Israeli political culture in Israel's relations with the United States over the Palestinian question 1981-96.

This thesis makes a contribution to the study of Israeli foreign policy, Israeli-American relations and the role of Israeli political culture in foreign policy. First, all the works on American-Israeli relations focus on American policy. Second, works examining the role of Israeli values in foreign policy focus primarily on the values of the Israeli right, usually purely in regard to the Palestinian question and use a concept of political culture that is static. In contrast, this thesis examines, US-Israeli relations from the Israeli view point and encompasses the impact of the Israeli left's values on policy. Moreover, it uses a concept of political culture that is fluid rather than static. Following a brief introductory section outlining the interpretative concept of political culture employed, the thesis turns towards a section on Israeli political culture. Here two main sub-cultures are identified; a universalist orientation which views Israel as a normal country and which aspires to normalisation and a particularist orientation which sees Israel as 'a nation that dwells alone', with a particular mission to fulfil. From this basis, four approaches within the Israeli elite towards relations with the United States over the Palestinian question are drawn out. The next section then examines and accounts for shifts in Israeli political culture, first towards particularism and then towards universalism, as well as the impact of these shifts on underlying foreign policy attitudes and their political strength. The third section consists of a number of chapters which demonstrate the role of the various approaches, motifs, values, and developments within Israeli political culture on relations with the United States over the Palestinian question 1981-96. It covers the main issues that arose in that period including the Lebanon War, the London agreement, the Madrid Conference, the loan guarantees question and the Oslo accords. The final part of this section focuses on relations between Israel, pro-Israel groups in the US and Congress

Justifying one's practices: Two models of Jewish philosophy.

Judaism is a religion that emphasises the importance of a set of practical commandments and in the history of Jewish philosophy various attempts have been made to rationalise or justify these commandments. In this thesis I try to establish a general model for the justification of practices through a critical examination of two such attempted rationalisations. However, the study is framed within the more general question of whether or not there can be such a thing as Jewish Philosophy as a genuinely substantive discipline. Thus, I take the particular topic of rationalising the commandments as a 'case study' in order to see whether we can do substantive Jewish philosophy at least in the practical sphere. In the main body of the thesis I look at the methods of rationalisation of Moses Maimonides and Joseph Soloveitchik and argue that despite being based on very different scientific models they share a central methodological presumption that I term the Priority of Theory (PoT). I outline the main features of this PoT approach to justification and offer a critique of it based primarily on the argument from uncodifiability. I then offer an alternative method of justifying practices - the Priority of Practice approach (PoP) - based on an analysis of the Judaic concept of faith and certain remarks by Soloveitchik that are in tension with his main model of rationalisation discussed earlier. This PoP method stresses the limits of propositional approaches to the justification of practices and the need for a more pragmatic approach. In conclusion I consider again the framing question concerning Jewish philosophy, concluding that if we accept the meta-philosophical conclusions reached regarding practical justifications, the sense in which we can do practical Jewish philosophy is restricted more by the limits of philosophy in the practical sphere than by those of Judaism

Comparing the Anglo-American and Israeli-American special relationships in the Obama era: an alliance persistence perspective

The Anglo-American and Israeli-American security relationships have proved to be unusually close and have confounded expectations that they would wither away with the changing international environment. In order to explain this, the article proposes a theory of ‘alliance persistence’ that is based on reciprocity over shared geostrategic interests, sentimental attachments and institutionalized security relations. The article employs this theoretical framework to explore how Anglo-American and Israeli-American relations have developed during the Obama administration. It argues that the Anglo-American relationship has been closer because of the two countries’ shared strategic interests, whilst the Israeli-American relationship has experienced divergences in how the security interests of the two sides have been pursued. The article concludes by assessing how the two relationships will fair in the post-Obama era and argues that there are numerous areas of tension in the US-Israeli relationship that risk future tensions. Keywords: Alliance, US-UK, US-Israel, Special Relationship, Obam

Le problème du mal dans le Guide des Perplexes et son arrière-plan talmudique

At first sight, the question of evil is regarded in the Guide for the Perplexed in a paradoxical manner. Thus, in Guide I, 2, Maimonides examines the notions of good and evil as subjective evaluations possessing neither the rigour not the exactness of the notions of true and false. However, the question of evil occupies an essential place in the Guide, as various modern authors have shown. This question is important to Maimonides because he is, in this respect, the heir of the rabbinic tradition and his conception of evil is largely based on an interaction with the Talmudic and Midrašic texts. Therefore, we would like to review thirty-nine rabbinic ‘quotes’ which appear in chapters 8 to 24 in the third part of the Guide and deal with the origin of evil, the meaning of suffering and the evil inclination. Maimonides reappropriates the midrašim that are susceptible of being in agreement with his rationalist positions and also quotes some rabbinic traditions that are too close to mu ͑tazilism, undoubtedly aware of the more profound resemblance that exists between the rabbinic and mu ͑tazilite doctrines of evil and retribution.A primera vista, el problema del mal es abordado en la Guía de Perplejos de manera paradójica. Para Maimónides, las nociones de bien y mal son subjetivas y no resultan ni rigorosas ni exactas, a la inversa de las nociones de verdad y falsedad (Guía I, 2). Sin embargo, el problema del mal es muy importante en la Guía, como lo demostraran varios autores. Maimónides es el heredero de la tradición rabínica y existe en la Guía una interacción entre la filosofia de Maimónides y los textos talmúdicos y midrásicos. Es particularmente el caso de las treinta y nueve citas rabínicas de la Guía II, 8-24, que tratan del origen del mal, del significado del sufrimiento y de la inclinación al mal. Maimónides cita los midrašim que concuerdan con sus posiciones racionalistas y evoca también algunas tradiciones rabínicas próximas al mu ͑tazilismo, ciertamente consciente de la profunda semejanza entre las doctrinas rabínicas y mu ͑tazilíes del mal y de la retribución

Changing foreign policy: the Obama Administration’s decision to oust Mubarak

This paper analyses the decision of the Obama administration to redirect its foreign policy towards Egypt in the wake of the Arab Spring. It attempts to highlight the issue of how governments deal with decision-making at times of crisis, and under which circumstances they take critical decisions that lead to major shifts in their foreign policy track record. It focuses on the process that led to a reassessment of US (United States) foreign policy, shifting from decades of support to the autocratic regime of Hosni Mubarak, towards backing his ouster. Specifically, the paper attempts to assess to what extent the decision to withdraw US support from a longstanding state-leader and ally in the Middle East can be seen as a foreign policy change (FPC). A relevant research question this paper pursues is: how can the withdrawal of US support to a regime considered as an ally be considered, in itself, as a radical FPC

Israeli political culture in Israel's relations with the United States over the Palestinian question 1981-1996

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