Europe’s opportunity to break the Middle East’s cycle of violence

 

By James M. Dorsey

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Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar celebrated this week a
“diplomatic victory” by delaying European sanctions against the Jewish state.
It’s a victory that could prove to be pyrrhic.

That is, if EU foreign ministers, increasingly critical of
Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, put their money where their mouth is and make
good on their threat to suspend the Jewish state’s 25-year-old association
agreement with the European Union because of its human rights violations.

On Tuesday, the ministers delayed a decision by two weeks to
impose punitive measures if Israel fails to implement a July 10 agreement to
increase the flow of desperately needed humanitarian aid into Gaza.

European diplomats said the ministers had delayed their
decision to give Gaza ceasefire talks mediated by the United States, Qatar, and
Egypt a chance to succeed.

The diplomats said Israeli concessions on the scope of its
military presence in Gaza during a renewed ceasefire had enhanced the chances
of a ceasefire agreement.

As part of the humanitarian aid agreement, Israel
committed to increasing the number of daily trucks bringing into Gaza food,
fuel and other items, as well as the opening of additional crossing points into
the Strip, the reopening of the Jordanian and Egyptian aid routes, and the distribution
of food supplies through bakeries and public kitchens throughout the territory.

Israel has blocked or throttled the entry of humanitarian
goods into Gaza since early March. The measures have severely worsened the
plight of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians.

The threat of a suspension followed the release last month
of a European Commission report, asserting that “there are indications
that Israel would
be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the association
agreement.

This week, the United Nations Security Council discussed the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza at the request of four EU members – Denmark,
France, Greece, and Slovenia alongside the United Kingdom.

Days later, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a
one-time staunch supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu,
charged that the attacks on civilians “that Israel has been carrying out for
months are unacceptable. No military
action can justify such behaviour.”

Ms. Meloni spoke after Israel attacked a Catholic church in
Gaza, killing three people. In a rare apology,
Mr. Netanyahu said stray ammunition caused the incident.

At the same time, Slovenia declared Israeli
ultra-nationalist ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non
grata, the first EU member to do so. Slovenia followed similar bans by Britain,
Norway, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

The Slovenian government charged that the national security
and finance minister had incited “extreme violence and serious violations of
the human rights of Palestinians” with “their genocidal statements.”

Messrs. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich advocate Israeli occupation of
the West Bank, conquered by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, and expedited
settlement activity in the territory and Gaza.

Mr. Smotrich has called for “total annihilation” of Gaza,
while Mr. Ben-Gvir, whom Israeli courts have repeatedly convicted on
racism-related charges, makes regularly incendiary remarks about Palestinians,
and more recently, Syrians.

For its part, the Irish parliament is likely to pass a
bill legalising a boycott of goods from Israeli businesses operating in the
West Bank and East Jerusalem, the first such legislation by an EU member.

Addressing the Security Council, UN humanitarian aid
coordinator Tom Fletcher warned that “the fuel crisis in Gaza remains at a
critical threshold,” despite the Israel-EU agreement.

Mr. Fletcher acknowledged that, since the agreement, Israel
has allowed 10 fuel trucks a week to enter Gaza for the first time in 130 days
but still refuses the entry of petrol needed for ambulances and other
humanitarian vehicles.

He suggested that Israel may permit “a slight increase” in
the number of fuel trucks.

Even so, Mr. Fletcher laid out the obstacle course,
including bureaucratic hurdles, multiple inspections, and transfers to several
trucks, aid needs to manoeuvre, before being allowed to enter Gaza.

Once in Gaza, “criminal gangs” and “starving people”
desperate for a bag of flour attack the aid convoys, Mr. Fletcher said.

In addition, the amount of aid entering Gaza remains minuscule
compared to the Strip’s needs.

“Two trucks (a day) provide a fraction of what is required
to run essential life-sustaining services,” Mr. Fletcher said.

He noted that since May 19, Israel has allowed only 1,600
trucks, or 62 per cent of the number of lorries requested by the UN, to enter
Gaza compared to the 630 trucks going into Gaza daily during a ceasefire agreed
in January that Israel unilaterally violated in March.

