ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter begins with an overview of Israel’s relationship with Asia (that is, the region beyond Western Asia) since its establishment in 1948. It classifies this seventy-five-year period into three stages: Stage I: Mutual Disregard (1948–67); Stage II: Asian Rejection (1967–92); and Stage III: Rapprochement (1992–present day). It then proceeds to analyze the nature of contemporary Israel-Asia relations, while putting forward five premises. These premises deal with the sources of the transition since the 1990s, the scope of the relations in the twenty-first century, the relevance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the meaning of Asia to present-day Israel. The fifth premise suggests that Israel regards the countries of the Asian continent in a hierarchic form and tends to divide them into three circles which also form the organization of this volume: a core circle (China and India); a secondary circle (Japan, the two Koreas, Taiwan, and Singapore); and a peripheral circle (including all the rest of Asia).
