Israel welcomes EU pragmatism

Date: 03/04/1997

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled visit to The Hague next week promises to be an interesting one - to say the least.

Although Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van Mierlo last week called for diplomacy, not statements, in the Middle East peace process, the EU presidency is likely to indicate the Union's continued disapproval of Israel's recent behaviour.

Nevertheless, the meeting is viewed by both sides as an opportunity for constructive debate at a time when tensions are at the highest they have been since the assassination of Yitsak Rabin.

The decision by European foreign ministers at the end of last month not to wave their finger yet again at Israel's settlement of East Jerusalem was welcomed with open arms.

“There is a real need for positive thinking right now,” Israel's ambassador to the EU Efraim Halevy told European Voice. “No country reacts well to critical statements. We hope this marks a turning point in relations.”

But Brussels diplomats privately admit that their silence may mark the eye, rather than the tail, of the storm.

Recent press reports that EU ministers were considering suspending the 1995 Israel-EU association agreement were overstated, but demonstrated a real sense of outrage in Brussels at Netanyahu's insensitivity.

“The agreements will certainly not be suspended tomorrow, but they were signed on the assumption that Israel would continue pushing for peace,” warned one European civil servant.

Since Netanyahu's harder-line government took power last year, Israel's fall from European grace has been marked, especially within the European Parliament. “He finds himself attacked for things that Rabin would have got away with,” said an Israeli diplomat.

The nadir in the two sides' political relations came last month when four EU member states on the United Nations security council pushed for international condemnation of the Har Homa settlement in Jerusalem.

Although defeated by a US veto, the move provoked serious resentment in Israel, which feels things are bad enough without moral preaching from Europe.

Jerusalem is adamant that only Middle Easterners can solve Middle Eastern problems. EU envoy Miguel Moratinos is popular in the region, but only in so far as he facilitates rather than preaches.

Interestingly, some feel that it was only Moratinos' presence which held the Union back from a tougher stance. “Europe is in some ways being held hostage to its own diplomacy,” said a Brussels official.

But the March decision does seem to mark a more pragmatic turn from a highly self-aware Union in the run-up to the end of the Intergovernmental Conference.

The irony is that, on the commercial front, things are going very well.

Following the 1995 cooperation deal, Brussels and Jerusalem have proceeded to science and technology, government procurement and telecoms agreements - putting Israel almost on a par with Norway.