This paper investigates the process leading to the ‘legalisation’ of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in EU foreign policy, especially with regard to EU-Israeli relations. It shows how a new legal frame has progressively emerged and become the dominant frame of interpretation within the EU. How can we explain this process? From a constructivist perspective, this paper explains the construction of new frames as the result of social interactions between EU actors and NSAs, which have led to the re-framing of the concepts of coherence and consistency in EU foreign policy, introducing a legal dimension that goes beyond the rhetoric-practice gap discussed in the literature. The legalisation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is investigated by analysing three key issues, namely trade relations between the EU and Israel, the EU-Israel Agreement on Conformity and Assessment and the recent EU Guidelines on funding to Israeli entities and activities in the Occupied Territories.