“To be clear, it’s a drop in the ocean of what is needed,”
Mr. Fletcher said.

Mr. Fletcher noted that Israel obstructed the provision of
aid by rejecting security clearances and visas for aid workers. He said Israel
this year had denied 56 per cent of the submitted applications for entry into
Gaza of medical emergency personnel.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. We have a plan that works.
It requires predictable aid, different types, and at scale, entering multiple
crossings where people do not come under fire, travelling on routes that we
choose without long delays, distributed to our distribution points and
warehouses according to long-established UN mechanisms and humanitarian
principles,” Mr. Fletcher said.

Journalist Amir Tibon asserted that EU foreign policy chief
Kaja Kallas had given Mr. Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, an
escape route by failing to publish details of the humanitarian aid
agreement, such as the number of trucks allowed into Gaza.

“Kallas should have known that this specific government is
full of liars, thieves, and demagogues, who place no value on their own word,
and constantly spout and spread disinformation. By not publishing the exact
terms of the agreement, she made it incredibly easy for the (Israeli)
government to slow-walk, dilute, and deny its own commitments,” Mr. Tibon said.

“The fate of the deal’s implementation now depends on how
much the EU’s top diplomat will insist, and how the bloc’s important countries
will respond, if Sa’ar and other members of the Netanyahu government will
sabotage it,” the journalist added.

Israel has good reason to take the threat of EU suspension
seriously.

Europe, rather than the United States, is Israel’s
largest trading partner, as well as the foremost destination for Israeli
investments, according to the Amsterdam-based Centre for Research on
Multinational Corporations (SOMO).

Credit; SOMO

The Center reported that the EU in 2023 held €72.1 billion
in investments in Israel compared to the United States’ €39.2 billion.
Similarly, Israel invested €65.9 billion in the EU, seven times more than the €8.8
billion in the United States.

In 2024, European trade with Israel totalled €42.6 billion,
significantly more than the €31.6 billion with the United States in the same
year.

Israel may feel that a potential United Arab Emirates and
United States-engineered
Mauritanian recognition of Israel, despite the ongoing Gaza war, could make
Europe more hesitant to act against it.

The touted move would break the, so far, united position of the
majority of Arab states that have not recognised Israel and insist that
relations depend on Israel committing to an irreversible path towards an
independent Palestinian state.

European opponents of the sanctioning of Israel argue that punitive
measures would send the wrong signal at a time when some Arab states may be
willing to move forward in their relations with Israel.

In favour of the proponents of sanctions, Israel’s
strikes this week in the Syrian capital of Damascus, including at the defence
ministry and targets near the presidential palace, are likely to delay any
Mauritanian move.

Gulf states, with the UAE in the lead, have moved
quickly to support the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa after Europe
and the United States lifted sanctions imposed on the regime of ousted
President Bashar al-Assad.

Israel opposed the lifting, arguing that Mr. Al-Sharaa had
not shed his jihadist antecedents, and insisting that the Syrian military stay
out of southern Syria as part of its post-October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on
Israel strategy to militarily emasculate its perceived foes.

“We are acting to prevent the Syrian regime from harming (the
Druze), and to ensure the demilitarization of the area adjacent to our border
with Syria,” said Mr. Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz in a joint
statement.

The strikes followed the entry of Syrian forces into the
predominantly Druze southern Syrian city of As Suwayda to quell clashes between
Druze militias and Bedouin tribesmen. Anti-government Druze elements and
Israeli media reports accused the Syrian military of committing
atrocities.

Like with Mauretania, the strikes are likely to complicate high-level
Israeli Syrian contacts aimed at achieving a security understanding, if not
Syrian recognition of Israel.

Earlier, Mr. Netanyahu seemed to downplay the possibility of
an agreement with Syria, insisting that the current opportunity was for
security and only
“eventually peace.”

Mr. Ben-Gvir, Mr. Netanyahu’s controversial national
security minister, added fuel to the fire by asserting that the “only solution”
was “to eliminate”
Mr. Al-Sharaa.

All of this suggests
that firm European action could play a role in breaking the Middle East’s cycle
of violence if it musters the necessary political will. To be sure, that is if
with a capital I.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an
Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam
School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and
podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.