The Year of…

Abstract

Before launching into the first case-study, which concerns the actions, reactions and policies of the European Community and the United States regarding the Arab-Israeli crisis from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the Venice Declaration of 1980, a number of criteria regarding the selection of this topic have to be established from the outset. These are important as they establish the framework of reference for this case-study, and the two that follow, the peculiarities of each, considered on their own merit. First, one must understand the selection of this case-study, in preference to any other. As will be true of all of the case-studies, selection is, to a certain extent, idiosyncratic. Selection depends on one’s research interests and depth of knowledge of a variety of issues and events. Thus one selects those case-studies with which one is more familiar. Nevertheless, there are less idiosyncratic reasons for the singling out of the Arab-Israeli crisis. One of these reasons can be derived from the objectives of the 1969 European Community summit in The Hague. At this gathering the six member states agreed that ‘Europe’ should strive to begin to ‘speak with one voice’ on issues deemed to be of ‘importance’. Of the many international occurrences at that time only two were selected, and the first of these two topics was the Arab-Israeli situation.