Introduction
Traditional scholarship explains International Relations (IR) mainly on the basis of historical, structural, politico-economic, legal, institutional, geo-political, strategic and leadership factors. More recent writings have focused on discourse and dialogue as prominent theoretical concepts in IRFootnote 1 and European integration studies.Footnote 2 Such analytical focus may be seen in its wider context, namely what Yosef Lapid referred to as the dramatic comeback of culture and identity into the theoretical line of vision of IR.Footnote 3
An attempt will be made in this article to contribute to the existing scholarship by focusing on a novel angle, namely the negative role of the lack of adequate and informed European-Israeli dialogue in constituting European-Israeli relations.Footnote 4 This article will attempt to analyse the causes and consequences of that lack of dialogue, or its deficient manifestations, against the backdrop of a general analysis of the role of dialogue in IR.
A methodological caveat is in order. As Kratochwil argues, it is always difficult to make analogies between IR and interpersonal relations.Footnote 5 This difficulty is particularly acute in the EU-Israeli context. The EU is not a generic, unitary entity and its Member States have different relations with Israel, due, inter alia, to their different pasts. Likewise, Israeli society is complex and varied. It is therefore difficult to draw the precise parameters of the EU-Israeli dialogue and to prove the causal link between that dialogue and EU-Israeli relations. Such dialogue may, for example, differ along socio-economic, religious or national-ethnical lines and vary from one context to the other (for example, the European-Israeli political establishment, European-Israeli bureaucracy, European-Israeli socio-political elite, European-Israeli organised civil society or the European-Israeli masses). Moreover, existing high-calibre, primary empirical work on the European-Israeli dialogue and on the EU's image in Israel is scarce and usually one-dimensional.Footnote 6 The picture drawn in this article, which focuses primarily on what Norman Fairclough termed ‘lifeworld discourses’, namely exchanges which circulate in the commonplace interactions of the private domain rather than in public, institutional spheres,Footnote 7 is based on multiple sources, including close examination of the Israeli press, public polls, media coverage, secondary scholarly sources, political statements and this author's experience in studying and lecturing in the EU and in teaching thousands of Israeli students in numerous academic institutions.
The importance of dialogue
Notwithstanding recent positive developments,Footnote 8 European-Israeli relations too often remain characterised by mutual ignorance, prejudices, misrepresentations, mistrust and antagonism,Footnote 9 leading some scholars to describe them as ‘troubled waters’,Footnote 10 an ‘expanding abyss’Footnote 11 and a ‘growing malaise’.Footnote 12 Abundant literature analyses the problematic aspects of these relations through historical,Footnote 13 politico-economic,Footnote 14 legal,Footnote 15 institutional,Footnote 16 geo-political, structural and strategic prisms.Footnote 17 This article will add to existing scholarship by focusing on an additional factor, namely the lack of adequate European-Israeli dialogue. The argument advanced is that such dialogue is not only caused by these negative attributes, but also, in turn, causes these factors to characterise these relations.
The literature on the concept of ‘dialogue’ and its philosophical, cognitive and other aspects is abundant.Footnote 18 Our examination is confined to a focus on the role of dialogue in constituting IR. For that purpose we rely on the typology of dialogue offered by Wendt. According to him dialogue includes discussion and persuasion, education, ideological labour, political argument and symbolic action.Footnote 19 All of these manifestations of dialogue will prove to be relevant for the purpose of this article.
The emphasis of this article on dialogue and its interface with IR and its attempt to add to scholarship, which customarily employs interpretative methods in order to unravel collective meaning, actors' identities and political interests and processes,Footnote 20 fits neatly into the following basic assumptions of the Constructivist IR School of Thought.Footnote 21
According to Constructivism, States must not be perceived as structurally or exogenously given, as neo-realists argue, but rather as constructed by historically contingent socio-political interactions;Footnote 22 the material world is shaped not exclusively by physical reality but also by human action, reaction and interaction, which are themselves dependent on dynamic normative and epistemic collective knowledge and interpretations of the material world.Footnote 23 The key structures of States should thus not be seen as merely material but rather intersubjective.Footnote 24 It is social communication that allows such intersubjectivity to exist and persist.Footnote 25 Language and discourse are thus one component of the foundation of the social construction of knowledge, reality, identity and ideology.Footnote 26 Collective knowledge, acquired through social interactions, may constitute the identity of the actors and define the basic rules of the game according to which they interact,Footnote 27 thereby serving as an engine for socio-political action and change.Footnote 28
The questions remain: what precise political role does dialogue play? What weight should be ascribed to it as an instrument determining future identities, conduct, policies and relations?Footnote 29 An attempt will be made to address these questions as they arise in the European-Israeli context.
Inspired by a performative approach to language, various researchers regard relations between States as constituted by language and dialogue.Footnote 30 Discourse therefore serves as a system of signification and as a means to political ends,Footnote 31 constructing socio-political realities and shaping world politics.Footnote 32 Accordingly, language employed during dialogue is not epiphenomenal, nor is it merely a mirror of social reality, as some Realist writers contend. Instead, it constitutes a medium of its own, producing, reproducing, transforming and constituting social structures, knowledge, ideologies, collective ideas and identities.Footnote 33 Drawing on diverse and conflicting perspectives, Linguistic Constructivism considers social reality as embedded in dialogue and discourse,Footnote 34 while language does not merely reflect reality, but also shapes it.
