Peace begins at home: Toleration, identity politics and the changing conception of peacemaking in Israel after Yitzhak Rabin's assassination

In a democratizing world, where increasing numbers of protracted conflicts are being addressed via negotiations, governments' ability to construct 'toleration policy' - a set of discursive relationships between collective identities, national interests and peacemaking - plays a crucial role in their capacity to elicit popular legitimacy and implement their peace policy. The paper traces the effects of changes in Israel's toleration policy on changes in its peace policy following Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. Focusing on the political struggles after the assassination and their effect on public opinion, the paper offers an alternative, socio-cultural, explanation to the breakdown in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.