Israels Strategy of the Periphery: Success or Failure - Case Study Example

Running Header: Israel’s Strategy of the Periphery: Success or Failure? Student’s Name Lecturer’s Name Couse Title Date Israel’s Strategy of the Periphery Introduction Israel’s objectives of national stability and security in the midst of a complex geopolitical setting made it pursue an overarching foreign policy plan, shortly after its foundation in 1948. This strategy focused on developing and upholding association with non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities as well as nations in the Middle East. This was done as a way of stimulating Israel nationalist adversarial elements on Arabs. Although Israel’s great acknowledgement attained through the Oslo Accords in 1993, the Madrid Conference in 1991, and the Sadat Initiative overshadowed periphery strategy implementation and thinking for a while, its application and effect were felt long before and after that period. The new Arab revolution which resulted to the Islamist movements rise in the Middle East, together with the Israel perceived threat from Turkey and Iran regenerated the need for an alternative foreign treaties and reapplication of a new periphery strategy in in Israel. Thus, periphery strategic can be considered successful based on its great success before late 1970s , and due to the fact that it was considered as the best alternative after the failure of 1990s peace treaties. Periphery Strategy Development and Implementation In the mid-1950, a vulnerable and young state of Israel reacted to the danger posed by hostile ring of Arab states, by creating periphery doctrine. Israel wanted to leapfrog over the hostile ring of Arabs, reach out to the periphery regions, and create strategic connections with non-Muslim, non-Arab, or geologically distant states of Arabs, which shared its apprehension regarding the Arab nationalist wave and the Soviet Union latter’s connection. Periphery doctrine technique was merged with allies search among the non-Muslim or non-Arab minorities in the Middle East. It had started at around 1920s in Palestine during Jewish Community or pre-state Yishuv (Aras, 1998, p. 68). The periphery doctrine primary foundations were two triangular relationships sets. Israel connected with Turkey and Iran in Trident to the north, a link that was considered to be a secret intelligence treaty centring on radical states of Arab, such as Syria and Iraq. Ethiopia and Sudan were connected in a southern triangle which centred on Nasserist Egypt. However, Sudan which was newly independent during the treaty only maintained this relationship for just two years before it withdrew. These treaties were supplemented with time by Oman and Morocco ties, together with minority connections with Kurds which is situated in northern Iraq, the Lebanon Maronities, and Southern Sudan Anya Nya rebels. Israel in the mid-1960s joined forces with an informal British effort for Yemeni royalists support in their civil war with the Soviet Union and Egyptian expeditionary force to back republicans (Zisser, 1995, p. 890). The periphery strategy was created by Ben Gurion and his aiders in early years, in parallel and in coordination with three extra grand techniques considered essential for the survival of the country at that time. One of the techniques used was creation of great power association with strong nations. This involved development of strategic and military support, to handle Middle East nations. Israel therefore created strategic links and weapons-supply plan with Britain and France. The country was also offered security guarantee from US since mid-1960s. The effort focused on fighting Arab radicalism and Middle East inroads by the Soviet (Alpher, 2015, p. 2). The strategy development also aimed at the development of nuclear deterrent where France played a main role in accomplishing this. The perception of Israel as an upcoming unclear power made it more necessary to establish prospective partners, and this might have eventually contributed to neighbouring Arab countries readiness to make peace. The other strategic goal of this strategy was the “mass exiles in-gathering” where Jews living in diaspora immigrated back to Israel. This move multiplied Israel’s population within a short period, providing the country with a critical mass level before Arabs. Periphery links in most cases were used to protect the Jewish communities as they navigated from dangerous nations to Israel. For instance, Jews were smuggled by the Iraqi Kurds to Iran from Iraq and later to Israel, Moroccan Jews migration in masses by connecting via two nations, and in addition, Sudan and Ethiopian ties were used to enhance Jewish migration from Ethiopian Jewry