In the absence of informed knowledge, misunderstandings and stereotypes do prevail. Per contra, public deliberation may, as Benjamin Page and Iris Young argue, ensure that the public's policy preferences, upon which democratic decisions are based, are informed and enlightened.Footnote 35 Knowledge acquired through deliberations may serve, as Emmanuel Adler argues, as a requisite for the transformation of international actors, institutionalised patters, political identities and interest.Footnote 36 Dialogue, both in the public sphere and in diplomatic circles, may assist the parties involved in challenging views, interests and identities, dispelling misunderstanding and unfounded perceptions and stereotypes, mitigating conflicting interests and bridging opposing perceptions and different identities, thereby enhancing the chances of improved cooperation among human agents and among States.Footnote 37
The public knowledge and convictions acquired during the deliberative process are amenable to political mobilisation.Footnote 38 Politicians, as Piki Ish-Shalom demonstrates, take advantage of public conventions, transforming them into political convictions suited to their own interests.Footnote 39 Politicians may, for example, manipulate prevailing metaphors used in dialogue, thereby shaping mass opinion and mobilising public support for their policies.Footnote 40 Dialogue and its resultant collective perceptions, convictions and identities can also be used by them as a means of ‘rhetorical coercion’, seeking as Krebs and Jackson establish, to ‘twist arms by twisting tongues’, thereby limiting the range of possible responses and policy options.Footnote 41
In all these usages, language is employed politically in a top-to-bottom manner. However, contrary to the arguments of various scholars, discourse does not solely operate in such a manner.Footnote 42 Instead, the relationship between discourse and political practice is dialectical.Footnote 43 Identities, interests and conduct are socially constructed by collective meaning, interpretations and assumptions about IR.Footnote 44 Public dialogue and resultant public conventions may both enable and constrain politicians,Footnote 45 providing them with a menu of what the public perceives as acceptable and unacceptable, legitimate and illegitimate, normative or non-normative,Footnote 46 thereby framing and limiting the range of alternative policy options.Footnote 47
It will be argued below that these potential benefits of transnational dialogue and their socio-political ramifications are valid in the European-Israeli context too. It must, however, be emphasised that the central role of dialogue and the potential, practical benefits that may stem from it, both in our context and others, must not be overstated.Footnote 48 Public convention results from both objective and structural conditions (material factors) and subjective or intersubjective processes of analysing, understanding and evaluating those conditions (ideal factors).Footnote 49 Dialogue should thus be seen as part of a large panoply of instruments mirroring and constituting IR. The limits of the importance and usefulness of dialogue will be further elaborated below.
EU-Israeli relations: the lack of an adequate dialogue
EU-Israeli bilateral legal and trade relations appear at face value to be comprehensive and impressive, while recent years have witnessed an improvement in Israel's political and strategic relations with the EU and with some of the more influential Member States.Footnote 50 To add to this seemingly favourable account of these relations, Israel is currently working with the EU to further strengthen these ties and to expand such cooperation into institutional, legal, cultural, educational and aviation fields of activity.Footnote 51 Yet notwithstanding this state of affairs, positive as it is on the face of it, Israeli-European relations are too often marred by either a lack of or a deficiency of dialogue.
Most of the channels which once served to promote constructive, grass-root dialogue fail nowadays to serve that role. Consequently, as analysed below, ordinary Europeans and Israelis simply do not routinely interact other than for superficial contact. Private, grass-root, ‘lifeworld discourses’ between ordinary Europeans and Israelis and between the collective Israeli society and Europe are not too common.
The same is true with respect to dialogue between EU officials and the Israeli public. Little meaningful dialogue is conducted by European policymakers with the Israeli masses or with the ordinary Israeli. The significant human and financial resources that Europe invests in Israel are spent preaching to the choir, namely the elitist, liberal Left. European efforts are directed at supporting fringe NGOs that share its own views,Footnote 52 at writing editorial letters to the daily, prestigious, yet low-circulation Haaretz, and at attending social events with Israel's political and business elite. Even when the EU attempts to initiate such a dialogue it finds itself in the unenviable position of being perceived as a paternalistic preacher.Footnote 53
This lack of adequate dialogue and resultant inability of many European politicians to be attuned to Israel's collective existential fears and sensitivities, to listen rather than preach, influences in turn the internal and external grass-root dialogue that takes place in Israel regarding Europe, contributing to the widespread Israeli narrative of naïve, judgmental, declaratory Europe.Footnote 54
The intergovernmental nature of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy only makes matters worse.Footnote 55 Europe's inability to speak with one voice and its difficulties in formulating a coherent policy towards the Middle East contribute to the widespread Israeli perception that EU policies reflect the lowest common denominator and that the EU itself excels in words and preaching and not in deeds: ‘The Europeans are strong when it comes to politics and declarations, however when there is a concrete opportunity to do something and help alone, they shy away’.Footnote 56
Such a European portrait is conveyed by the political establishment to the general Israeli public and moulds its perception of Europe, thereby evoking, once again, less dialogue and increased mutual ignorance.
Consequently, too few Israelis are familiar with the successes of the EU neo-functionalist model of peaceful cooperation based on regional economic integration and of the potential applicability of that model to other parts of the world, including the Middle East. The vast majority of Israelis have not heard of the Euro-Med Barcelona Process or of the Union for the Mediterranean,Footnote 57 let alone of Europe's desire to position itself in the Middle East as a civilian power.Footnote 58 More specifically, very few Israelis are cognisant of the impressive economic and trade figures governing EU-Israeli relations, of the degree of EU-Israeli cooperation in research, of Israel's participation in the Galileo ProjectFootnote 59 of support by the European Investment Bank for projects in which Israel participatesFootnote 60 or of the useful role played by the EU in the aftermaths of the Second Lebanon War (2006) and of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in Gaza (2009). To make matters worse, and due to the ignorance and egocentric perspective of many Israelis, the internal Israeli debate about Israel's appropriate status in Europe is rather limited.Footnote 61
In a similar manner, too many Europeans misunderstand Israel. Many of them erroneously believe that the problems of the Middle East commenced with Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Strip (1967), and that the end of the occupation will terminate the conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a territorial dispute, but this dispute is conducted against the backdrop of a religious-cultural divide, a backdrop that not sufficient Europeans fully appreciate. In the same vein, too few Europeans understand Israel's id, ego, superego and phobias and Europe's own contribution to shaping them.Footnote 62
The next Section will analyse some of the principal causes of this deficient European-Israeli dialogue, while the subsequent Section will analyse its consequences.
