Israel : Challenges to Legitimacy and Prospects for Peace

Abstract :
Israel has been singularly successful in ensuring her military, economic and political dominance in the region. In recent years, there have been fewer terrorist attacks on Israelis, Palestinians are badly divided, Israel enjoys solid support from major countries, and her scientists are among the Nobel Prize laureates. Israel is about to be admitted to the OECD, the select club of wealthy nations, and her cooperation with NATO augurs well for Israel’s eventual integration into this military alliance. Yet, in spite of these remarkable achievements Israel remains insecure : she fears delegitimation.

A few months ago, a veteran Israeli journalist observed that Israel’s legitimacy “has been worn away, and the idea of a Jewish state is now open to attack. The Jewish people’s right to sovereignty and self‐defence is now controversial. Paradoxically, as Israel gets stronger, its legitimacy is melting away. A national movement that began as “legitimacy without an entity” is becoming “an entity without legitimacy” before our very eyes.”

Earlier this year, Israel’s Reut Institute, a nationalist think tank, issued a similar warning : “Israel is facing a dramatic assault on the very legitimacy of its existence as a Jewish and democratic state. The groups promoting this delegitimacy aim to isolate Israel and ultimately turn it into a pariah state.”

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Challenges to Legitimacy