The Year that Israel Considered Joining the European Economic Community

Abstract:

The history of Israel–EU relations has received considerable scholarly attention. The conventional starting point for this history is almost invariably April 1958, when Israel became the third country in the world to request the establishment of a diplomatic mission in Brussels. The background and the lead up to that request, however, have been largely neglected. The article seeks to fill this scholarly lacuna by relating the hitherto untold story of Israel's exploration in 1957 of the possibility of obtaining full economic and political EEC membership. A centrepiece of the article is the revelation of the 1957 clandestine meeting(s) between Shimon Peres, then director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defence and special envoy of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, and Jean Monnet, in which the two discussed possible full Israeli membership in the EEC. The article is based on some newly revealed archival documents and interviews with former high-ranking Israeli officials.