BOOK REVIEW: Amnon Aran, "Israeli Foreign Policy since the End of the Cold War”, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 461 pp.

Abstract

Amnon Aran, senior lecturer in International Politics of the Middle East at City University of London and a well-known Middle East commentator for the BBC, Bloomberg, The Guardian and Financial Times, provides readers with the first comprehensive outline of Israeli foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. At its core, the book is an historical account that traces chronologically the most important developments in Israeli foreign policy over the last three decades, yet it does not read like a typical history book, primarily thanks to the author’s narrative talent. Aran is able to often make history come alive on the page by painting detailed pictures of events and political figures, thus giving readers the impression that they are actually watching occurrences unfold before their very eyes. This impression, however, does in no way detract from the solid scholarly foundation of the book, as Aran used a wealth of primary sources (mainly from the archives of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs), as well as interviews with high-ranking Israeli domestic and foreign policy officials to support his argument. His main thesis is that Israeli foreign policy in the period in question shifted between three main positions, especially in relation to the thorny issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: entrenchment, engagement and unilateralism.