Abstract
The paper examines and debunks the conventional wisdom that Israeli foreign policy
incorporates a „historical commitment“ to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Particular Jewish interests and universal values, it is argued, led the newfound Jewish
state to initiate the Convention, participate in its formulation, and promote its
acceptance; Israel was, additionally, among the first states to sign and ratify the
Convention. Against the backdrop of present-day discourse and competing perspectives
on the Jewish motif in Israel’s foreign policy, the paper traces the process of
Israel’s ratification of the Refugee Convention. Israel’s attitude to the Convention, it
finds, was characterised by delay, disinterest, indifference, even hostility. Moreover,
neither particular interests nor universal values satisfactorily explain Israel’s
attitude. Rather, this attitude was the outcome of competing visions of lsrael’s identity
and ideological interpretations of Jewish nationalism. ldeologically, the Convention
validated yet at the same time also undermined Israel’s particular identity
as the state of refuge of the Jewish people and its ideological raison d’etre in the
world system. This ambivalence allowed Israeli diplomats to construct a logic of
exemption under which the particularity of lsrael’s very existence as the state of
refuge of the Jewish people represented complete performance of its universal obligations
under the Convention.
incorporates a „historical commitment“ to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
Particular Jewish interests and universal values, it is argued, led the newfound Jewish
state to initiate the Convention, participate in its formulation, and promote its
acceptance; Israel was, additionally, among the first states to sign and ratify the
Convention. Against the backdrop of present-day discourse and competing perspectives
on the Jewish motif in Israel’s foreign policy, the paper traces the process of
Israel’s ratification of the Refugee Convention. Israel’s attitude to the Convention, it
finds, was characterised by delay, disinterest, indifference, even hostility. Moreover,
neither particular interests nor universal values satisfactorily explain Israel’s
attitude. Rather, this attitude was the outcome of competing visions of lsrael’s identity
and ideological interpretations of Jewish nationalism. ldeologically, the Convention
validated yet at the same time also undermined Israel’s particular identity
as the state of refuge of the Jewish people and its ideological raison d’etre in the
world system. This ambivalence allowed Israeli diplomats to construct a logic of
exemption under which the particularity of lsrael’s very existence as the state of
refuge of the Jewish people represented complete performance of its universal obligations
under the Convention.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 41-73 |
| Number of pages | 33 |
| Journal | Schriften des Historischen Kollegs: Kolloquien |
| Volume | 117 |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 30 Sept 2025 |