Picking sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict: The influence of religious belief on foreign policy

This thesis seeks to analyze the motives that correlate to nations' choices to defend one side to the exclusion of the other side in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The research focuses on the division between the United States and the European Union in the context of this conflict and analyzes the religious influences within their societies to understand the observable foreign policy pattern in reference to the side of the conflict they support. This study gives civilian religious beliefs a place of significance based upon the democratic norm that the government represents the will of the people. Israel's society acts as a research control in order to evaluate the correlation between religious beliefs and policy in a democratic nation that makes up one side of the conflict.