Israel-Hamas conflict: the EU is nowhere to be seen in the de-escalation

The world is moving forward as the Israeli-Palestinian crisis escalates following the Hamas attacks on Saturday 7 October. A world that is aiming, in the short term, at two objectives: limiting the crisis and making it a local factor. In the medium to long term, looking at the brutal war with 3,000 deaths in just the first six days of clashes, a structured and strategic challenge aimed at resolving the age-old theme of rivalries and trenches of hatred between regional powers.

Big powers share the objective on Israel-Gaza

The three "empires", China, Russia, and the United States agree on one thing: nobody wants to give a blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu. Vladimir Putin has blamed Hamas’s eruption of violence on the failure of a collective Western strategy to define Palestine as a minority player internationally. “I think many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of US policy in the Middle East,” Putin said. Hamas’s maneuver and Netanyahu’s response create a context in which Washington is forced to return to dealing with the Middle East. Anthony Blinken, US Secretary of State, has wisely outlined in his statements the conditions for US support of Israel: yes to respect for the law of war, no to indiscriminate reprisals.

What does this mean? The fact that essentially a game of parties has emerged between Moscow and Washington to shift the focus of global politics from Kyiv to Gaza. In a context that sees the war in Ukraine stagnating and winter approaching, the rhetorical de-escalation regarding the scale of priorities may impose the search for an agreement. China could play the part of the mediator, having brokered peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia and indicated the Israeli-Palestinian crisis as the main second diplomatic front.

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It appears clear, day after day, how much the Chinese reluctance to go all the way on the issue was dictated precisely by the perception that something big was being prepared and that many, starting with the USA and Israel in the front row, underestimated. “Leaders of terrorist organizations have recently increased their threats of a global regional war,” the Middle East think tank Memri wrote in August, “in response to Israeli threats to assassinate terrorist operatives and those who send them, including the leader of Hamas Saleh ’Arouri”.

In an interview with Al-Mayadeen channel, the latter threatened to escalate the conflict with Israel to the point of global war. The report circulated in international diplomatic circles, including those close to Beijing, especially where it communicated that there were "growing indications that a war against Israel could break out in September or October 2023" and that "the trigger could be a spiral of violent clashes which cause many victims, or the use of new weapons which lead to many victims on the Israeli side, in the face of which Israel will not be able to cope with its regular anti-terrorism measures."

China is the only great power that always focuses on the Palestinian National Authority and not on Hamas. “Last June, Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas visited Beijing, where he met with his Chinese counterpart. The visit brought a leap forward in relations with Beijing with which a strategic partnership was agreed", wrote sinologist Federico Giuliani on Lettera43. Now Beijing’s fear is that Hamas will ruin this work.

Now the fire has broken out and now all powers are aiming to de-escalation. Each, obviously, pro domo sua. For Washington, the objective is to reintroduce anti-Iran containment on the axis between Israel and Arab countries. For Putin, the objective is to show the existence of a large anti-Western camp in the world and to exalt the position of states that are currently halfway through and aimed at mediating the rescue of Israeli hostages and human lives in Gaza such as Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. China wants to secure the Silk Roads that pass through the Mediterranean. Even India, a strong ally of Israel, fears that the escalation of Hamas could produce temptations of emulation in the always-boiling context of Kashmir. Pope Francis, personally and through the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pizzaballa, has also expressed the line of complexity as his own: yes to Israel’s right of defense without forgetting the depth of the question Palestinian and the need for a structural situation.

Uncertain Europe

Nowadays, a European voice is struggling to emerge, irrelevant in a crisis where the countries of the Old Continent have seen governments of various backgrounds literally return to 2001, to the clash of civilizations, to the clearing of anti-Arab prejudices in reaction to the horror of Hamas. The German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has combined history, memory, and geopolitics: Berlin’s choice to defend Israel is a "moral duty" resulting from the drama of the Holocaust. The Italian government has forgotten the lesson of moderation of Bettino Craxi and Giulio Andreotti by embracing the line of the Israeli hawks: total war on Hamas.

The European Commission initially blocked funds to Palestine, part of the international aid that accounts for 80% of the budget of the PNA and the Gaza Strip, only to be then pushed into an about-face by Spain’s wise stance, Luxembourg, Ireland and Portugal, according to which cutting aid to Palestine was doing Hamas a favor. Between moral dilemmas and a lack of vision, Europe simply has no position. This damages any effort for peace because it brings forward the hawks’ arguments for total war. Which are, obviously, in the leadership of Hamas and in its bestial conduct. But there is no shortage of them in Israel either. And they represent, together, a threat to peace. Something that very democratic Europe seems not to have noticed.

Original article published on Money.it Italy 2023-10-13 07:01:00. Original title: Israele, sulla de-escalation la grande assente è l’Europa