EU Security Missions and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Book excerpt: This book explores and analyses the various factors that affected the formulation of the common EU policy towards the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), as well as the specifics of the process by which the EU created EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah. It answers two central questions: firstly, why and how did the EU decide to create and deploy these missions? Secondly, where do these two missions fit into the general EU approach to the conflict in the Middle East? Based on confidential interviews with various actors in the process, uniquely granted to the author, it reveals the mechanics of decision-making behind the scenes and argues that the EU decision to expand its role in the MEPP, through the creation of the two missions, was closely related to the EU’s defined common interests in the Middle East. Further it shows, the missions were, mainly, the result of the EU’s already established approaches to further its role in the international political arena. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of European foreign policy, EU Politics, Middle East politics and studies, foreign policy analysis, and more broadly to international relations.