Having pinned its hopes on Colin Powell's failed Mideast mission, the region now faces the difficult task of staking out some diplomatic turf of its own
When Europe's leading diplomats concede that the U.S. Secretary of State represents the best hope for their own foreign policy efforts, it is a telling indication of the dire state of things in the Middle East. Even in the post-Sept. 11 era of togetherness, European officials have seldom shrunk from assertions of their independence, engaging in transatlantic squabbles with the Bush Administration over everything from steel tariffs to the "axis of evil" rhetoric of a President whose policies many of them dislike.
Until recently, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was no exception. European voices were among the loudest chastising the U.S. for its lack of engagement in the region, while European envoys tried gamely but ineffectually to fill the void with mediation efforts of their own. Their failure — earlier this month Ariel Sharon refused to let Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Piqu[a {e}] and E.U. foreign policy chief Javier Solana even meet with Yasser Arafat — made humiliatingly evident the need for American leadership. And though the alignment of their interests was born of necessity, European diplomats — under no illusions about his peace mission's chances for success — were fervent in their support of Colin Powell, whom many perceive as the lone voice of moderation in a hawk-filled Administration.
Powell's empty-handed return to Washington last week put new pressure on the already frayed transatlantic partnership. Many analysts now expect Europe to break more openly with Israel and the U.S., and cracks have already marred the façade of U.S.-European diplomatic unity. Last week European governments were among those calling for an investigation of the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp that Palestinians say caused hundreds of deaths. In Britain, where most media coverage stopped just short of calling Jenin a war crime and M.P. Ann Clwyd's tale to Parliament of her delegation's experience there was told in a voice still scratchy with "dust from Israeli tanks," Foreign Secretary Jack Straw phoned Powell to press the point. As international clamor grew, the U.S. and Israel agreed to a U.N. fact-finding mission.
Earlier this month the European Parliament echoed the U.S. and the U.N. in calling for an immediate pullback of Israeli troops from the West Bank. But the Parliament went further in demanding the suspension of the E.U.-Israel Association Agreement, which provides favored treatment for trade between the two entities. The non-binding vote was meant to compel E.U. foreign ministers to convene an emergency meeting with Israel. But wary of complicating an already impossible equation, they ignored this contentious recommendation. "Nobody wanted to proceed as long as there was a ghost of a chance that Powell could succeed," says John Palmer, director of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels think tank. While that ghost lived, even those who have been most critical of the Bush Administration put aside their reservations. "We are in agreement that the top priority right now is helping Colin Powell to success in his difficult mission and strengthening his position," French Foreign Minister Hubert V[a {e}]drine told Le Monde early last week.
George Bush's best friend in Europe was also relieved that Powell was finally involved in the Middle East. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had quietly been urging Bush to undertake a more active role in mediating the conflict. Blair is the only European leader who has expressed qualified support for possible U.S. military action against Iraq, but he has also stated that there can be no action against Iraq without a serious Israeli-Palestinian peace process under way. Says a senior British official: "The charge Blair gets all the time in the Middle East is one of double standards, that the U.S. wants to make war on Iraq because of breaching U.N. Security Council resolutions, while Israel consistently gets away with the same thing."
Those charges have occasionally come from within Blair's own party.
During the same House of Commons debate that featured Clwyd's harrowing
account, Labour backbencher Gerald Kaufman denounced the policies
of what he called Prime Minister Sharon's "repulsive government."
Said Kaufman, who is Jewish: "We need to ask how we would feel if
we had been occupied for 35 years by a foreign power that denied us
the most elementary human rights." The murmurs of assent that greeted
these words would likely have been jeers had they been uttered in
the U.S. Capitol, where pro-Israeli sentiment runs high. And therein
lies the root of Europe's differences with the U.S. over the Middle
East.
