Scandinavian Diplomacy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Official and Unofficial Soft Power

This book scrutinises how three small Scandinavian countries - Norway, Sweden and Denmark - developed a unique foreign policy that brought Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table.

Bringing together the field of soft power diplomacy with the field of conflict mediation, the text analyses the specific type of peace diplomacy offered by Scandinavia. It identifies the different methods and policies of the three Scandinavian countries, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of their mediation strategies. Close examination of the historical record through primary and secondary sources in five languages reveals how Scandinavian involvement worked over almost three decades and to what extent it shaped the content of the Oslo peace talks. The author documents how the Scandinavian countries employed soft power diplomacy to enlist the aid of more powerful countries and international institutions to compensate for their limited authority and legitimacy, and how they used the Middle East peace process to strengthen their own national interests, financial standing and international status.

The book will appeal to scholars, diplomats, politicians, educators and students interested in Scandinavian foreign policy and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Nir Levitan is a lecturer in the Israeli Special Studies Program for the Security Forces, a research fellow at the Europa Institute and an affiliate fellow at the Center for Koldkrigsstudier, University of Southern Denmark. He is an Israeli-Danish scholar and geopolitical analyst. His academic work focuses on issues of conflict resolution, conflict management and mediation as well as negotiation theory. Levitan is the author of a wide range of articles on foreign politics in the Scandinavian countries and in the Middle East and he frequently appears on Israeli media outlets as a commentator on Scandinavian related political affairs. He holds a PhD from Bar-Ilan University’s Graduate Program in Conflict Resolution, Management and Negotiation.