Can the new Europe redeem the old Europe?
Captain Compassion
Jerusalem Post ^ | 2-6-03 | GERALD M. STEINBERG
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In a press conference on Tuesday following a meeting with British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Chirac epitomized the
tired face and stale rhetoric of the "Old Europe."
Puffed up with self-importance and spouting the usual cliches, Chirac
repeated the call for infinite patience with Iraq's efforts to hide
its weapons of mass destruction, while ignoring the obvious impotence
of this policy. For France, reliance on its veto power in the UN
Security Council to block American policy, regardless of the threats
of terror on a massive scale, remains the primary objective.
In contrast, at an other podium, Blair was transformed from the
agonizing thespian caught between the demands of the Continent and
America, into the unshackled leader of the "New Europe."
Under this banner (and that of New Labor), Blair reflected a serious
effort to grapple with reality. Despite occasional lapses (such as the
ill-advised Palestinian pseudo-reform conference in London), Blair's
displays of serious understanding and avoidance of the diplomatic
slogans on the Middle East are a refreshing change. The contrast is
particularly sharp when compared to the deadly combination of
ignorance and arrogance that have produced the failed policies in the
EU's headquarters in Brussels, as well as Paris, Berlin, and other
tired capitals.
IN A manifesto published last week, New Europe emerged as a coherent
force that might be able to put some life back into a very stale and
decaying structure. In addition to Britain, the other signatories were
Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, Denmark, and
Italy. In their first collective stand, they directly addressed the
core issues of security and foreign policy, rejecting the
Franco/German policies of appeasement, and declaring their support for
the US-led campaign to force Iraq to disarm.
Beyond taking Saddam Hussein seriously, the members of New Europe seem
to embody the realism, vibrancy and optimism necessary to sustain the
change. The three post-communist nations that are the newest entrants
into Europe's collective political frameworks (NATO and the EU), bring
a healthy distrust of empty political cant and conventional wisdom.
After suffering through decades of communist occupation and
oppression, the Czechs, Hungarians, and Poles are in no mood to allow
France and Germany to impose a dominant position.
While the economies of Old Europe decay under the weight of political
constraints (their state budgets are exceeding the agreed boundaries),
Spain, Britain and the ex-communist trio have shown that open
economies can thrive outside of the US.
For Israel, the emergence of a New Europe, based on the combination of
realism and moral backbone can mark an important step in repairing the
tattered relationship. For the past two decades, the Old Europe has
played a very negative role, scoring points against the United States
by embracing the Palestinian and Arab cause and working against
American policies. Official European policy, as formed and implemented
by the European Commission and the leaders of France and other
countries, has been fundamentally anti-Israel, and Israeli democracy
is scarcely recognized in these arthritic policies. Instead, European
bureaucrats and diplomats seek to undermine these principles by
funneling funds into marginal propaganda organizations operating under
the halo of human rights groups.
As a major contributor to Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority, the
EU has also paid for the reign of terror and corruption. Textbooks
introduced by the Palestinian Authority and funded by Old Europe were
responsible for spreading incitement and sustaining the hatred that
destroyed the hopes for peace. The EU's special envoy to the region,
Miguel Moratinos, is the last non-Arab official to still confer with
Arafat, long after his role in terror and corruption was exposed.
Moratinos and some of his teams apparently have also missed the last
two Israeli elections, in which Yosi Beilin and the Israeli Left were
voted out of office.
However, members of the European Parliament have started to ask
embarrassing questions. Against the urgent objections of the EU
Commission (appointed, rather than elected), which apparently fears
the sunlight of investigation, one-quarter of the delegates have
demanded a debate on EU funding for the Palestinians. This, in itself,
is progress in the right direction, and another face of the New
Europe.
At the same time, cracks are emerging in the dominant Old European
alliance of Arabist and anti-Israel (as well as some anti-Semitic)
politicians, academics, and journalists (including many members of the
British elite). In the past two years, in face of Palestinian suicide
bombings and inhuman terror, the faculty of some European universities
have lined up to boycott Israel, while the media continued to portray
Palestinians as victims.
But in a vibrant New Europe, freed of the politically correct slogans
and lazy intellectual and ideological distortions, a strong case for
Israel can be and is being made.
In ex-communist central Europe, the built-in anti-American and
anti-Israeli bias is treated much like the old slogans peddled by the
Kremlin and Pravda. A small but increasing group of European
journalists have acknowledged the failure of the liberal anti-war
creed on Iraq, and from here, the next step is to also admit that
support for Arafat and Palestinian terrorism was also a disastrous
mistake.
If this trend continues and expands to incorporate other countries,
such as Greece, Sweden and Holland, a fundamental correction in the
tone and substance of relations between Europe and Israel will be
possible. The vast ignorance and intense hostility that dominates EU
policy on Israel could then be replaced by considered and
knowledgeable decision-making, and closer political ties based on
shared values of democracy and freedom. But first, the shadow cast by
Saddam Hussein's regime of terror must be destroyed, and the central
role of the New Europe starts here.
The writer is director of the Program on Conflict Management and
Negotiation at Bar-Ilan University.
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"After an hour of paceing the Doctor says 'Emo your Grandmother is on
an artifical life support system but although her brain is dead her
heart is still beating'. I said Oh my God, we never had a Democrat in
our family before." -- Emo Phillips.
"There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other
is wrong, but the middle is always evil." -- Ayn Rand
"...observe that in all the propaganda of the ecologists amidst all
their appeals to nature and pleas for 'harmony with nature' there is
no discussion of man's needs and the requirements of his survival.
Man is treated as if he were an unnatural phenomenon. Man cannot
survive in the kind of state of nature that the ecologists envision
i.e., on the level of sea urchins or polar bears..." - AYN RAND
"The Anti-Industrial Revolution," The New Left, 136.
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us,
'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -- Dosteovsky
Joseph R. Darancette
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