Sunday, July 12, 2009

The EU Is Getting Impatient With Israel

The European Union has joined the US in showing impatience with Israel over the deadlocked "peace process." The Union's bureaucrat in charge of foreign policy, Javier Solana, has called for a UN imposed deadline for the implementation of the "two state solution."

This demand goes far beyond the American call for an end to all expansion of the Israeli "settlements" on the West Bank including so-called "natural growth." Considering Solana's speech in London, one word comes to mind: Ultimatum.

While the proposal appears to be evenhanded in that no specific mention is made of Israel as the foot dragging "peace process" participant, there can be little doubt that the threat, the ultimatum, was directed at the government of Israel (GOI) and not either of the two pseudo-governments of the two pseudo-states, Hamastan and Fatahland. This inference follows automatically from the reality that GOI is organised, coherent, and capable of both making and effectively implementing decisions.

The bodies which run the two competing "Palestinian states" are neither competent nor coherent either one with the other or internally. The Palestinian Authority is closer to behaving like a responsible government than is the coterie of criminals and Islamist jihadists who control the impoverished, heaving mass of turbulence called the Gaza Strip. That, however, is not saying much.

Solana's barely disguised ultimatum is both ill-advised and not at all helpful. It is useful primarily as an indicator of two critical components of the context surrounding any progress toward a comprehensive peace treaty between Israel and the Arabs.

The first of these context components is frustration with perceived Israeli obduracy. The Spanish diplomat wants to take the process out of the hands of the locals, particularly the Israelis.

Solana is demanding the UN Security Council establish a deadline for the implementation of the two state solution and, should the parties not provide their own, impose one of the Security Council's manufacture without regard to the position of the primary actors. He added that he, personally, was willing to grant the new UN created Palestinian state as a full member of the UN.

The EU foreign minister approves of the rolling back of Israel to the borders it occupied prior to June 1967. This would mean the abandonment of the cities and towns built since that war in land taken from Jordan. While there is a wide range of figures purporting to represent the number of Israelis currently living in formerly Jordanian territory, even the minimum number of roughly 186,000 shows that a large number of lives would be uprooted suddenly, dramatically, and permanently.

The majority of these Israelis, approximately eighty percent, live close to the pre-1967 borders and occupy less than three percent of the land taken from Jordan forty-two years ago. This implies that little benefit would accrue to the Palestinian entity in return for the Jewish dislocation.

Abandoning the "settlements" constructed near the pre-1967 border would place Israel at a severe military disadvantage. The new construction was undertaken with a firm consideration of military, including counter-terrorism, needs. Thus, even leaving out the humanitarian considerations which usually top the list of concerns in both the EU and UN, the imposition of a two state solution which meets the Arab demand of withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders would constitute a significant threat to the continued security of the Jewish state.

None of these considerations seems to have crossed Sr Solana's mind. Or the collective minds of his superiors in the EU establishment. The worthies at the helm of the Union seem to have decided that Israel is the root of the ongoing Mideast problem. Apparently the collective frustration at the irredentist demands of the Arabs has shifted to the Israelis.

The sub-text of the context here is not difficult to parse. Israel is believed to be more "civilized," or, perhaps, "more European" than the Arabs. Thus, Israel should be able to exhibit a degree of altruism in the interests of global peace and accept a heavy hit or two in the pursuit of the higher, better goal of ending the Mideast conflict.

This attitude implies a degree of condescending paternalism such as might be expected from a collection of former colonial powers. The thought path runs along this line: "You know, you can't expect the Arabs to do that sort of thing, sacrifice for a greater goal. They just aren't like that, you know. Not the better sort of people. Not like us at all."

The Europeans are both bored with and frustrated by the never ending Israeli-Arab conflict. They want the Gordian Knot to be cut and cut quickly. Their preferred sword is the UN Security Council. They desperately want to displace ultimate responsibility to the "international community," and that means the UN as both developer and enforcer of the final solution.

Leaving aside dark suspicions of anti-Semitism being alive and well in the EU, the Solana Ultimatum shows clearly that Israel has lost the moral ascendancy it once enjoyed. The long legacy of aggressive wars from Suez in 1956 to the Six Day War on through to the invasion of Lebanon three years ago along with the enormous number of disproportionate punitive raids extending from the bloody operations of Ariel Sharon's Detachment 101 back in the mid-1950s to Operation Cast Lead six months ago have served to erode Israel's claim on European (and American) sympathy and support to its current near zero level.

This shift in European perceptions and opinion constitutes a tectonic movement. The result can be seen in Solana's demand. Israel had better act like the self-sacrificing good global citizen we want it to be or the UN will do the job for it. And, if the Jews don't like what the UN does, they had best adjust to the new reality--and remember we gave them the chance to be masters of their own destiny but they blew it.

The US may not be willing to embrace the Solana expressed EU position--yet. The potency of the Israel Lobby must not be underestimated. Even so, the sizable straw in the gale constituted by the demand of President Obama for a total, absolute, and immediate halt to continued construction in the "settlements" is a strong hint of what is to come.

The majority of Americans still support Israel with a high degree of unreservedness. However, that support is weakening and could disappear quickly with sufficient provocation or manipulation by the Obama administration. We the People could be expected to desert Israel en masse if, for example, there is an attack launched against Iran which brings in its wake either or both a wave of terrorism or a spike in oil prices which further dislocates the fragile American economy.

Any hypothetical Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear constellation would bring results that are predictable in one respect. They would not be completely successful. Beyond that, all one can project with confidence is that the results would be detrimental for the interests of the US and the West. One cannot go beyond Admiral Mullen's word, "catastrophic," in an attempt to quantify the outcome of any hypothetical attack.

Should Sr Solana's ultimatum go as far as the Security Council, it can be expected that the US would be standing alone against France, the UK, Russia, and China. Assuming that the Solana proposal represents a consensus within the highest levels of the EU, it is to be expected that both the British and French would support the setting of a deadline and, if it proves necessary, imposing a solution on the Israelis. Past behavior indicates that both China and Russia would go along with an outcome which favors the most extreme Arab position.

As a result at a time when the US needs the full cooperation of the other members of the Security Council as well as EU members such as Germany and Italy in its efforts to blunt the Iranian nuclear program, we would be standing alone against all of these nations. Seeing this, the Iranians must be applauding the Solana initiative.

For GOI the Solana proposal is an unmistakable warning shot. The EU Foreign Minister has made it clear that the sands of time are not as limitless as the sands of the Arabian desert. GOI has to make a serious, fast move toward the two state solution--or the job will be done by the bureaucrats of the EU and the politicos behind the Permanent Members of the Security Council.

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