and public support for negotiations with Israel. Nonetheless, terrorist attacks against Israelis continued, weakening the domestic legitimacy of engagement in Israel and fueling domestic opposition. Shifting the lens to Syria, the government attempted to sway domestic opposition to negotiations via public diplomacy with Syria’s obstinate and hostile President al-Assad, which backfired as al-Assad rejected all Israeli overtures. The chapter ends by uncovering how the failure to produce a breakthrough with Syria influenced Israel’s Iran policy, highlighting that Israel’s foreign policy of engagement remained vulnerable and incomplete.

Chapter 2 examines Israel’s foreign policy amid the rise to power, in 1992, of the Labour party under the leadership of Yitzhak Rabin. It explains how Israel redirected its foreign policy from entrenchment to engagement, which rested on three pillars: scaling down the Israeli occupation, relinquishing territory in exchange for peace agreements with the Arab states, and putting a premium on diplomacy in Israel’s Middle Eastern foreign policy while keeping military force as a viable foreign policy tool. The chapter accounts for the decision-making process during key events such as the deportation of 415 Hamas members, Rabin’s failed peace proposal to Syria, via the ‘deposit’, and the decision to launch the Oslo peace process with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). The chapter adds to the literature in two ways. First, by providing new information on Israeli foreign policy decision-making towards the peace processes with Syria and the PLO. Second, by tracing how and why Prime Minister Rabin and Foreign Minister Peres imposed engagement, as Israel’s preferred post-Cold War foreign policy stance, on the government and the security network.