5 - Engagement under Assault

Summary

Chapter 5 examines Israel’s foreign policy of engagement in the wake of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It traces and explains the key events, including rejection of the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, the rise and fall of the Wye River negotiations with Syria, the assassination of the Hamas leader, Yahya Ayyash, Operation Grapes of Wrath, and the defeat of Shimon Peres by Binyamin Netanyahu in the 1996 general elections. The chapter contributes to the literature by explaining why, following Rabin’s assassination, his successor, Shimon Peres, sought to apply his New Middle East vision to negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians and why this foreign policy approach failed. The chapter ends by examining the final demise of the Peres government and of Israel’s foreign policy of engagement amid Binyamin Netanyahu’s victory in the 1996 elections. It underscores that Netanyahu’s victory personified the rejection by the Jewish-Israeli public of Israel’s engagement policy, on the grounds that it compromised the country’s Jewish and Zionist identity and posed grave security threats.