Follow-up to the Byzantine Alliance...
Europeans Take Lead in Mideast From U.S.
Joseph Fitchett International Herald Tribune
Friday, August 31, 2001
Leaders Complain About Washington's Hands-Off Approach
PARIS Concerned by what they view as the Bush administration's hands-off approach to the mounting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, European governments have taken the initiative to try to arrange cease-fires in the region several times in recent weeks.
European leaders also have begun publicly complaining that Washington needs to do more to tackle the problem, with Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine of France accusing the U.S. administration Thursday of "acting like Pontius Pilate" in seeking to remain aloof from the crisis.
The Europeans' stepped-up diplomatic effort was evident this week when they coordinated mediation efforts Wednesday to arrange terms for Israeli forces to pull back from Beit Jala, a Palestinian village near Jerusalem that they had occupied.
The Israelis withdrew before dawn Thursday after Secretary of State Colin Powell threw his weight behind a deal brokered by top European officials including Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero of Italy, who was visiting Israel, Mr. Vedrine and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany.
In another European initiative earlier this month, Mr. Fischer persuaded Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to agree in principle to meet in Berlin, although a date for the meeting
still has not been set.
Mr. Vedrine's accusation - that the United States seemed to be washing its hands of responsibility for tackling the issue - appeared in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro published to coincide with a Paris conference of France's top diplomats.
France and other European Union countries, Mr. Vedrine said, expected Washington to move away from what he called a "wait-and-see" attitude and play a leading role in resolving a crisis with global implications. His comments
struck many officials as a complaint about isolationist tendencies in the Bush
administration, as well as an appeal to the United States to wield more clout in
the Middle East.
The Europeans' complaints about Washington's passivity are somewhat ironic,
following years when they chafed over the U.S. monopoly in Arab-Israeli peacemaking diplomacy. But the position arises in part from a fear, shared in all European capitals, that U.S. diplomatic inaction is creating serious political risks for pro-Western Arab regimes and threatening to destabilize an oil-producing region vital to the global economy.
[snip]
iht.com
The Europeans' worrying about the US's aloofness towards the ongoing Middle East crisis (Pres GW Bush's been vacationing in Crawford, TX, all along) is ironic indeed...
However, the author misses the point: the closet reason why European leaders want the US to keep throwing its weight about is that they don't want to drop their pro-Palestinian pretence... So far, the US's unyielding support of Israel has allowed Europe to act as the pro-Arab middle-of-the-roader. Whereas, as I previously said, Europe's business lobby is rather pro-Israel (see trade data on EU-Israel economics). But for the sake of civil harmony, European politicos don't want to see the Intifada spilling over into their urban ghettoes, pitting North African youths against Europe's polity.
Notwithstanding Europe's scramble to avoid being dragged into Israel's web, the "gravitational forces" at stake are too powerful: Russia, Israel and Europe are doomed to collapse into a Neo-Fascist merger...
Gus |
