(National Interest) Benny Morris - The increasing aggressiveness of Iran; the increasing power and militancy of Islamist Turkey; and the empowerment of Islamist parties in the surrounding Arab world have all combined to push Israel to reconfigure its "peripheral policy," conceived by Israel's founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion back in the 1950s. Ben-Gurion sought to forge alliances with Israel's enemy's enemies - the non-Arab countries and minorities around and inside the neighboring Arab states. Today's realities have prompted Israel to expand its concept of the "periphery" to include Azerbaijan, India, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, (Greek) Cyprus, and Southern Sudan. The writer is a professor of history in the Middle East Studies Department of Ben-Gurion University.
2012-02-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive