Europe’s Misplaced Priorities in the Middle East

Gaza and its inhabitants, including Gazan civilians, Hamas and other terrorist organizations and finally Israeli hostages present the most pressing and seemingly unsurmountable issue for the Israeli government. The current effort to get some of the remaining hostages released failed, and it is not clear whether negotiations with Hamas will continue. The recent media reports and videos show poor, if not desperate living conditions of ordinary Gazans. Lack of food and basic medical care leading to malnutrition are documented by photos. A photo of a mother holding an emaciated child composed as a Pieta went viral leading to widespread denunciation of Israel. Though several sources, including CNN and Honest Reporting pointed out that the boy suffers from a genetic disease and that he, his brother and mother traveled to Italy for treatment (with Israel’s help) in mid-June, the damage was done – as usual Israel is considered a perpetrator of genocide, the term introduced by Palestinians and South Africa among others.

Yes, the situation is dire, and Israel needs to do more, if only for humanitarian reasons. Many experts claim that according to International Law, Israel is obligated to take care of enemy’s needs. This sounds absurd to force Israel to provide water, electricity and food to a hostile population rather than force Hamas to take care of its brothers. Many Arab countries, or at least their leaders would be very happy to get rid of Muslim Brotherhood of which Hamas is a branch. Until now they were quite happy to see Israel to carry the burden and the blame when things turn awry. Finally, several Arab countries started to pitch in with food delivery and adding water pipeline from Egypt to water supply provided by Israel for some years. Egypt and UAE are the first on board.

Many of the claims blaming Israel for the misery are without evidence as documented above. Israel has a dilemma: the first is to end this endless war, hope to get the hostages out and leave Gaza to somebody else to feed and to take care of its basic needs. Who are the potential caretakers? Hamas, Palestinian Authority, UN together with UNRWA. In other words, this would enable Hamas to rearm and regroup so it can attack Israel again and again as its leaders promised. Or Israel would take over Gaza, hopefully get rid of Hamas and rescue hostages – a risky operation. Unfortunately, there are Israelis who call for Gaza annexation. For most Israelis and Jews (including myself) this would be the least desirable, outright stupid and perhaps most dangerous option for Israel, leading not only to deal with hostile population and being an occupation power, but also to world-wide opposition, condemnation and an even more extreme antisemitism.

In the meantime, it appears that Europe forsook Israel. Or at least Western Europe. Several European countries are selling a handful of its Eurogfighter Typhoon jets to Turkey. Two questions are popping up immediately – why is Europe doing it and does Turkey face a serious threat that it needs 40 sophisticated fighter jets? For one, Europe needs business and money (well, who doesn’t?). Turkey has been fighting internal Kurdish forces for some years and may still feel threatened by Kurds even after the Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan called for unilateral ceasefire with Turkey. Though Turkey is a member of NATO its allies are NATO’s adversaries. Iran, Russia, China and Hamas do not have to worry about being attacked by Turkey. However, Turkey is supporting the new Syrian regime and may want to annex or at least exert control over a part of Syria, and that would bring Turkey dangerously close to Israel.

EU is acting as an arbitrator of International laws, threatening Israel with sanctions over the living conditions and humanitarian aid in Gaza. It is giving ammunition to Hamas that is issuing more demands on Israel before it would release some hostages. Why there is no pressure from the 29 or so countries on Hamas and its big supporter Qatar when accusing only Israel of creating starvation and death in Gaza? Why does not EU demand an unconditional end of the Hamas charade and blackmail of Israel when a release of hostages and disarmament of Hamas would lead in all likelihood to real ceasefire, and much needed respite both for Gazans and Israelis? The threatened sanctions would consist of withdrawing research funds from Israel. As it is this would represent a bigger loss for Europe, because these funds are spearheaded for development of drones, AI, cybersecurity and similar projects.
When Syrian forces slaughtered a thousand Syrian Druze, it was only Israel who came to the defense of the Druze population. Europeans and even to some extent Americans were annoyed with Israel’s action, after all they just started pouring a lot of money to rebuild Syria. I guess Druze are either not as precious as Gazans or journalists consider areas of Gaza controlled by Israel to be less dangerous than parts of Syria.

For some reason, EU has a blind spot for an exponential rise in antisemitic incidents in Europe. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have a free hand in inciting hate if not outright violence, antisemitism spreads to domestic populations and their governments. When calling French-Jewish kids Israeli brats upon their forcible removal from a Vueling plane in Valencia is tolerated by the Spanish government, and when the Netherlands considers Israel to be a security danger just like Iran, we should know that this is bad, really bad for Jews. Jewish performers, both musicians and comedians are cancelled by venue organizers fearing of being unable to provide adequate security for Jewish performers, or because they do not want Jewish artists. Jews being thrown out from restaurants, Israelis not allowed to disembark from cruise ships in Greek ports all of this smacks of some serious antisemitism. What does it take for European governments to stop this wave? Do we have to wait for Jews getting murdered on the streets of European cities?