How Europe’s support for Israel is fading
European immigration officials have stamped an extraordinary number of Israeli passports in the past month, most of them labelled “diplomatic.” The flurry of Israeli diplomatic activity in the run-up to the UN’s vote on Palestinian Observer Status highlights the continued importance of European Union countries to Israel’s diplomatic considerations. Thus it is no surprise to find both Avigdor Liebermann in Vienna in late November, meeting Israel’s assembled ambassadors to European countries to “plan a blocking campaign,” and indeed Bibi himself travelling Germany and donning out rare interviews to major German newspapers, as well as taking care to take enough smiling pictures with Merkel to adorn his Jerusalem office.
Yet the past month has seen a decisive deterioration of relations. Barroso’s visit to Ramallah in July of this year had already been a bold step and a resounding upgrade of Palestinian international prestige. Angered by two developments (the heavy-handed response to the Gaza war, and the escalations of settler politics with the proposed settlement of E1 as the latest incident), EU countries have responded with a number of small but nevertheless symbolic measures. On November 16th, at the height of the Gaza clashes, the EU’s Political and Security Committee generally authorised visa bans on “violent” Israeli settlers. With the replacement of Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal (yes, the name speaks for itself) with Israel-critic Frans Timmermans, Israel can expect reduced support from a further ally. Finally the past Monday say officials of various countries express “deep dismay” over Netanjahu’s settlement plans for the E1 area outside Jerusalem, threatening to “act accordingly” and directly suggesting settlement exports as an economic target.
The climax of this recent deterioration was of course the November 29th vote on Palestinian Observer Status at the UN. In stark contrast to the similar UNESCO vote one year ago, of the 27 EU members solely Czechoslovakia voted against, with a majority 14 votes in favour (as opposed to an 11 – 11 split of in favour and abstention in 2011).
Most indicative is perhaps Germany: given their peculiar historical relationship, the new rhetoric formula of the two states “agreeing to disagree” proposed in Berlin last week is a nostrum. If even Israel’s firmest European ally is no longer unconditionally supportive, this bodes ill for putting any halt to the trend.
A number of more structural factors underlie this. Europe’s continued integration makes it seek an increasingly active role as an international power player. Whereas being relatively sidelined in the central events of the noughties (the US taking a primary role in the predominantly military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq), the (resulting) shift to a more diplomatic approach and increasing global spite for the US have allowed Europe to return to a role it is comfortable with in the early 2010s, that of the honest broker. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prime example of Europe’s at least superficial a priori neutrality: neither has the EU allowed the US to bully it into unconditional support for Israel (Germany being an exception, but only for its particular historical reasons – until now), nor has it given in to the temptation of currying favour with rising partners in the Muslim world by dispelling the myth of a monolithic ‘West’ of the US (and Canada), Israel and Europe.
The ambiguous stance on the Palestinian issue highlights a more fundamental obstacle on the path to European integration: foreign policy coordination still lags far behind domestic-political and economic moves towards integration. A first step may be the abolition of the anachronism of separate French and British UNSC seats: while of symbolic value for the two faded global powers, it not only does not reflect contemporary realities, but also lacks any practical justification – they have virtually never used their vetoes in discord or against each other.
Yet, with the EU increasingly resistant to “divide & conquer” tactics, Israel should seriously rethink its diplomatic policy towards its most cherished global partner after the US.
By: Konstantin Sietzy
Photo taken from: http://c481901.r1.cf2.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/bibi-merkel-11.gif
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