This article analyses Israel’s foreign policy response to the ‘Arab Spring’ in comparative perspective. Following the analytical framework shared by all contributions to this Special Issue, the article addresses four main dimensions in as many parts. Part I examines Israel’s initial reactions to the advent of the popular upheavals and regime changes in the Arab world in 2011 2014 and explores how those reactions have evolved over time. Part II identifies Israel’s main policy objectives in relation to events in the region and particularly its immediate neighbours: Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Part III examines the instruments which Israel has used, and eschewed, in pursuit of its policy objectives. Finally, part IV undertakes a theoretically informed analysis with the aim of explaining Israel’s distinctive strategic posture and policy responses to the events of the ‘Arab Spring’ thus far.

This article covers Israel’s response to the Arab uprisings. The analysis deals with the issue of both material and immaterial political actions of the Israeli political leadership. A theoretical approach based on “thin rationalism” — actors pursue strategies based on their preferences — encompassing orthodox and heterodox schools of thought of International Relations (Neo-Realism, Institutionalism, Liberalism and a Copenhagen School-inspired concept of international securitization) is developed and applied to the case. The article contributes to the solution of a research puzzle. On the one hand, Israel’s material political action followed a watching-and-waiting approach, as Israel refrained from actively interfering in the domestic affairs of Arab countries highly affected by the Arab uprisings. On the other hand, in terms of political communication, major executive branches of the Israeli state pursued a harsh policy: the “Arab Spring” was presented to the global public as a dangerous threat to Israel’s security. Major results at the empirical level are that Israel — seen through the spectacles of the three orthodox schools of thought — was never seriously threatened by the Arab uprisings, which contributes to explaining why Israel’s material policy was rather equanimous. At the same time, the harsh Israeli policy at the level of political communication is made sense of as a policy that added to Israel’s attempts to legitimize its occupation of Palestine toward the (Western-dominated) international community. At the theoretical level, further application of the securitization approach aimed at the international level is encouraged. This article is published as part of a collection on analyzing security complexes in a changing Middle East.