The late Francois Mitterand, France’s first socialist president, once said, “When Europe opens its mouth, it is only to yawn.”
Mitterand was only partially correct. When Europe opens its mouth, it is to comment on the goings on in the Middle East, particularly Israeli settlements. For the umpteenth time, we have rediscovered Old Europe.
Europe, the world’s most prominent paragon of morality, has trained its spotlight on us for a long time now. That is because from its standpoint, there is no more urgent problem than the settlements, this with all due respect to the 100,000 deaths in Syria, which it apparently can do nothing about.
This week, the European Union sprung into action. The European Commission’s Middle East department, which is headed by Austrian diplomat Christian Berger, the EU’s former envoy to the Palestinian territories, published the document which bans all cooperation with Israeli entities based beyond the 1967 lines. Even if the EU decision doesn’t bind all its member states, the move was still met with tremendous anger in Jerusalem.
Aside from the outrageous and infuriating boycotts, this report also tries to establish a new political status quo as it relates to the state of Israel’s borders. More importantly, it signals a trend that is not promising, from Israel’s standpoint at least. For all intents and purposes, Europe has drawn Israel’s borders, without negotiations. From Europe’s point of view, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry may as well stay home.
EU officials worked on this report in secret. A senior European diplomat joked two days ago that Israel was now paying the price of the strike declared by employees of the Foreign Ministry. In Jerusalem, however, officials see things slightly differently.
For months, it was known in Jerusalem that the Europeans were working on producing a document devoted to settlements. Foreign Ministry officials knew this. Obviously nobody anticipated a document that would encourage Israel to step up the pace of construction in Judea and Samaria, yet nobody in Israel expected a document that would split the country in two — those who are entitled to EU support and cooperation, and those lepers which Europe views as beyond the pale.
Israeli Embassy officials in Brussels who are charged with maintaining contact with the EU tried to fish out certain details of the document, but to no avail. Sources in Brussels said that a small coterie of diplomats in the European Commission’s Middle East Department denied anyone access to the document. “They worked in great secrecy,” a source told Israel Hayom.
The only hint the EU was willing to reveal was that the report would be written in the spirit of the declaration on the settlements issued by EU ministers in 2012. It was a hint of the bitter pill that was being concocted in Brussels, but officials in Jerusalem did not think it was a pill they couldn’t swallow.
Over a week ago, the report landed on the desk of David Walzer, Israel’s envoy to the EU. Walzer is an experienced diplomat who also served as ambassador to Denmark. He also headed the Foreign Ministry’s research department. The envoy immediately knew that Israel had a problem on its hands, even if the report was formulated with complex wording and legalese. It was, to say the least, a difficult read.
The report was quickly sent to the Foreign Ministry’s legal division. Soon afterward, the alarm bells began ringing. A briefing was convened by Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was present as well.
“We weren’t caught by surprise,” said a Foreign Ministry source. “The report came to us late. We gave it the emergency treatment.”
Foreign Ministry technocrats brushed off suggestions that this was a diplomatic mishap that could have been avoided, or that the strike prevented key players in the ministry from doing the necessary work to minimize the crisis. The claims against the ministry officials uttered in the media angered them.
Europe is irrelevant
The Foreign Ministry’s other major problem, aside from the report authored by Christian Berger, was the lightning-quick Israeli reaction to the report, particularly by those in the press who were adamant that Israel needed to immediately stem the tide of this diplomatic tsunami washing over Israel.
This is undoubtedly a very grave decision. The responses from Jerusalem and the attempts by Netanyahu and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni to shelve the report attest to its seriousness. On Wednesday morning, news reports indicated that Netanyahu held a round of urgent phone calls with a number of European leaders.
Netanyahu appealed to them for help in postponing the publication of the new EU directives on settlements.
The directives are scheduled to be released today, and they are due to go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014. In an interview with the German daily Die Welt, Netanyahu blasted the EU decision, which he said “compelled Israelis to lose faith in the neutrality of Europe as it relates to the peace process.”
“This is an improper way of handling things,” the prime minister said.
Indeed, officials in Jerusalem had trouble comprehending the Europeans. On the one hand, they have expressed a desire to be more involved and wield greater influence in the Middle East. On the other hand, they are making every possible mistake. While governments in European capitals are putting the blame on EU bureaucrats, it was the EU member states that permitted this phenomenon to grow.
