Ethnic Democracy, Deterrence and the Monadic Democratic Peace Model in Israel's Policy towards the Palestinians
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Abstract
This article examines whether monadic democratic peace theory (MDPT) (a subset of democratic peace theory (DPT)) applies to Israel's policy towards the Palestinians. MDPT assumes that democracies are less likely than non-democracies to initiate war or escalate military threats, and that democracies are more likely to follow the prescriptions of international law, regardless of whether their rival is a democracy. Further, obeying international law provides stability and predictability in a democracy's foreign relations with its neighbors. The article examines both the issues of ethnic democracy and deterrence, which lead to behavior in Israel's foreign policy that is in contradistinction to MDPT. Israel, as an ethnic democracy, seeks to privilege and serve the interests of Jews at the expense of Palestinians in the West Bank. Ethnic democracy is a democracy that fully applies democratic processes of free and fair elections. However, the governing coalition is run by nationalist political parties that seek to privilege their ethnic group and are ready to violate international law in order to serve the interests of that group. Another explanation for Israel's military overreaction is based on the deterrence conception. In light of MDPT, the article scrutinizes Israel's policy of violating international (humanitarian) law, its pre 7/10 blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israel's reaction (jus in bello or law in war) to Hamas's 7/10 attack and whether Israel's actions/response are compatible or not with the assumptions of MDPT.
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