Foreign Affairs, the National Interest, and Secular-Religious Identities in Israel

Despite being a key concept of International Relations theory, there is no consensus about what the national interest is. It is almost impossible for political leaders of democratic states to make a crucial decision in foreign policies when considering only the national interest without public support. Rather, we are unable to imagine the national interest without public opinion. In general, international crises galvanize people who held different opinions and unify social cleavages, such as secular-religious identities, into a nation that acts in its national interest. The author proposes a method to operationalize the key concept and describes a relationship between the national interest and religious identities in a democratic state. The selected case is the state of Israel. It is believed that Israel is a good example to think about the association between foreign affairs and political attitudes since it is characterized as a socio-religious divided society and has often waged war against Arab military forces.