Causes of the deficient dialogue
The shadow of the past
As Thomas Risse persuasively argues, dialogue can be facilitated by ‘common lifeworld’, common experiences with the world and its history and a common system of values and norms to which actors can refer in their communications.Footnote 63 This is, however, not always the case in the Jewish-European context. As analysed elsewhere at greater length, the Israeli public and political establishment tend to associate contemporary Europe, European policies and initiatives, particularly those pertaining to the Middle East, with past Jewish persecution, pogroms and anti-Semitism.Footnote 64
In the eyes of many Israelis, anti-Semitic events that took place in Europe and in particular the Holocaust, are not mere relics of the past, but have been primary, moral and historical catalysts in the foundation of the State of Israel, in its development and in the formation of its collective identity.Footnote 65 The extermination of six million Jews on European soil during the Second World War is the seminal event in the formation of the individual and collective identities of many Israelis.Footnote 66 The extinction of almost two thirds of European Jewry during World War Two generated what is possibly a collective Israeli anxiety complex.Footnote 67 This dominance of the trauma of the Holocaust influences in turn, Israeli foreign and security policies.Footnote 68 Thus Israel's frequent reluctance to compromise on the question of its borders, its nuclear project, like its pre-emptive attack on Egypt in 1967, may all be seen as cases in point.Footnote 69 New anti-Semitism in Europe is regarded at times by many Israelis as a continuation of the longstanding hatred of Jews embedded in European culture.Footnote 70
This link between Europe's past and present Israeli policies comes up again and again in Israeli public discourse on Europe, casting a shadow over Israeli-European contemporary dialogue, over bilateral relations and over the willingness of the average Israeli to listen to European criticism and to permit the EU to contribute constructively to the Middle East in political terms.Footnote 71 The past continues to cast a shadow over EU-Israeli dialogue, both reflecting and constituting contemporary Israeli perceptions of issues of peace and security. This contributes to a prevalent Israeli narrative that EU's critical policies towards Israel reflect European double standards, immorality, and contemporary anti-Semitism.Footnote 72
The link identified above and explored below between Jewish-European history and the contemporary deficient dialogue and its resultant contested relations, matches Constructivist literature according to which states are not structurally or exogenously given but constructed by historically contingent interactions.Footnote 73 Moreover, and as will be demonstrated in the following Section, the dominance of the memories of the Holocaust are at times abused by politicians to counter critical European approaches towards Israel and towards most forms of European intervention.
The decline of the command of European languages (other than English) in Israel
The global spread of European languages, especially English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, makes Europe an important cultural magnate and enables inter-cultural dialogue and enhances the EU's soft powers.Footnote 74 Yet this is not necessarily the case within the European-Israeli context.
Most of the founders of the State of Israel were European Jews who spoke a European language as their mother tongue.The massive waves of immigration from Europe, following Israel's creation, brought with them hundreds of thousands of Jews who spoke French, Polish, Russian, Czech, Hungarian, Rumanian, Bulgarian and many other European languages. Yiddish, a mixture of Hebrew and German, widely used by European Jews in Central and Eastern Europe, was widespread in Israel during the period leading to the establishment of the State and in the years following 1948. The prevalence of European languages in the evolving Jewish State facilitated close Israeli-European dialogue and strengthened Israel's affinity to Europe.
However, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the Zionist Movement invested much effort in depicting the Diaspora Jew as weak and dependent and in glorifying the image of the ‘new Jew’, the Jewish-Palestinian pioneer who toiled the soil to lay the foundations of the State in the making, as brave, independent and powerful.Footnote 75 With this aim in mind, it strove to spread Hebrew in Palestine, while portraying European languages as a foreign element and a relic of the past.
The Zionist Movement may be seen in many respects as a remarkable success story. Yet its success came at the expense of, inter alia, Israelis' command of foreign languages. Whilst many of the generation of European Jews of the early twentieth century spoke four, five, or even more languages, the generation of their sons and daughters who immigrated to Israel from Europe, tend in many cases to speak three languages, while their grandsons and granddaughters who were born in Israel speak in most instances no more than Hebrew and (Americanised) English.
The demise of European languages other than English, and the rise of the latter in daily life in Israel contribute to a deficient dialogue between Continental Europeans and Israelis, to the Americanisation of Israeli society and Israeli academia, to deficient media coverage of Europe, and to the shift of young Israeli tourists away from Europe. All these trends, which not only reflect the inadequate Israeli-European dialogue, but also constitute it, are analysed below.
Israel's evolving collective identity: the de-Europeanisation of Israel society?
This sub-section will explore the impact of the evolution of Israeli collective identity on the lack of European-Israeli dialogue. Identity is examined for our purpose according to a dynamic, Constructivist's perspective, through which it is not determined a priori, but is rather the end-product of a dynamic process of social construction.Footnote 76
European influence on Israeli nationality has been substantial. In fact the birth of Zionism as a secular ideology is deeply rooted in nineteenth century European political and social thought.Footnote 77 When Zionism matured into an independent Jewish State, Israel's original socio-political, legal and cultural landscape was largely European.Footnote 78 That link was never entirely severed.Footnote 79
Yet, especially from the early 1990s onwards, Israel has been going through a process of Americanisation, which involves the importation of features of American mass culture in spheres such as consumption, entertainment and leisure.Footnote 80 This process of diffusion of American cultural themes, codes, norms, and values, which has brought about a major change in the ideological and cultural make-up of Israeli society,Footnote 81 is manifested in all aspects of Israeli daily life, including popular culture,Footnote 82 civil society,Footnote 83 media,Footnote 84 politics,Footnote 85 religious practice,Footnote 86 literature,Footnote 87 and gender relations.Footnote 88 As demonstrated below, the same holds true for Israeli academia.Footnote 89 Consequently, the collective, European social model which once served as Israel's socio-economic apparatus has been gradually replaced by the contemporary individualist American model.Footnote 90 This state of affairs further reduces the attractiveness of frank and intensive Israeli-European dialogue.Footnote 91
A caveat is, however, called for. Israeli society should not be seen as a ‘McDonald's society’, as some suggest,Footnote 92 but rather as a rich mosaic of cultures, including in particular American, European and Mediterranean pieces.Footnote 93 This rich social mosaic includes one important part, namely the Sephardim, or Oriental Jews. This segment of the population suffered for many years from institutional discrimination at the hands of the Ashkenazim, or European Jews.Footnote 94 Yet as of the late 1970s, their socio-economic status has been gradually improving, with the resultant erosion of the dominance of Western elements of the Israeli society.
