EU Foreign Policy and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: How much of an Actor?

Abstract: This article aims to analyse the EU's evolving involvement in the management and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By using the framework of EU 'actorness', it argues that the EU has had the 'opportunity, presence and capabilities' to be an actor in the conflict. Developments in the international and EU contexts, as well as in the conflict itself, both allowed, and at times forced the EU to be more active. As a result the EU has become a more important actor in the conflict space. Yet this occurred at the expense of the EU's decreasing distinctiveness as an actor.