Diplomacy is full of quips so brutal they can haunt generations of diplomats. For the Foreign Office, the words that still sting are those of Dean Acheson, that harsh Cold War US Secretary of State, who unforgettably said — and this was in 1962 — “Great Britain has lost an empire and not yet found a role.” And for the European Commission, the assessment that still haunts them was from Mark Eyskens, the Belgian one-time prime and foreign minister — practically a neighbour — who said, “Europe was an economic giant, a political dwarf and a military worm.” He said that in 1991. And, unfortunately, that’s exactly what Europe looks like over Gaza.
It would be bad enough if the European Union only looked irrelevant over the war. In fact it’s worse than that as, while Acheson’s successor as the United States diplomat-in-chief, Antony Blinken, has been engaged in shuttle diplomacy, and Mohammed Bin Salman, the ruler of Saudi Arabia, has been phoning everyone he can urging de-escalation, the European Union managed to trip over itself and end up in a massive squabble over what its actual foreign policy should be towards Israel-Palestine. At a moment when senior officials across the Middle East and beyond are worried about a regional war the EU looks like a self-squabbling dwarf.
Things got off to a bad start when, soon after Hamas launched the war with its horrendous massacres in southern Israel, Olivér Várhelyi, a Hungarian EU Commissioner, announced the unilateral suspension of all EU development aid to Palestinians. Needless to say he neither had the authority nor the backing to do so by social media. Then things got worse when Ursula von der Leyen, behaving like a German politician, flew to Israel offering her fullest support. Again, needless to say, not every country in the EU feels about the conflict the way that Germany does — sparking a backlash from the Irish President, MEPs and her own colleagues.
This is a shocking collapse in European influence, not just from a century ago but even the Nineties
This cacophony quickly turned the sight of the Commission President in a flak jacket amid the devastated kibbutz of Kfar Aza from a bold geopolitical call into a Brussels scandal, and within a few days, into a symbol of Europe’s weakness on the world stage. Instead of flying into the region with a united — or close to that — position and a real economic and security package to back it up, like they do in Ukraine, the succession of European leaders arriving in Ben Gurion airport have added up to far less than the sum of their parts. At this hour, it is only the United States, with its carrier groups and military installations across the region, which is having any impact at all diplomatically, as many fear things are spinning out of control.
Britain, to be fair, had made its call sending Royal Navy ships and surveillance aircraft to the Eastern Mediterranean, with the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary rushing to the region. But this is a small supporting role to the American effort. On the other side of the Mediterranean, Europe is not an actor but a spectator. This is not just a shocking collapse in European influence from a century ago when Britain and France ruled over the region through mandates and protectorates but even the Nineties.
The clue is the name of the diplomatic breakthroughs known as the Oslo Process, which came out into the open in 1993, and which brought limited Palestinian autonomy and Israeli pullbacks aimed at a two-state solution. Britain, France and Norway had real influence in the admittedly failed peace process, with Tony Blair taking an oversight role in 2002 as head of the Quartet — a now braindead liaison group of the US, EU, Russia and the UN for these negotiations.
This is a moment in the Middle East where everyone is trying to work out what everyone else will do tomorrow. When will Israel begin its ground invasion? How will Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, bristling with rockets, then respond? But in defence ministries and the royal palaces of the region minds are turning to the rubble the day after. If Hamas is driven out of the strip, could this be an opportunity for Gaza to be handed over to an Arab-led UN peacekeeping force? And could Israel be encouraged to normalise with Saudi Arabia in exchange for a new Oslo Process 2.0? The Europeans are hardly mentioned in these conversations. It’s not just that they are seen to lack the unity or the military to make much of a difference. They are also seen to lack the creativity. And that is perhaps the most damning thing of all.