Such a development, while positive for the purpose of creating a more ethnically egalitarian society, is not always entirely conducive to European-Israeli dialogue. From an Israeli perspective, the re-emergence of Oriental identity, supported by political parties, such as Shas,Footnote 95 and by NGOs, such as the Oriental Rainbow,Footnote 96 brought traditional European values and identities, which were so prominent in Israel, under attack. This development portrayed these values and identities as domineering, patronising, repressive, unsuitable to the local geography, used and abused by the European-based elite as social engineering instruments vis-à-vis the Oriental immigrants.Footnote 97 This social development within Israeli society only reinforced the social and cultural differences between Europe and Israel, further complicating European-Israeli dialogue.Footnote 98
The Americanisation of Israeli academia
Higher education can and should serve as a platform for public dialogue and civic engagement, producing enlightened, informed and critical citizens.Footnote 99 Moreover, a strong and appealing system of education, open to the participation of foreigners, constitutes an important component of a country's social and cultural appeal and of its soft power.Footnote 100
The potential role of education is relevant to Israel and to its relations with Europe. Israeli academia was founded on European models, especially those of Germany and to a lesser extent those of Great Britain.Footnote 101 As such it served for many years as a platform for European-Israeli dialogue and as an instrument for socio-cultural and ideological affinity.
Continuous, intensive interactions between Israeli and European students, scholars and policy makers in the field of education could have provided the much-needed instrument for the frank dialogue between Europe and Israel needed to reduce prevailing, mutual suspicion.Footnote 102 Such a dialogue could, for example, reduce European ignorance of the Jewish contribution to the formation of modern, enlightened Europe and of modern Israel, and expose more Europeans to the Middle East's complex and nuanced realities on the ground. It could also assist Europeans to become cognisant of Israel's concerns, fears and phobias.
Europe is, however, losing ground on the educational front. Israeli academia and Israel's higher education system (like Israeli society at large), nowadays increasingly resemble those of the US.Footnote 103 Currently many young Israeli candidates for academic posts in Israel pursue their graduate education at American universities;Footnote 104 most comparative teaching is American-based; most reputable Israeli joint degrees between Israeli universities and other universities are with American universities;Footnote 105 most Israeli research outside of Israel is conducted and published in the US; most Israeli sabbaticals are spent in the US; most foreign visiting legal scholars are American; most foreign members of review committees of Israeli faculties are American; most private funding is generated from American donations; and, most importantly in practical terms, promotion procedures are largely based on the publication record of the relevant candidate in American ivy-league journals.Footnote 106 As a result, those Israeli scholars who completed their graduate education in Israel focus on US scholarship and research topics which dominate the academic discourse in the US. The Americanisation of Israeli academia is exemplified in the disciplines of Law and Economics, both of which are central in Israeli public discourse.Footnote 107
Israeli students are increasingly following this trend, pursuing more and more advanced degrees in the US, more often using ‘programs’ and ‘centers’ as opposed to ‘programmes’ and ‘centres’, and ultimately ‘thinking American’. As a result, higher education in Israel is principally shaped by American ideas and theories.Footnote 108
Academic boycotts conducted by European institutions of Israeli academic institutions only accelerate the decrease of the European dimension of Israeli higher education and strengthen its American orientation.Footnote 109 The decline of European languages other than English, analysed above, reinforces that trend. Israeli academia, which once served as a platform for European-Israeli dialogue and affinity, is nowadays performing the same task but mainly vis-à-vis the US. The end result is once again greater Israeli-American affinity and less Israeli-European affinity.
The media
The Israeli and European media play an important role in mirroring and constituting internal and international reality,Footnote 110 framing, portraying and constituting European-Israeli relations. They could, for example, stimulate mutual curiosity and better understanding.Footnote 111 Regretfully, the Israeli media in most cases neglect to fulfil its role, contributing to reciprocal misrepresentations, ignorance, prejudices and mistrust.
Very few Israeli journalists have a good command of European languages other than English, very few of them command any meaningful knowledge of the EU and of European integration, and an even a smaller number of them specialise in pan-European affairs, as opposed to the domestic affairs of major Member States such as the UK, France or Germany.Footnote 112 The various Israeli newspapers, radio channels, T.V. channels and news Internet sites refrain from employing a correspondent in Brussels and neglect to cover the EU routinely.Footnote 113 The prestigious, daily newspaper Haaretz is an exception, in that it does devote large space to nuanced articles about European integration, but even Haaretz maintains its EU correspondent in London rather than in Brussels. The only Israeli daily newspaper written in English which caters to the Anglo-Saxon Israeli community in Israel, the Jerusalem Post, is oriented towards the US,Footnote 114 while the numerous daily newspapers published in Israel in the Russian language attach limited importance to European integration.