migration (Alpher, 2013, p.2). Israel Allies Attained through Periphery Doctrine Turkey was the initial Islamic country and the only Islamic country to acknowledge the Jewish state for years. Turkey opened a political association with Israel in 1949 and joined NATO in 1952. The two countries collaborated with Western nations to fight Soviet associations in the Arab region. The two countries collaborated to fight Arabs all through, and though Turkey was pressured by Arabs to detach, it never did so. By the end of the Cold War the two countries emerged as the most economically and democratic dynamic nations in the region. This was mainly as a result of their close association with the west (Inbar, 2005, p.591). With the end of Cold War early 1990s, the relations between Israel and Turkey upgraded. This happened during a time when peace process between Israel and Arab was in motion. The two countries upgraded their diplomatic ties to a level embassy, expansion of Intelligence Corporation was done, and joint military operations enhanced. The ties between the two countries were enhanced by joint regional fears regarding Islamic radicalism challenge, the proliferation of mass destruction weapons in Syria, and the fear of Central Asia increase in geopolitical density. During this relationship, Turkey benefited more with military assistance, including upgrading of their military facilities (Inbar, 2005, p.592). Despite of having a strong previous alliance, the association between Turkey and Israel is currently in the crossroad, following clash of interest with regard to Northern Iraq. Turkey felt threatened by the idea of independent Kurdish state in the northern Iraq, while Israel was highly supportive of the idea. Kurdish state would highly favour Israel in the fight against its enemies that include Pakistan and Iran among others. Their relation has also been impacted by deteriorating relation between Turkey and America (Kibaroglu, 2005, p. 258). Iran and Israel created a symbiotic alliance in 1948, after Israel acquired independence. At this time, Israel was experiencing hostile treatment by Arab countries that were not satisfied with the Palestine partition by UN, to create the Israel state. However, Israel contained strong military power and thus, it was able to defeat most of its Arabic opponent, particularly those that had poor military power (Olson, 2013, p. 725). Nevertheless, the country needed to survive by obtaining economic resources that it did not have. It therefore focused on seeking trading partners and friends in the Arab periphery. Iran needed military assistance, while Israel needed oil. Thus, the two countries formed an alliance to satisfy needs for each other (Parsi, 2006, p. 247). They joined hands to assist the US to prevent expansion of Soviet to the Middle East. However, the relation between the two countries was shaken in 1979, after toppling of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, during Islamic Revolution (Hadar, 2007, p. 150). However, later Iran engaged in a war with Iraq, an aspect that weakened the Iran military. In this regard, Iran rekindled its relation with Israel, with intention of obtaining military support to fight the Iraq in 1980, though the ties remained weak (Takeyh, 2006, p. 84). The relation between the two countries was further weakened by the destruction of the American relation with Iran. It was also highly affected by the Arab Spring, which converted Iran to one of Israel’s rivals. The growth of the Iran’s Islamic revolution resulted to dramatic change in foreign policy outlook in the country, and its engagement in the international setting. The new regime was however forced to gradually adapt its principle to reality, and consider being pragmatic. Nevertheless, Iran’s policy has continued to be disproportionately uncompromising on Jewish state legitimacy, Zionism rejection, and the intrinsic hostility to Israel (Menashri, 2006, p. 107). Israel relation with Sudan started with a link with Christians in the country. They later facilitated the alliance between Israel and the current Southern Sudan. However, the alliance stopped two years after it had started as Sudan struggled to maintain stability in its country. Israel relation with Kurds started in 1961, particularly due to the Israelis’ ingenuity. Their relation was founded on the principle that the “the rival of my rival is my ally”, with reference to Saddam Hussein. This relation was also facilitated by Israelis the intention of using the Kurdish rebellion, as a way of weakening central government of Baghdad, that was loyally anti-Israel. It also hoped to stop the likely Iraq forces deployment into Israel, in possible future battles. This alliance continues even