The Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to be one of the issues that the EU can neither act independently on nor demonstrate a common stance towards. It also manifests the extent to which the CFSP (Common Foreign and Security Policy) of the EU is ineffective on certain issues, among which the policy to be followed towards Russia also stands out. The EU’s effect on the trajectory of that conflict also continues to be minimal as it has hitherto been. Very significant developments related to the conflict have been happening recently, but the EU did not have any influence upon them. Unique opportunities for the EU to bolster and spearhead the kind of unique and distinct character as an actor in international politics to which it claims to aspire have also emerged; yet, the EU have failed to capitalize on these with its shortsighted vision. As such, the EU is still far away from being “a decisive actor in the international system that does not merely follow and try to shape events after they occur but an actor that adopts active positions and reflects its political clout that is based on its individual rights and freedoms and democratic values, on international arena.”
It should be admitted at the outset that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians look to the European Union for a peaceful solution to the conflict. The solution, it is thought in the Middle East, will come from the White House even though the United States is ostensibly believed to be the mother of all evils befallen on the Arabs. The view that the conflict cannot be solved without the United States has also been tacitly accepted by the European Union, which does not enjoy credibility in the region either. Yet, the EU’s stance towards the conflict (or lack thereof) shows not only that the EU does little to increase its credibility in the region but also keeps failing to capitalize on opportunities in that regard.
Although it is arguably claimed that the EU “made the unspeakable speakable” in the 1970s by suggesting the PLO be involved in the Middle East peace talks, the EU has not acted out of line with the American position on the conflict. And when it rarely did, the EU was isolated from the talks in Madrid in 1992, the outcome of which was the Oslo peace process. The EU is a partner to the Quartet (Russia, the UN, the U.S., and the EU) on Middle East talks since 2002, but it has not hesitated about acting with the U.S. by declaring Hamas a terrorist organization and cutting its aid to the Palestinian government when Hamas won democratic elections in Palestine in 2006. Since the Middle East peace process died at Annapolis in 2007 the EU has not had any influence in the process thenceforth either. It has recently been on the shoulders of the Obama Administration to revive the process.
The EU is Divided Again
The discrepancy between the EU in reality and the EU in Turkey’s vision has become clearer following the EU’s divided and traditional stance towards the Goldstone report, which accuses both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes during ‘Operation Cast Lead.’ The report has aroused much excitement among the Palestinians on the grounds that for the first time Israeli actions were being subjected to international scrutiny and ‘the era of impunity for Israel’ might be over. Unified EU support for the report at the UN Human Rights Council and UN General Assembly afterwards would have helped the EU’s standing in the Arab world as well as Palestinians a great deal. None the less, not only did the voting session at the UN General Assembly reveal the divisiveness of the conflict among the EU members, but the EU exhibited once again “the international community’s decades-old acquiescence to Israel’s insistence on the right to differ in its respect for international law.” Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia voted at the Human Rights Council of the UN against the Goldstone Report while Belgium, Britain and France abstained. This shows that the Union is obviously not “a type of molecule with joint electrons that enable us to act together and make binding political decisions” as Javier Solana, the High representative of the CFSP claimed it to be. With its stance on the Goldstone report, the EU is also missing a unique opportunity to increase its credibility and niche to contribute to the solution of the conflict.
Still “Dangling Carrots”?
The EU should give up its “foreign policy without tears,” - a policy that aimed to serve the interests of all without upsetting anyone - towards the conflict. It should also understand that so-called confidence building measures between the PA and the Israeli government do not yield any confidence on the ground. After years of such measures the EU has defended and implemented through keeping presence at the Rafah Border Crossing and training the Palestinian police, for example, the Palestinians and extremist Israelis came to the brink of severe clashes over Haram-al-Sharif recently. The EU’s policy towards Israel cannot also be defined as a policy of ‘dangling carrots,’ – a policy of delivering benefits in return for satisfaction of certain criteria and standards set by the EU. The EU has already delivered many economic benefits to Israel regardless of Israeli violations of international law.
The two traditional weaknesses that prevent the EU from playing an efficient role vis-à-vis the conflict had been identified as “reliance on positive measures and high sensitivity to US preferences.” The fact that the EU is divided on the issue should also be added to that list of the EU’s weaknesses. Yet, the most serious weakness the EU has manifested is the lack of future vision. Perhaps, what the EU should do in designing its policy towards the conflict is to follow Turkey’s lead in demonstrating the courage and wisdom to warn its friend Israel over the wrongs committed in its treatment of the Palestinians, instead of “calling on the Turkish government to coordinate its foreign policy with the EU, in particular regarding Iran." Only then with Turkey, the conscience of its region, can the EU aspire to be the conscience of the world.
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