Consequently, the coverage in Israel of pan-European affairs is very slim,Footnote 115 failing to address in any meaningful manner major events such as the attempts to ratify the Lisbon Reform Treaty: ‘There is little understanding and reporting of European politics and society within Israel. Europe receives little attention and is of little interest to the Israeli media. The reporting of events that does occur is superficial, displaying little understanding of the dynamics and changes within European politics and society.’Footnote 116 Major challenges that the EU faces, especially those presented by Muslim immigration, are magnified out of proportion and are portrayed as existential threats to the EU. The limited Israeli coverage of Europe which does exist is egocentric, focused on the Israeli prism of European news (for example, the effect of the euro on the Israeli economy or the ability of Israelis to obtain a European passport due to accession of Eastern Member States).Footnote 117 European events, initiatives and leaders are judged mostly on the basis of their approach towards Israel.Footnote 118
To make matters worse, a large part of the limited coverage of Europe is devoted to manifestations of European anti-Semitism. In many instances the EU is portrayed as an unbalanced, anti-Israeli player which appeases the demands of the Arab world.Footnote 119 Such a European image presents ‘a constant and painful reminder for Israelis of the Jewish experience in Europe’, thereby reinforcing the negative impact that the shadow of the past has on contemporary perceptions held by Israelis regarding Europe.Footnote 120
In contrast to the limited coverage of Europe by the Israeli media, the European media devote much attention to Israel. Yet such attention is in too many cases over-simplified, superficial, biased and distorted, once again compromising Israeli-European relations.Footnote 121 Such coverage in turn fuels the prevalent grass-root Israeli perspective that Europe is tainted with hypocrisy, anti-Semitism and Arab-appeasement.Footnote 122
Hence, the media, like other social agents described above and below, play a negative role not only in reflecting European-Israeli dialogue and public images, but also in constituting them, shaping often antagonist European-Israeli convictions, preferences, identities and interests.
Tourism
A country's ability to attract foreign tourism allows it to expose tourists to its local art, literature, music, design, fashion and culinary delights, which enhances its soft powerFootnote 123 and serves as a useful instrument for improving dialogue and relations between countries and societies.Footnote 124
This truism is applicable to European-Israeli relations. Tourism from Israel to Europe and vice versa can improve European-Israeli dialogue. Israelis visiting Europe can interact with ordinary Europeans and acquire knowledge not only of the particular countries of their visit, but also of the EU, its raison d'être, history, evolution, and socio-economic apparatus, rendering them more interested in and aware of, as well as less alienated from the EU.
Europe was and remains Israel's favourite tourist destination, as can be clearly deduced from the Hebrew heard in the streets of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Budapest, London, Paris, Prague and other European cities.Footnote 125 Yet a negative trend can be discerned here too.
In the past most young Israeli tourists travelled to Europe. The current young Israeli generation tends to travel for long periods of time through the Far East, South America or in the US, avoiding Europe in many cases.Footnote 126 Admittedly, the percentage of these tourists out of the entire Israeli tourist body is small.Footnote 127 Yet these young Israeli tourists in certain respects hold the key to improved future relations. Thus, their growing preference for non-European destinations, some of the reasons for which are beyond the scope of this article and others which are closely intertwined with the trends analysed above, mar, once again, Israeli-European dialogue.
It must be stressed that a similar trend exists with respect to young European tourists. In the 1950s and 1960s many Christian European tourists travelled to Israel, spending time as volunteers in a Kibbutz, travelling around Israel and learning about the touted social model of the young Jewish State. These tourists served as yet another medium for close dialogue between Europeans and Israelis. Unfortunately this medium is also in a decline. Due to the security situation in Israel, the decline of Israel's image in Europe, the decline of the Kibbutz Movement and the rise in the cost of goods and services in Israel, those young Christian Europeans no longer visit Israel as often they did in the past.Footnote 128 Most of the tourists who do come to Israel are in fact North American and French Jews.Footnote 129 They contribute to the Israeli economy and to its relations with the Jewish Diaspora, but they cannot serve as a bridge between Europe and Israel, as did the young Christian European tourists in the 1960s.
The consequences of the deficient dialogue
European-Israeli dialogue not merely mirrors socio-political European-Israeli realities, but also has a mutually constitutive, detrimental impact on the collective convictions, preferences, interests and identities of the actors involved, on their conduct, policies and on their ultimate relations. European-Israeli relations are, as indicated above, embedded in discourse and dialogue and when these elements are either non-existent or deficient, the parties are prevented from realising the benefits of dialogue, and are unable to engage one another in what Risse termed ‘truth-seeking discourse’ aimed at reaching mutual understanding based on a reasoned consensus.Footnote 130
From a European perspective, it is sometimes difficult to accept Israel's nationalism, its heavy reliance on military force, and the importance attached to territory. The Six Days War (1967) may be seen as the watershed in that regard. As Del Sarto argues, the expansion of Israel's territory following that War enhanced within Israel the national-religious forces and the perception of the Land of Israel as sacred.Footnote 131 These developments compromised in turn the willingness and ability of many Europeans to understand Israel: ‘Europe's cultural alienation from Israel should be attributed to Israel's alleged militarism and readiness to use force; to the perceived decline of secularism and egalitarianism in Israel […] to Israel's closeness to the US, replete with its radical, unilateralist anti-U.N. wing, and to Israel and the US' different approach to terrorism, which insist on viewing terrorists acts out of their historical and political contexts […] for many Europeans, especially those on the Left, Israel is a Sparta-like military republic with the Palestinians as its Helotes in an age of heightened emphasis on human rights and self-determination.’Footnote 132
These different perceptions and Europe's resultant inability to fully appreciate Israel's actions create an abyss between the parties with resultant wide-spread frustration in Israel.Footnote 133 Constructive dialogue could have mitigated this state of affairs to some extent, but such dialogue is lacking.
The dark past that forms a backdrop to European-Israeli opposing mindsets on matters of sovereignty, nationalism, peace and security sours EU-Israeli relations and compromises the ability of the EU to serve as a Normative Power in the Middle East.
