The making of Israel’s retreat into isolation

The primary justification for the creation of Israel was that Europeans of Jewish origin persecuted and ghettoised, deserve their own state where they can live like other “normal” nations. For much of its history, Israel sought to escape the isolation that marked Jewish existence in Europe before the creation of the Jewish state. One of its goals was to transform Israel from a besieged regional outlier into an increasingly accepted member of the West Asian political order, a goal made very difficult if not impossible because of the expulsion of almost two-thirds of the Palestinian population from the territory that became Israel. However, through peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, quiet understandings with Gulf monarchies, and ultimately the Abraham Accords, Israel appeared to have broken out of its strategic ghetto.