This is not the first time that the bureaucrats have demonstrated too much initiative, in effect embarrassing some of the EU members. The same problem reared its ugly head during the debate over whether to admit Turkey into the union. While governments in places like Berlin and Paris wanted to delay the process, the bureaucrats sought to speed up the proceedings. This is what happens when office clerks decide they want to call the shots, all the while forgetting that we are dealing with sovereign states.
In his talks with European leaders, Netanyahu says he was surprised to learn that many of them were themselves caught off guard and astonished by the ferocity of the report, which was authored and initialed by a tiny group of European Commission bureaucrats. Indeed, EU officials say the decision was made in accordance with a 2012 statement on settlements agreed to by the union’s foreign ministers. At the time, however, the decision was more “abstract.” The EU claims that what it did this week was to translate that 2012 decision into binding legal language. While it does not, heaven forbid, bind the countries, it does obligate the EU as an organization.
EU officials, however, are also aware that they are not Europe, and that they cannot dictate to Israel the contours of its borders, as the prime minister stated this week.
Netanyahu assailed the EU’s decision to condition future agreements with Israel on Israeli recognition that Judea, Samaria, east Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights are occupied territory. The premier claimed that he was surprised the EU was so preoccupied with settlements instead of what was taking place in Syria, or instead of busying itself with stopping Iran’s nuclear program.
For Jerusalem, Europe this week became even less relevant in the negotiations with the Palestinians. It is reasonable to assume that the EU will once again be on the sidelines watching in frustration as the U.S. takes the leading role.
Don’t expect gifts
On Monday, EU foreign ministers are expected to participate in a meeting in Brussels. One can reasonably expect that this issue will be brought forth for discussion. Officials in Jerusalem are hopeful that a few of the states will reconsider the timing of the report’s publication. Foreign Ministry sources say that Germany, Bulgaria, Romania, Holland, or the Czech Republic may ultimately save the day.
Others, however, are fearful that countries like Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, Ireland, Austria, or Spain may see the extent to which the document unnerved Jerusalem. As such, they would consequently praise its publication, and may even seek to advance it further. If it wasn’t clear until now, the European Union is not that united.
The Europe of today has limited means. The EU is incapable of setting the agenda, but it certainly can thwart diplomatic efforts that are afoot, like those of Secretary of State John Kerry, who is working to get the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track. How ironic that Tisha B’av, of all the dates on the calendar, is the day on which the Europeans issue a report that will only encourage the Palestinians to harden their positions before the renewal of talks, this at a time when Kerry is showing clear signs of optimism (even if his optimism is misplaced).
There are those in Jerusalem who believe that the EU wanted to embarrass Israel. That is why its foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, did not mention the report’s imminent publication during her visit to the country a month ago. Some, however, think that the bureaucrats at the Middle East Division of the European Commission concealed the contents of the report from her.
“Israel needs to be concerned about this report,” a European official with close ties to the EU and who was present at some of the discussions told Israel Hayom. “This report proves to us that the diplomatic and bureaucratic revolution in Europe has begun. What has happened is that instead of governments dictating to other countries, the bureaucrats are creating facts on the ground, and these facts are forcing governments to assume a policy that needs to be managed. Since I know many diplomats and bureaucrats at the EU, I can say that Israel shouldn’t be expecting any gifts from them.”
It is difficult to gauge the extent of the economic damage that will be caused by the decision. The bigger problem is the direction and the trend that the decision augurs for the future and what effect it will have on assistance granted to Israeli organizations. The problem is that Europe decided to partition Israel on its own volition.
The report’s publication may even give Europeans pause before deciding whether to work with Israelis, whether they are archaeologists at the Hebrew University who are interested in conducting excavations in east Jerusalem or lecturers at Haifa University, which has a branch in the Golan Heights town of Katzrin. There will likely be numerous interpretations of the report, but the spirit of the report is worrying to Jerusalem.
Israel does not receive charity from the EU. It pays the union to participate in joint projects. There is, however, an important project known as Horizon 2020, a joint venture in the field of technology and science. Israeli officials are worried over the repercussions of the report and how it will affect this important project.
So what happened this week? Was it “economic terrorism,” as Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett referred to it? Was it an “earthquake” or a “tsunami,” as the headlines blared in a number of newspapers?
One would not be far off, but what we witnessed was something far worse. It was the manifestation of a European trend to perceive the settlements as an obstacle to peace (which is nothing new). It was Brussels’ expression of a desire to cut Israel down to size. It seems that erstwhile colonialists are the only ones capable of spotting “new colonialists” like Israel — that colossus of a colonialist that is the size of the state of New Jersey.
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