Moreover, the critical narratives used by European politicians in their discourse about Israel are not at all times an innocuous outcome of misunderstanding but are part of a deliberate political design which exploits prevailing deficient dialogue and resultant overall ignorance. Discourse and dialogue may be seen in that respect, as Jennifer Milliken demonstrates, as an instrument that silences and excludes,Footnote 134 utilised by some European leaders in an exclusionary manner, in order to differentiate Europe from the ‘others’, thereby forging Europe's ‘imagined community’ and its collective identity.Footnote 135 As Michelle Pace argues, the EU's very identity is constituted and reconstituted through foreign policy productions of ‘otherness’ and in that respect the constructed instability in the Mediterranean, of which Israel is a central component, is perceived as a factor that establishes the EU Member States' collective identity through cultural defensiveness.Footnote 136 Such use, which is high in demand in times of EU's enlargement fatigue and in the face of doubts and challenges regarding the EU's constitutional order and European identities and economic forte,Footnote 137 once again compromises EU-Israeli relations.
From an Israeli perspective, the inadequate dialogue contributes to the inability of most of Israeli society and of the political establishment to understand the ethos of European integration and the building of a collective European identity.Footnote 138 Likewise, most Israelis find Europe's quasi-supranational decision-making regarding sensitive national issues perplexing.Footnote 139 The heavy reliance of the EU on civil, peaceful means to tackle issues of peace and security is therefore dismissed by many as unrealistic and as naïve Kantian ideology which does not fit the Hobbesian Middle East.Footnote 140 In a similar manner, most Israelis appear to hold the opinion that Israeli-Palestinian relations are a zero-sum game, and hence that any European support of the Palestinians, although perceived by Europe as also advancing Israel's cause, is a manifestation of an anti-Israeli approach.
Thus, the inadequate dialogue contributes to the formation of a collective, distinct Israeli identity and to an overall negative Israeli approach to Europe. Such (lack of) dialogue and resultant mutual ignorance contribute once again to an overall sceptical perspective of European integration and generate Israeli antagonism towards most forms of Europe's intervention in the Middle East, thereby compromising the normative role of the EU in the Middle East and ultimately adversely affecting EU-Israeli relations.Footnote 141 As Shavit and Reinhartz state in their book entitled Glorious, Accursed Europe: ‘It may be that the fact that the State of Israel is in the situation in which many states of Europe found themselves to be before the First World War and thereafter and is engrossed as they were in a battle for sovereignty and territory, is what has brought many observers to follow in disbelief the process of unification and to ignore the revolutionary change that the entire continent underwent from the 90s of the Twentieth Century, and to emphasize what appeared to them as failures and retreats’.Footnote 142
Ultimately the deficient dialogue and its resultant collective images, perceptions and interests are reflected in Israeli policies, initiatives and responses to European initiatives vis-à-vis Israel and the Middle East and are used and abused by many Israeli political leaders in formulating their somewhat antagonistic policies towards European intervention in the Middle East.
Critical, constructive, European approaches towards Israel, which are at times fair and well-based, are perceived by the general public as an unbalanced outcome of a European surrender to vested Arab interests, as an instrument designed to clear Europe's own conscience and to create its own identity, and as a reflection of European naiveté, double standards and its preference for preaching and declaration over concrete actions.Footnote 143 European normative efforts in the Middle East continue to encounter a widespread narrative that prevails in the Israeli political sphere, as well as in broad segments of the Israeli society: the policies of the EU and most of its Member States are simply unbalanced, anti-Israeli and at times anti-Semitic.Footnote 144
Due to the widening psychological gap between Europe and Israel, the legitimacy deficit from which the EU suffers, the deficient dialogue and resultant mutual, deep-seated prejudices, ignorance, and mistrust, Europe's aspiration to greater involvement in the Middle East is not welcomed in most instances by Israel.Footnote 145
One example, albeit extreme, certainly by today's standards, of that impact on the contemporary Israeli approach towards European intervention was the Israeli Government's reaction to the EEC's Venice Declaration of 1980. In that Declaration, the then nine Member States of the EEC recognised the Palestinian right of self-determination, and the Palestinian Liberalisation Organisation as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian People. The right-wing Israeli government led by Prime Minster Begin responded furiously, linking the PLO and Nazi Germany.Footnote 146 Begin's political reliance on the memories of the Holocaust and on Holocaust-related terminology in this political context and in many others,Footnote 147 genuinely manifested his own personal and family experience in the Holocaust.Footnote 148 After all, political agents are themselves embedded in the very same social structures that they wish to affect and in the same public conventions that they wish to mobilise.Footnote 149
Yet such reliance and terminology may also be seen as a shrewd if not manipulative top-to-bottom political use of the Israeli public images, perceptions and memories of Europe to advance political causes, namely the dismissal of European critical stances and intervention in the Arab-Israeli conflict as anti-Semitic. In that sense, prevailing popular Israeli metaphors, perceptions, images and memories are being manipulated for the development and justification of non-compromising, anti-European intervention policies.Footnote 150 Such use correlates with what Krebs and Jackson termed ‘rhetorical coercion’, seeking to twist Europe's arm by twisting tongues, thereby limiting the range of possible European responses and policy options.Footnote 151
It should be emphasised that such political use is not exclusively that of the Israeli Right. Political leaders from the centre of Israel politics also tend to dismiss European attempts to intervene in the Middle East conflict, based on the aforesaid Israeli perception of Europe. The late Abba Eban, for example, Israel's dovish, former Foreign Minister, referred, in response to a German newspaper interview, to the call upon Israel to return to the borders of pre-1967 War as a call to return to ‘Auschwitz borders’. The former Prime Minister and current leader of the Labour Party and Defence Minister Ehud Barak expressed his opinion that European countries cannot contribute much to conflict resolution because of their modest investment in military capabilities,Footnote 152 and that ‘only the US can bring Israel and Syria together’.Footnote 153
More recent EU interventions in the Middle East have served to reinforce such strong Israeli antagonism born of past events. Javier Solana's visit to Damascus and his call for Israel's withdrawal from the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, like the EU's stance towards the construction by Israel of the Separation Barrier (or, as the International Court of Justice choose to term it, the ‘Wall’) are two cases in point.Footnote 154Per contra, Europe's recent constructive contributions in South Lebanon (2006) and in Gaza (2009), as well as its efforts to contain Iran's nuclear programme, are either ignored or dismissed by most Israeli politicians and journalists and by ordinary Israelis. After all, these European efforts and initiatives do not match Europe's past and present images. The Israeli political leaders are thus trapped in a discursive cul-de-sac partly of their own making.
