College Syllabus: “Public Diplomacy in Low-Intensity Conflict: Israel as a Case Study”

“Public Diplomacy in Low-Intensity Conflict: Israel as a Case Study”

Dr. Nachman Shai, Emory University, Spring 2020

Israel is constantly in the heart of international media coverage. Since its inception in 1948, it has struggled against threats by neighboring states and terrorist organizations. Israel has developed a combination of diplomatic and military strategy to deter its enemies, as well as crisis management in the diplomatic arena. Today, the era of “big wars” has been replaced by “limited wars” and low-intensity conflicts, which are reflected in the Middle East and in Israel specifically. This course demonstrates the efforts to use public diplomacy in the face of external and internal security threats, as well as the limitations of this approach. In contrast to the big wars that we know from history, governments nowadays have to deal with small ones, often facing insurgency and a threat of terror. Israel has experimented with approaches tested in the face of internal threats that were applied in other countries. It has also developed its own and accumulated many lessons in public diplomacy.