Western Complicity Exposed Europe And
US Richly Reward Israel For Pariah Status
01 August 2012
By Jonathan Cook
Israel has barely put a foot right with the
international community since its attack on Gaza more
than three years ago provoked global revulsion.
The right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu has
serially defied and insulted foreign leaders,
including US President Barack Obama; given the
settlers virtual free rein; blocked peace talks with
the Palestinians; intimidated and marginalised human
rights groups, UN agencies and even the Israeli
courts; and fuelled a popular wave of Jewish ethnic
and religious chauvinism against the country's
Palestinian minority, foreign workers and asylum
seekers.
No wonder, then, that in poll after poll Israel ranks
as one of the countries with the most negative
influence on international affairs.
And yet, the lower Israel sinks in public estimation,
the more generous western leaders are in handing out
aid and special favours to their wayward ally. The
past few days have been particularly shameless.
It was revealed last week that the European Union had
approved a massive upgrade in Israel's special trading
status, strengthening economic ties in dozens of
different fields. The decision was a reversal of a
freeze imposed in the wake of the Gaza attack of
winter 2008.
Amnesty International pointed out that the EU was
violating its own commitments in the European
Neighbourhood Policy, which requires that, as a
preferred trading partner, Israel respect
international human rights, democratic values and its
humanitarian obligations.
Equally troubling, the EU is apparently preparing to
upend what had looked like an emerging consensus in
favour of banning settlement products - the only
meaningful punishment the EU has threatened to inflict
on Israel.
With some irony, Europe's turnabout was revealed the
same day that Israel announced it was planning to
destroy eight villages in the West Bank, expelling
their 1,500 Palestinian inhabitants, to make way for a
military firing zone. Four more villages are also
under threat.
The villagers' expulsion was further confirmation that
Israel is conducting a "forced transfer" of
Palestinians, as recent EU reports have warned, from
the nearly two-thirds of the West Bank under its
control.
Europe's only real leverage over Israel is economic:
business between the two already accounts for about 60
per cent of Israeli trade, worth nearly 30 billion
euros. But rather than penalising Israel for
repeatedly stomping over the flimsiest prospects for a
two-state solution, the EU is handsomely rewarding it.
It is not alone. The United States is also showering
economic benefits and military goodies on Israel, in
addition to the billions of dollars in aid it hands
over every year.
In the past few days alone, President Obama signed a
new law greatly expanding military cooperation with
Israel and awarded $70 million – on top of an existing
$210 million donation – for it to develop the Iron
Dome missile defence system; the Pentagon arm-twisted
Lockheed Martin into collaborating with Israeli firms
in revamping the new F-35 fighter jet; and Congress
approved a four-year extension of US loan guarantees
to make it cheaper for Israel to borrow money on the
international markets.
Meanwhile, Obama's rival for the presidency, Mitt
Romney, has criticised Obama for being too miserly
towards Israel. As he stood shoulder to shoulder with
Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday, Romney issued a
press release suggesting that his administration would
spend even more US taxpayers' dollars on Israel's
missile defence system.
All this munificence is coming from the two dominant
parties to the Quartet - the international group
comprising the US, the EU, the United Nations and
Russia. The Quartet's role is to champion the very
two-state solution Israel is striving so strenuously
to destroy.
In a further irony, the World Bank issued last week
its latest report on the state of the Palestinian
economy, concluding that its situation was so dire the
Palestinian government-in-waiting, the Palestinian
Authority, could not be considered ready for
independent statehood. The report noted that the
Palestinians were heavily reliant on foreign donors
and that local private businesses, agriculture and
manufacturing were all in decline.
With feigned obtuseness, the World Bank recommended
that the PA increase exports to foreign markets,
glossing over the biggest impediment to such trade:
the severe restrictions imposed by Israel on the
movement of people and goods into and out of
Palestinian territory.
As the Quartet has grown ever more silent in the face
of Israeli transgressions, US politicians have stepped
in with cynical manoeuvres to shore up Israel's
intransigence and destroy any hopes of a peaceful
solution.
Last week, for example, US lawmakers were reported to
have put their names to a congressional resolution
recognising the recent report of Israel's
controversial Levy Committee. The report concluded
that Israel was not occupying the West Bank and that
consequently the settlements there are legal.
The topsy-turvy character of international diplomacy
was acknowledged this month by a recently retired
British ambassador to the Middle East. Tom Philips,
who served in Israel and Saudi Arabia, writes in the
latest edition of Prospect magazine that Europe and
the US need to use "big carrots and big sticks" if
there is to be any hope of reviving the peace process.
But Mr Philips believes the US is "genetically
indisposed" to forcing change on Israel. He proposes
instead choking off donor money to the PA so as "to
put the full weight of the occupation on Israel, a
burden I do not think they would be able to endure".
In another of the rich ironies of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it now seems even some
diplomats are concluding that the Palestinians will be
best served by destroying the fledgling government
that was supposed to be the harbinger of their
independence.
The real obstacles to peace - Israel, its occupation
and western complicity - might then be laid bare for
all to see.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize
for Journalism. His latest books are "Israel and the
Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to
Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and
"Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human
Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net
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