IDENTITY FACTOR IN ISRAEL’S FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD THE ARAB SPRING

Abstract

The anti-regime uprising movement, the so-called Arab Spring, which began in December 2010 in Tunisia and quickly spread to the entire Arab World, has had a transformative impact on the current regional order. In Israel, the Arab Spring movement has been perceived as a threat to national security rather than as an opportunity. Many studies have argued that Israel's perception of the Arab Spring movement as a threat to its national security stems from the transformation in the regional distribution of power and the increased insecurity in the regional environment. As an alternative to these arguments, it will be argued in this study that Israel's response to the Arab spring movement from the point of national security is due to Israel's identity. In this study, Israel’s response to the Arab Spring will be discussed in three sections. The first section will examine the Israeli identity formation in relation to the Arab states in the pre-Arab Spring period. The following section will focus on the main political developments affecting Israeli-Arab relations before and during the Arab Spring. The final section before the conclusion will reveal to what extent political developments during the Arab Spring have constituted the Israeli security concerns.