FLORENCE, Italy — On a trip through Europe including discussions with a wide range of officials and specialists in Norway, Germany, France and Italy, almost every conversation quickly turns to the question of what role Europe should play in the Middle East today. More and more Europeans seem to feel uneasy about the fact that their increased participation in Middle Eastern issues is not leading to improved security conditions or mutual relations. Unlike most Americans or officials in Washington, who instinctively blame the Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East for the problems of the day, Europeans generally tend to be more analytical in their approach to fixing a clearly bad situation in European-Middle Eastern relations.
The attack against the Spanish UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon last week, and this week’s terror attacks and attempts in the UK and Yemen are only three examples in one week of how Europe remains both linked and vulnerable to complex political dynamics in the Middle East. The question of what Europe should do in the Middle East today is easy to answer. It should do the opposite of what it has done in the past two years: stop moving towards becoming an Israeli-American errand boy, and get back to vigorously playing the role that it had played in a low-key manner in recent decades, as the conscience of the rule of law: of international legitimacy, UN resolutions, and the global will to see Arabs and Israelis living in peace and security in two adjacent states.
A generation ago, in 1980, a smaller but more respected and self-assured European Union issued the Venice Declaration, calling for Palestinian self-determination and effectively demanding a Palestinian state alongside the existing Israeli state, with security guarantees for both. A generation ago, Europe staked out a firm, fair position, affirming justice and compliance with UN resolutions as the means to comprehensive peace and long-term security. Today, Europe has turned into a pile of diplomatic cotton candy — appealing and aesthetic from a distance, but a real mess when you come in contact with it.
Europe’s most foolhardy policy these days is to meekly follow the United States and Israel in boycotting the democratically elected Hamas leadership in Palestine, and instead to pursue the charade of propping up President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fateh Party, both of which suffer badly frayed credibility. It is sad to see a noble political venture such as a united Europe emasculate and embarrass itself so badly by blindly adopting as its own policy the proven failed approach of the United States and Israel.
I know it is difficult for a much larger European Union to change policy quickly or forcefully, given its own problems closer to home. Continuing on its current course in the Middle East, however, would be folly and an enormous waste of money. Europeans are spending billions of Euros in aid and sending troops on peacekeeping or border surveillance missions in Palestine and Lebanon, yet results remain erratic. The EU’s new Neighborhood Policy, to follow the Barcelona process, seems destined to suffer the same ignominious fate of a noble mission that went nowhere, because the desire to be magnanimous and fair has led only to wishy-washiness.
Europe is increasingly involved in military operations in Afghanistan and the Middle East that appear more and more futile and dangerous, partly due to their genesis in Europe having to help clean up or stabilize the mess that is often created by the imbalanced and aggressive policies of the United States and Israel. This is happening at a time when Europe suffers three other negative trends related to its relations with the Middle East: Terrorism from within Europe, but often inspired by events in the Middle East, continues to occur; Europeans pay more and more for development and reconstruction aid, while Middle Eastern development and reconstruction remain chronically elusive; and, European credibility with publics and governments in the region continues to slip, as the once independent and resolute European position anchored in a sense of justice, balance and law slowly gives way to shameless genuflecting before the corrosive altars of spineless political vulnerability and fear.
This is, indeed, Europe’s worst moment, as its ineffective foreign policies leave it largely lacking in respect or impact, in the Middle East and much of the rest of the world. Nor is Europe promoting security or stability, or even effectively dealing with its illegal immigrants problem. Europe urgently needs to acknowledge what a dire mess it has gotten itself into in the Middle East, and work its way out of this predicament by reverting to its former role as the conscience of the rule of law and international legitimacy, and a bastion of firm fairness.
Rami G. Khouri is an internationally syndicated columnist, the director of the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, editor-at-large of the Beirut-based Daily Star, and co-laureate of the 2006 Pax Christi International Peace Award.
Copyright ©2007 Rami G. Khouri / Agence Global
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Released: 04 July 2007
Word Count: 786
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