George Bush has done it again, managing to send his European allies up in arms one more time. In a single short speech on the Middle East, Bush has further dismayed his political friends in Europe (let alone alienating the Arab world) with what many here regard as another example of his “distressing ineptitude” in international relations.The British media have focused on the news that Britain, along with other European nations, has rejected the central premise of Bush’s speech — that Yasser Arafat must go. Not that there’s any love lost for Arafat, variously described as a “pathetic person,” and a “corrupt little despot” who has betrayed his country’s hopes by his duplicitous intransigence. But there is, at least, some sense of realistic perspective, bred by previous failures — a perspective the European media see lacking in Bush.
In the early decades of the 20th century, European powers meddled in the internal politics of the Middle East for short-term political and economic gain but with disastrous long-term results of antagonism and hatred of the West. Now the Bush administration, by telling the Palestinians who they can and can’t elect as their leaders, are falling into the same trap. It’s as if history doesn’t exist inside the White House.
Tony Blair, the British prime minister, has rushed to downplay talk of a major rift between America and its European allies, but at the same time, the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said in the House of Commons that Britain would deal with whomever the Palestinian people chose, rejecting America’s precondition that Arafat must not be re-elected.
A feeling of depression has descended over European capitals as governments are faced with evidence that the Bush team has once again failed to grasp key points of international diplomacy and politics.
The “naive asymmetry” of the peace plan has led some to refer to Bush as “Ariel Sharon’s press secretary.” Bush “reads the Israeli government press handouts and quotes them to the American people,” writes one leading commentator, “ignominiously parroting everything he is told.”
Remember, this is the reaction of a friendly nation.
While Arafat himself is despised, there is more sympathy for the Palestinian cause in Europe, where reporting on the conflict is more even-handed than in America. European politicians and media are equally critical of Israel’s “terror by tanks” as they are of the murderous Palestinian bombers.
The consensus in Europe is that the Bush plan holds out no realistic hope for peace, seeing it as driven more by domestic policy rather than any real interest in resolving the conflict. What concerns many people in the Old World is the transparent dishonesty of Bush’s policy: it’s perceived to be dictated by Israel to the exclusion of all other parties, and a shameless effort to garner votes in time for America’s congressional elections in November.
From a Euro-view, it appears that nothing matters more to these Republican strategists than enhancing the power of their rightwing and stealing the Jewish vote from the Democrats.
European readers and viewers are reminded far more often than their American counterparts that Israel is an occupying army on Palestinian land; that Israeli “settlers” steal yet more Palestinian land on a weekly basis with the backing of troops and tanks; and that Israel’s settlement policy is in clear breach of international law and United Nations resolutions.
Washington’s willingness to disregard these crucial factors puzzles and dismays its European allies. There is no support whatsoever for the murderous tactics of Palestinian suicide bombers, but there is perhaps a greater understanding of the causes behind the terror attacks. The fact that the new Bush “peace plan” does nothing to address these deeper issues raises little hope in European capitals that Washington is serious about trying to resolve the conflict. Whether this is because Bush and his team just don’t understand what is going on in the world around them, or, more disturbingly, because they’re using world conflicts to their own political advantage on the home front is an open question in European minds. But neither gives cause for optimism.
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2002.