today, and it has highly contributed to the proposition of the development of Kurdish country in the north of Iraq (Guzansky, 2014, p. 102). Azerbaijan was the third Islamic nation after Egypt and Turkey to create economic and bilateral strategic associations with Israel. The relation began after the break of Soviet, and the country gained its independence in 1991. However, Azerbaijan does not have full diplomatic associations with Israel, an aspect that has greatly impacted their relationship (Abilov, 2010, p. 321). The government of Israel extended its hand to Azerbaijan for various reasons. Like their Iranian and Arab counterparts, Israeli policymakers perceived the Caspian littoral and Azerbaijan as section of Great Middle East. Israel main strategic objective has been to expand its influence to non-Arab nations, and Azerbaijan provided this opportunity. Before the 1979 revolution, Israel had provided Iranian army with weapons and regarded shah as an ally. Similarly, Israel had extended its hand to Turkey since early 1990s. Thus, the country was always ready to make new friends. New friends could result to higher energy security, new economic chances, and hopefully extra U.N. votes. It also enhanced this relationship with the hope that it will be able to exploit the energy resources from the Azerbaijan by pushing for oil and gas pipelines development, which would assist to circumvent its enemies and promote its allies (Bourtman, 2006, p. 47). The country officials also anticipated that this direct connection with Azerbaijan would enhance the migration of about 20000 strong Jewish people from Azerbaijan to Israel. The two countries also had shared threat by Islamic radicalization, they were both specious of Russia intention, and they both distrusted Iran. Thus, they had more reasons to create an alliance. The association between Israel and Azerbaijan has fruitfully resulted to the shut out of the influence of the Persian Gulf states to Caspian. Current, neither Persian Gulf nor Saudi Arabia emirates maintains substantial trade with Azerbaijan. The association between Israel and Azerbaijan has resulted to the development of a new relation between Israel and Baku. Baku, which is Azerbaijan ally, requested for military assistance from Israel, and they were later able to form a strong alliance. The three countries have supported each other economically and through trade, where Baku and Azerbaijan have received military assistance, agricultural related goods, and medical facilities. However, the association between Azerbaijani and Israel is currently at a crossroads. The country has recently decided to limit its cooperation expansion with Israel. However, as a number of its elites are reassessing its strategies in private and thus, the association may be restored soon (Bialer, 2007, p.37). Israel had established an alliance with Ethiopia during the initial application of periphery strategy. However, this relation was formally broken by the Haile Selassie; Ethiopian monarch in 1973, due to the Arab states and African Union pressure, as a result the oil crisis. Selassie was overthrown by Marxist in 1974. Marxist broke all other remaining alliances with Israel after taking over. The petroleum Exporting Nations organization declared a prohibition of oil trade with Israel. This forced Ankara to reduce its formal association with Israel and also lowered the bilateral diplomatic level of association between the two nations. Israel continued to follow periphery strategy in most of 1980s. It invaded Lebanon in 1982, with purpose of clearing Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the southern Lebanon. This is because PLO had taken the advantage of war in Lebanon to launch an attack against Israeli borders. In addition, the Israel government hoped to gain more control and it tried to establish pro-Israel government in Lebanon. The main intention was to make Lebanon serve as Israelis protection over Syria. This dream was killed by assassination of Gemayel; the Lebanon president imposed by Israel, immediately after the election (Entessar, 2004, p. 5). Periphery Doctrine Success Peripheral doctrine was a reaction to the threat originating from pan-Arabism. Its main objective was to develop a multilateral alliance in which members would rush to each other’s aid when experiencing threat from enemies. Although the doctrine did not manage to meet all its objectives, it recorded a great success, particularly from the time of its establishment to around 1979. Although according to (Voller, 2015, p. 514), there was no signing of any formal treaty, and the constituent members’ corporation mostly remained bilateral, the established bilateral alliances were highly productive to the end of 