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Israel
FOREIGN RELATIONS
The cabinet, and particularly the inner cabinet, consisting of
the prime minister, minister of foreign affairs, minister of defense,
and other selected ministers, are responsible for formulating
Israel's major foreign policy decisions. Within the inner cabinet,
the prime minister customarily plays the major role in foreign
policy decision making, with policies implemented by the minister
of foreign affairs. Other officials at the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs include, in order of their rank, the director general,
assistant directors general, legal and political advisers, heads
of departments, and heads of missions or ambassadors. While the
director general may initiate and decide an issue, commit the
ministry by making public statements, and respond directly to
queries from ambassadors, assistant directors general supervise
the implementation of policy. Legal and political advisers have
consultative, not operational, roles. Heads of departments serve
as aides to assistant directors general, administer the ministry's
departments, and maintain routine contact with envoys. The influence
of ambassadors depends on their status within the diplomatic service
and the importance to the ministry's policy makers of the nation
to which they are accredited.
In the Knesset, the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, with
twenty-six members, although prestigious, is not as independent
as the foreign affairs committees of the United States Congress.
Its role, according to Samuel Sager, an Israeli Knesset official,
is not to initiate new policies, but to "legitimize Government
policy choices on controversial issues." Members of the committee
frequently complain that they do not receive detailed information
during briefings by government officials; government spokesmen
reply that committee members tend to leak briefing reports to
the media.
Israeli foreign policy is chiefly influenced by Israel's strategic
situation, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the rejection of Israel
by most of the Arab states. The goals of Israeli policy are therefore
to overcome diplomatic isolation and to achieve recognition and
friendly relations with as many nations as possible, both in the
Middle East and beyond. Like many other states, throughout its
history Israel has simultaneously practiced open and secret diplomacy
to further its main national goals. For example, it has engaged
in military procurement, the export of arms and military assistance,
intelligence cooperation with its allies, commercial trade, the
importation of strategic raw materials, and prisoner-of-war exchanges
and other arrangements for hostage releases. It has also sought
to foster increased Jewish immigration to Israel and to protect
vulnerable Jewish communities in the Diaspora.
Data as of December 1988
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