Israel finds it harder to make friends in Europe

By Petra de Koning in Brussels and Guus Valk in Tel Aviv

The relationship between Israel and the European Union is increasingly under strain from the Gaza offensive and Israel's refusal to freeze the construction of settlements on the occupied West Bank.

The European Union once again wants to play a prominent role in the Middle East peace process, Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said last week. Spain takes over the EU presidency next January and Zapatero wants to visit Israel and the Palestinian Territories before that in order to "give the peace process a new impulse".

There will be little time to discuss the relations between Israel and the Palestinians during Zapatero's trip; the difficult relationship between Israel and the European Union is likely to take up much of his time there.

Made in Israel
After years of rapprochement the EU countries are now being coy about establishing closer economic and political ties with Israel as promised.

Some EU countries are even calling for a boycott of Israeli products because Israel has been branding products from the occupied West Bank as 'Made in Israel'.

Some smaller-scale sanctions are already in place. Zapatero will have to explain, for instance, why Israeli scientists were excluded from a Spanish solar energy project . The Spanish housing ministry said the Israelis weren't welcome because their university is located in Ariel, on the occupied West Bank. In Britain, the Trade Union Congress last week called for economic sanctions against Israel.

"The mood in Europe is turning against Israel," said Israeli political analyst Jonathan Spyer, who has worked for prime ministers Netanyahu and Barak.

Until now Israel could always count on finding some political allies in the EU, said Spyer, "but it is getting harder and harder to find those allies."

Things took a turn for the worse at the beginning of this year. Israel launched an offensive against the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 Palestinians, and a new right-wing Israeli government came into office with Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister and Avigdor Lieberman of the extreme-right party Yisrael Beiteinu as foreign minister.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy pleaded with Netanyahu to fire Lieberman, who favours deporting the Israeli Arabs (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship who live in Israel proper). Spyer: "In the past few months Lieberman has only visited politically risk-free regions, such as South America or Africa. Europe wants no part of Lieberman, and Netanyahu has got the message."

'Sad' and 'bad'
But the main issue of controversy is the settlements. Both the US and Europe are demanding an end to the construction of settlements in the occupied territories because they undermine the sustainability of a future Palestinian state. They are also illegal under international law.

Earlier this month the Israeli refusal to freeze further settlements raised the ire of Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen, who is usually the spokesperson of those EU countries which defend Israel whenever they can. Verhagen's reaction was even fiercer than that of US president Barack Obama when he learned that Israel had no intention of stopping the settlements. Verhagen called the refusal "sad" and "bad".

Diplomats in Brussels say that in this case Verhagen's love for Obama got the better of his love for Israel. And so the US president, by making demands of Israel, is uniting European countries where they are usually divided.

No head of government in Europe is willing to stand up for Israel anymore, Israeli politicians often complain. They usually add that this is because of the growing anti-Israeli mood in Europe, among Muslims and left-wing voters. These days unbridled support for Israel can be found only with orthodox Christian parties and right-wing conservative parties like the UK Independence Party, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands or the Danish People's Party.

Organ theft article
Israel likes to use our internal divisions to its own advantage, says a top official in Brussels who is involved with the EU's Middle East policy. And it has been somewhat successful at it recently. Israel reacted furiously to the publication of an article in a Swedish newspaper in August, which claimed the Israeli military was stealing organs from dead Palestinians.

Israel demanded an apology from Sweden, which currently has the EU presidency. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt refused, invoking the freedom of the press.

Other EU countries felt that Bildt could at least have said that the article was reprehensible. The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, used the incident to bring up anti-semitism during a meeting. In Brussels, minister Verhagen said the Swedish article was "below par" and called it "sad" that relations between the EU and Israel were getting strained as a result. "I hope Bildt will soon travel to the Middle East," Verhagen said.

But Tel Aviv has said a planned visit by Bildt has been cancelled, while Sweden says no date had been set. Diplomats in Brussels say Bildt wanted to go, but the trip was postponed because of the article. "This is what Israel always does," says the top official. "They make it personal. This time Bildt is the bad guy."

The Spanish prime minister, however, is still welcome to come to Israel because Israel can't afford to let its relationship with the EU turn sour, says Spyer.

"The EU and Israel have close trade relations. Geographically and historically the Europeans are close to us. But the alienation is more than political; it is also cultural. In Europe the nation states are losing importance and the dominant school of thought is that conflicts should be resolved through negotiations. At the same time in Israel the national consciousness is only growing stronger."

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