ABSTRACT
Due attention has been paid to domestic political factors within Israel in previous chapters; this chapter, however, focuses on a different but interrelated dimension of the peace process, that of how external factors impacted on Israeli approaches to peace. The demise of the Cold War and the subsequent hegemonic status of the United States in the Middle East, coupled with the defeat of Iraq (potentially the most formidable foe of Israel) in 1991, changed Israel’s regional and global environments. Crucially, as we saw in the last chapter, these developments provided both the backdrop and the context in which the Israelis operated.
