Borders, Power and Interdependence: A Borderlands Approach to Israel-Palestine and the European Union

This volume seeks to achieve three interrelated goals: first, it proposes a comprehensive approach to the analysis of relations between Israel, the Palestinian Territories and the European Union. Conceptually, it suggests studying these relations by considering the EU, Israel and the territories as three entities that are linked to each other through various bonds and borders. The term ‘borders’, as employed here, does not merely describe the external borders of a state or a political entity. It also entails those boundaries that are established by shared legal and functional regimes, and by common practices, and which may not necessarily be congruent with a state’s external borders. As elaborated further below, this conceptual framework emphasises the disaggregated functions of borders in modern times, while also adopting the notion of ‘borderlands’, defined as a space affected by the existence of borders.