Admittedly, there are occasions on which Israeli leaders are visionary and bold, being willing to convey to the general public the beneficial positive aspects of European-Israeli relations and the positive impact of European intervention in our region.Footnote 155 One recent example relates to the Israeli-Hamas conflict of January 2009. It is still too early to draw conclusions from the European involvement in this conflict, yet it may still be argued, with the required caution, that the EU and its Member States succeeded in building upon their successful involvement in the Lebanon war of 2006. The EU's critical declaratory diplomacy was toned down and was once again supported by concrete involvement on the grounds, displaying vis-à-vis Israel a highly critical, yet supportive and sensitive approach. The President of the European Council, the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany and the Prime Ministers of the Great Britain, Italy and Spain gathered in the Israeli Prime Minister's official residence, to express in front of the cameras Europe's support for the nascent and shaky cease-fire and of the peace process. Europe's unitary commitment to assist in meeting Gaza's humanitarian needs and in fighting military arms trafficking and smuggling to Gaza displayed a more pro-active, constructive and balanced approach, enabling European leaders such as Nicholas Sarkozy and special Envoy of the Quartet to the Middle East, Tony Blair, to contribute to the efforts to promote the ceasefire. Such an approach was indeed warmly welcomed by Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister of that time: ‘I wish to express my personal appreciation and the appreciation of the people of Israel to you, leaders of the European countries, for demonstrating your impressive support for the State of Israel and your concern for its safety. The united front which you represent and your uncompromising stand with regard to the security of the State of Israel warms our hearts and strengthens us at this sensitive time […] Our personal friendship may at times exceed that which is accepted in the recognized diplomatic protocol, but they are friendships which are beyond price. I feel a pleasant obligation to thank each and every one of you, both for your personal friendship and your friendship towards the people and State of Israel’.Footnote 156
Yet these occasions are the exception that proves the general rule. Consequently, and despite some recent positive indications and trends to the contrary,Footnote 157 most forms of European intervention in political issues in the Middle East continue to encounter the same generally negative Israeli approach.Footnote 158
It may, however be argued that the use of Israeli perceptions and images is not solely a top-to-bottom one. Rather, Israeli policies may also be seen as the end result of the dialectical interface between the general public, dialogue and political practice.Footnote 159 Viewed in this manner, reliance on the memories of the Holocaust and on Holocaust-related terminology is also to be seen as a bottom-to-top end-product, constituted and reinforced by the general attitude of the Israeli public, which is itself influenced by the shadow of past European-Jewry relations.
This bottom-to-top process allows policies to be influenced by public's knowledge and convictions. As such it is in line with a model which is premised on the assumption that the competition for public legitimisation ensures that the Israeli public occupies a central position in the political scenery, setting the limits for the policy stances that political actors may employ.Footnote 160 In that respect it is the public which sets the contours for Israeli political anti-European pronouncements.Footnote 161 This assertion is also in line with the Constructivist's approach under which identities, interests and the conduct of political agents are socially constructed by collective meaning, interpretations and assumptions about the world.Footnote 162
In sum, indirectly and in the long-run, the deficient European-Israeli dialogue which is shaped both by top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top processes mars European-Israeli relations. Discourse, dialogue and the resultant social knowledge and perceptions are, however, not rigid.Footnote 163 Learning generated from dialogue may increase the capacity and motivation to comprehend competing alternatives to a prevailing inference and in that manner it may become a creative and transformative socio-political process.Footnote 164
Risse's truth-seeking dialogue may be relevant to our context. According to Risse, who draws inspiration from the work of Habermas,Footnote 165 such dialogue is a distinct and complementary mode from that which March and Olsen defined as strategic bargaining, utility maximising (rational choice) or rule-guided behaviour (sociological institutionalism).Footnote 166 The participants in such a dialogue are engaged in truth-seeking with the aim of reaching mutual understanding of the factual situation, based on reasoned consensus, being open to be persuaded by the better argument, willing to change their views, normative beliefs, their preferences, interests and identities. Power and hierarchies recede during deliberations.Footnote 167
Thus improved, frank and intensive dialogue and exchanges between the EU and Israel, between Europeans and Israelis are needed in order to reveal the true colours of EU-Israeli relations and in order to deconstruct the current polarisation between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies and anti-Semitic approaches masked with political terminology. Such a dialogue may reduce mistrust, antagonism and heterogeneity between Europeans and Israelis with the resultant impact on their identities, interests, and behaviour.Footnote 168 Such cooperative dialogue and behaviour may, drawing on the findings of Wendt, enable Europeans and Israelis to simultaneously learn to identify with each other and to see themselves not as ‘others’Footnote 169 but as ‘we’, bound by certain common norms,Footnote 170 rendering it more difficult for Israeli politicians to dismiss legitimate critical approaches as old-fashioned anti-Semitism.