1979. They entailed cultural, economic, and intelligence exchanges. Israel-Iranian cooperation is one of the alliances known to exist in early 1970s in support of uprising of Kurdish in Iraq. The alliance focused on countering the Baath government, and it managed to incorporated Kurdish guerrillas for a short period, demonstrating the success of the doctrine. The initial main success of the doctrine is the Israelis ability to form alliances both within and outside the Asian continent. Israel was a lone country before the establishment of the doctrine. However, it was able to form allies who made is survive within a hostile environment. Its ability to make ties with strong nations in the west and to gain support from neighbouring nations made it much stronger in the eyes of Arab. This made it hard for the enemies to attack the country. Its association with the west gave it a strong military support, and its association with local countries provided it with enough soldiers to handle its enemies. In this regard, the periphery strategy provided the country with great political, economic, and military power than it could have ever acquired on its own. The doctrine facilitated the breakdown of pan-Arabism, which was the main force that threatened the peace of Israel. Israel and its allies facilitated a war in 1967 where Syrian and Egyptian armies were defeated by Israel army within six days. This war completely undermined the pan-Arabism and Nasserism foundation. The 1970 death of Nasser and the rise of Anwar Sadat his successor marked the termination of Nasserist pan-Arabism. The new Egyptian ruler had a different perspective toward the west compared to his predecessor. Thus, in 1979 Israel and Egypt engaged in a Camp David Accords. The pan-Arabism leader was now officially hated by a number of Arab states and in actual sense; a number of Arab nations had started to revise their stands with regard to Israel (Guzansky, 2014, p 101). This marked one of the greatest successes of Periphery doctrine. This is because through its application, Israeli was able to fight and defeat one of its greatest enemies and later managed to bring the enemy on its side. This was attributed by great support that Israel received from its alliance both locally from Asia and also from western nations. The alliance between Israel and Egypt was a great success, since it assisted in breaking the strongest Arabic alliance against Israel. Another major success of the peripheral doctrine is the Israelis ultimate success to immigrate more Jews into the country and to add on their number. Initially, Jews were scattered all over the world as a result of the previous war between Israel and Palestine. In this regard, the country initially had a very low population that could not manage to handle the Arab forces. However, the doctrine plan to immigrate Jews to Israel assisted in increasing the Israelis population. This assisted in the development of the country’s economy and in the establishment of a strong army. Israel was able to use the formed alliances to emigrate Israelis from dangerous zones back to safety. Although the initial peripheral strategy went to a halt at around 1977, following the process of peace, its use has recently been reinitiated. The process of peace started in 1977, and peaked in the initial half of the 1990s with late 1991 Madrid conference, the 1993 Oslo breakthrough, and the process of multilateral (Aras, 2000, p. 151). The success of the three treaties overshadowed the initial success of periphery strategy. Nevertheless, this did not last for very long. There was ultimate failure of the effort to show essential development in finding a solution more than Oslo treaties. This became contributory factor in steadfast slowing down of the multilateral relationship between Israel and Arab (Barnett, 1999. p.9). The recent rise of Arab spring and increase in hostility towards Israel following the Arab uprising has made the Israel policymakers to consider establishing a new periphery strategy. The main reason for this was due to the urge to lower Israel’s isolation, to resolve the current deadlock in the peace development process, to resolve the on-going cold peace with Jordan and Egypt, and to resolve the deteriorating association with Turkey. The country current allies include nations that share similar concern regarding the Arab spring ramifications, subsequent reduction in stability, and current changes happening in Turkey under the current prime minister. The allies also have economic agenda and hope to use Israel to gain strong ties with western nations (Dal, 2012, p. 247). The periphery strategy reemployment after many years is a clear indication that Israel was highly satisfied by its initial