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This thesis explores the evolution of the academic discourse of Israeli historians and social scientists in the context of the peace process, which began in 1993 and ended with the eruption of the second Intifada in September 2000. It outlines the dialectical relationship between the conditions of war/peace and the discursive evolution of Israel's historical past. Beyond the emergence of historical revisionism, as exemplified by the 'New Historians' in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it follows the evolution of the discursive struggle over Israeli collective identity by outlining the development and ascendancy of other paradigms contending to shape Israel's past and present. One such paradigm is termed 'post-Zionist' discourse, which emerged alongside new historiography but went beyond the initially moderate revisionism of the New Historians, by basing itself on critical-theoretical foundations that place structures of power at the centre of academic output. In parallel, a new paradigm emerged from the right of the Israeli political spectrum that re-asserted and re-appropriated Zionism in light of the new political climate of peace making. In the context of the prolonged stalemate and eventual failure of the peace process, this thesis argues that it is this paradigm of collective identity, described as 'neo-Zionism,' that has for a number of reasons, for the time being, gained greater momentum within Israeli society. This work argues that there are parallels between the peace process and the hopes pinned on the emergence of new history: the symbolic powers of both processes were conflated beyond their actual substance, which in both cases failed to institute the structural changes required to exact a real reconfiguration of Israeli society. This analysis suggests that as the peace process failed to build a sustainable peace, new history and post-Zionism failed to adjust Israeli identity in line with the apparently changing political climate.

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The 1648 landmark signing of the Westphalian Treaties which famously implemented the principle of cuius regio, eius religio has, for International Relations (IR), meant that relatively little attention has been paid to religion as an influential force in international relations. A “turn to religion” amongst a growing body of IR scholars, fueled by post-Cold War studies and empirical events, has sought to change this by placing religion within the study of IR. With a view of adding to this debate, this thesis examines the role of religion in Israeli, Iranian and Saudi Arabian foreign policy during the respective leaderships of Menachem Begin (1977-84), Ayatollah Khomeini (1979-89) and Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1975-1995). It does so by drawing on extensive primary material, including private and public discourse of the leaders in question, as well as existing literature from, primarily, Middle East Studies and Religious Studies. The thesis argues, and shows with reference to its empirical findings, that the leaders’religious beliefs shaped their respective world-views and, by extension, their foreign policy doctrines and foreign policy outcomes. Moreover, it shows that religion played an important role in legitimizing the leaders themselves as well as their respective foreign policies. In this context, the thesis furthermore shows that, for the foreign policy leaders, religion assumed distinct meanings which were seemingly shaped according the context in which they operated. Importantly, the thesis argues, this does not uncritically support the long-standing assumption in IR scholarship that religion is epiphenomal, and/or a tool of instrumentalisation. With reference to Constructivist literature and a dynamic definition of religion developed for this project, the thesis rather explains that the malleable nature of religion can and does interact with variables like material security to shape, and sometimes drive, conceptualisations of national interest and foreign policy outcomes. The project concludes that religion’s role is multi-faceted, and, more to it, that the foreign policies of Khomeini’s Iran, Begin’s Israel and Fahd’s Saudi Arabia cannot be fully understood without it.

The thinking that resulted in this thesis has its roots in the first televised images that marked my childhood. The destruction of Beirut under the Israeli fire was the news item during my first school holidays. I was seven years old and I remember seeing Menachem Begin's impassionate speeches, thinking that they made sense. Knowing that Hitler was the ultimate evil, and hearing that Arafat was like Hitler, how could it be wrong to destroy him? But when I looked among the images of people in Beirut to find the Nazis, all I could see were people who looked poor, quiet or scared. Nothing like the tall and erect Nazis, shouting out orders in their uniforms and shiny boots. I was confused. And this confusion bred a lifelong interest in what was really going on in Israel. How could a people that had suffered so much cause so much suffering? Why were they telling the world that they were fighting the Nazis? And why did the world believe them?