Some reservations with respect to the importance of dialogue as a means for enhancing European-Israeli relations are, however, called for. Exclusive academic reliance must not be placed on such dialogue. This article subscribes in that respect to Adler's Constructivist “Middle Ground” in dismissing the relativist, post-modernist and post-structuralist stances, according to which individual subjectivity is completely constituted by discourse and dialogue structures. In the same vein, the article does not adopt a Habermasian approach to the role of language, an approach which may be considered utopian.Footnote 171
Socio-political agents, including European and Israelis, do not conduct their dialogue in an ‘ideal speech situation’.Footnote 172 Dialogue is influenced instead by previous identities, knowledge, institutions and interests.Footnote 173 Dialogue cannot therefore produce an objective truth based on verified facts which are not affected by value preference. The parties to the dialogue called for in this article already believe that they know the truth and they select ‘facts’ accordingly. Hence, intensive exchange may not at all times advance understanding and affinity. It might instead breed frustration rather than ‘truth-finding’. Thus, the call in this article for improved dialogue must not overlook the risk that such dialogue may not serve as an engine for reform, but may instead or in addition perpetuate social and identity dividing lines,Footnote 174 imposing or cementing questionable interpretations of regional and international politics.Footnote 175
The participants in the European-Israeli dialogue should therefore display a genuine open-mindedness, enabling them to discard their inaccurate factual perceptions and rigidly-held political views, transforming unreflective preferences into enlightened deliberative judgments.Footnote 176 Dialogue should furthermore be seen as part of a large panoply of instruments mirroring and constituting European-Israeli reality. Consequently, in addition to the use of dialogue as a Constructivist instrument to develop common values and understanding, Europeans and Israelis must tackle concrete socio-economic and political problems of EU-Mediterranean and EU-Israeli relations.Footnote 177
Conclusion
The rich literature on the problematic aspects of EU-Israel relations focuses on historical, structural, politico-economic, legal, institutional, geo-political and strategic causes. This article contributes to existing literature by focusing on an additional factor, namely the lack of adequate European-Israeli dialogue. Premised on the theoretical assumptions that dialogue may not merely reflect IR, but may also contribute to the socialisation of norms in different socio-political settings, and that meaningful discursive interactions not only reflect images, perceptions, convictions, preferences, interests, identities, policies and IR, but also constitute them, the article examined these assumptions in the context of European-Israeli relations.
An attempt was first made to analyse the causes of the lack of adequate dialogue, pointing in particular to the haunting shadow of the past, the Americanisation of Israeli society, academia and media, and recent trends in the utilisation of European languages in Israel and in Israel's tourism map. All these trends contribute to the formation of a collective, distinct Israeli identity and to an overall negative Israeli approach to Europe, compromising the ability of Europeans and Israelis to conduct a meaningful, intensive and frank dialogue.
The article then probed the consequences of that deficient dialogue, contending that European-Israeli dialogue is not epiphenomenal, nor merely a mirror of social reality. Instead, it constitutes a medium of its own, producing, reproducing, transforming and constituting social structures, knowledge, ideologies, identities of Europeans and Israelis and ultimately European-Israeli relations.Footnote 178 The lack of adequate dialogue is not only caused by mutual ignorance, prejudices, misrepresentations, mistrust and antagonism, but also causes relations to be characterised by these same attributes. Thus, indirectly and in the long-run, such lack of dialogue mars European-Israeli relations, negates improved cooperation and contributes to Israel's knee-jerk reaction towards most forms of European intervention.
These consequences are brought about through a top-to-bottom process: The deficient dialogue and its resultant collective images, perceptions and interests are used and abused by Israeli political leaders in dismissing European criticism and intervention (while European politicians abuse prevailing ignorance to forge European identity). Concurrently, these consequences are also caused by a bottom-to-top process: policies are being socially constructed by the collective, negative meaning, interpretations and assumptions of the Israeli public at large about Europe.Footnote 179
The prevailing state of affairs analysed in the article is by no means static. Relations could indeed be rather different, should ordinary Israeli and Europeans have the desire and venue to meet, discuss and argue about the past, present and the future. This can be learned from the rather unusual, lively social interactions and intensive dialogue between a not inconsiderable number of Israelis and Germans conducted on a daily basis in Berlin.Footnote 180
European-Israeli relations must not therefore be perceived as structurally or exogenously given, but rather as constantly constructed by historically contingent socio-political interactions. The manner in which their reciprocal material world is shaped is not entirely determined by physical reality but also by human action, reaction and interactions which are themselves dependent on dynamic normative and epistemic collective, intersubjective knowledge and interpretations of their material world.Footnote 181 Collective knowledge, ideas, concepts and norms, partially shaped by European-Israeli dialogue, may thus serve as an engine for socio-political action and change.Footnote 182 European-Israeli relations may be socially constructed by collective, more informed understanding of the socio-political world, which may then be subject to political selection processes and thus to an evolutionary change.Footnote 183 Applying Adler's insights to our context, it may be argued that knowledge-based Israeli political practices are the by-product of interacting individuals and epistemic communities, and when the Israeli and European epistemic communities diffuse a new normative view of a certain socio-political reality, both the norm itself, and its political carriers could bring about a change in the interests, identities and practices of the political agents.Footnote 184 After all, culture and identity should be perceived, as Lapid informs us, as socially emergent and constructed, as opposed to primordially given; optional as opposed to deterministic; diversifying as opposed to integrating and dynamic and interactive as opposed to static.Footnote 185
Thus an improved, frank and intensive dialogue and exchanges between the EU and Israel, between Europeans and Israelis is needed. Such improved dialogue may allow, for example, prevailing beliefs, views, interests and identities to be challenged and reformulated, thereby enhancing the chances of improved cooperation.Footnote 186 This is true not only at the level of political and bureaucratic elite, but also at the popular level. Europeans and Israelis should reconstruct those social agents and traditional channels, described above, which were once so effective and beneficial in assisting dialogue and producing affinity but which nowadays distance them from each other. Such a proposed line of action, which may find support by the Israelis diplomatic corps,Footnote 187 scholarsFootnote 188 and leading Israeli novelistsFootnote 189can assist in dispelling misunderstanding, mitigating conflicting interests, bridging opposing perceptions and constituting more harmonious perceptions, convictions, preferences, interests, identities, and ultimately more cooperative European-Israeli policies and relations.