success. Although some of the alliances made in the past have broken, while others have been trading in the shaky ground, Israel has never been alone. The country managed to make reliable alliances that assisted in various achievements. Apart from the Iran and Ethiopian alliances that broke due to change of governance, while the strategy was still operational, there are no other cases of complete destruction of initially formed alliances. The country has constantly received assistance from the U.S., U.N and France. It has also managed to retain its association with a number of groups and countries, who include Kurdish, Egypt, Turkish, and Baku among others. Therefore, the periphery strategy can be considered successful, despite of the experienced challenges. Conclusion Periphery doctrine was created to protect Israel from its hostile neighbours. Although the doctrine did not manage to satisfy all its objectives, it highly managed to accomplish its main goal of forming strong associations with foreign nations to withstand its challenges. The above analysis has demonstrated some of the great success of Periphery doctrine. The doctrine managed to rebuild Israel by massive immigration of its people from other nations. It also enhanced great collaboration of Israel with powerful nations from the west, and a number of neighbouring non-Arab and non-Muslim nations. This highly assisted the country to fight and win various wars against Arabs. It also enhanced the economic growth of the country. Although the periphery doctrine had been abandoned for a while, its reconsideration after a number of years is a clear indication of Israelis’ satisfaction in its past achievements. In this regard, it can clearly be concluded that Periphery strategy was a great success to the Israelis. References Abilov, S, 2010, “The Azerbaijan-Israel relations: Anon-diplomatic, but strategic partnership,” USAK Yearbook, vol.3, pp. 317-331. Alpher, Y, 2013, “Israel: alternative regional options in a changing Middle East,” Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, pp. 1-8. Alpher, Y, 2015, “Periphery: Israel’s search for Middle East allies,” Fall, vol. 22, vol. 3, p. 1-169. Aras, B, 1998, “Post-cold war realities: Israel’s strategy in Azerbaijan and central Asia,” Middle East Policy, vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 68-81. Aras, B, 2000, “Turkish-Israeli-Iranian relations in the nineties: Impact on the middle East,” Middle East Policy, vol. 7,no. 3, pp. 151-164. Barnett, M, 1999, “Culture, strategy and foreign policy change: Israel’s road to Oslo,” European Journal of International Relations, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 5-36. Bialer, U, 2007, “Fuel bridge across the Middle East: Israel, Iran and the Eilat-Ashkelon Oil Pipeline,” Israel Studies, vol.12, no.3, pp. 36–37. Bourtman, I, 2006, “Israel and Azerbaijan’s furtive embrace,” Middle East Quarterly, vol.13, no. 3, pp. 47-57. Dal, E. P, 2012, “The transformation of Turkey’s relations with the Middle East: Illusion or awakening?” Turkish Studies, vol.13.no.2, pp. 245-267. Entessar, N, 2004, “Israel and Iran’s National Security,” Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, no.4, pp. 5-6. Guzansky, Y, 2014, “Israel’s periphery doctrine 2.0: The Mediterranean plus,” Mediterranean Politics, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 99-166. Hadar, L, 2007, “Treacherous alliance: The secret dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States,” Middle East Policy, vol. 14, no.3. 149-152. Inbar, E, 2005, “The resilience of Israeli-Turkish relations,” Israel Affairs, vol. 11, no.4, pp. 591-607. Kibaroglu, M, 2005, “Clash of interest over Northern Iraq drives Turkish-Israeli alliance to a crossroads,” Middle East Journal, vol.59, no.2, 246-264. Menashri, D, 2006, “Iran, Israel and the Middle East conflict,” Israel Affairs, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 107-122. Olson, R.W., 2013, “Israel and the cold war: Diplomacy, strategy and the policy of the periphery at the United Nations,” Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, vol. 51, no. 4, pp. 724-729. Parsi, T, 2005, “Israel-Iranian relations assessed: strategic competition from the power cycle perspective,” Iranian Studies, vol. 38, vol.2, pp. 247-269. Takeyh, R, 2006, “Iran, Israel and the politics of terrorism,” Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 83-96. Voller, Y, 2015, “From periphery to the moderates: Israeli identity and foreign policy in the Middle East,” Political Science Quarterly, vol. 130, no.3, pp. 505-535. Zisser, E, 1995, “The Maronites, Lebanon and the state of Israel: early contacts,” Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 31, no.4, pp. 889– 918. Read More