True to their colonialist heritage, the solons of the European Union have become used to the idea that they can have their way with Israel with impunity. Not only can we do nothing about it, but we should be grateful that our lieges have not exacted greater pain nor sacrifice from us.
If this sounds like the good old days of the galut, Diaspora, well, old attitudes and habits die hard.
There is however, one colossal difference. We are not so beholden to Europe. Yes, of course they are a major trading partner, but trade is rarely done on sufferance, but is more likely to be bilateral, mutually symbiotic, and in both parties’ interests.
So Europe trades with us, because they want to sell us things, and there are many items they very much want to buy from us.
While trading might be seen to be bilaterally beneficial, labeling notwithstanding, there is actually one important area where Europe is actually beholden to Israel, and that is in the realm of intelligence.
Simply stated, Israel provides European governments with intelligence about terror groups, information that recent events show that European governments haven’t done a great job doing for themselves.
Here’s a simple suggestion. Israel should regretfully end its intelligence cooperation with any European government that is privy to labeling.
Sorry, guys, but we apartheidists, occupiers, imperialists, well we just can’t let this information out. It wouldn’t be right to our citizens whose tax dollars pay this information to be produced, only to discover that they are regarded by you as a variation on vermin.
Arutz Sheva recently carried a story about the critical role that Israeli intelligence played in preventing a potentially massive terror attack outside a soccer stadium in Hanover, Germany. An ambulance filled with explosives was discovered in the parking lot of the stadium shortly after it was evacuated.
Whatever private gratitude was expressed to Israeli intelligence organizations certainly did not spill over into the realm of public contrition as to the hypocritical labeling that Germany is actively involved with.
Israel is wrong to adopt a bifurcated, blinkered approach to its dealings with European countries. We basically telegraph our own sense of guilt, a sense that we deserve to be singled out for whatever disgusting discrimination Europeans want to engage in, by willing to help out Europe with no expectation of reciprocity.
This too is galut thinking. We must always be on good behavior, and hope, just hope, that the overlords will treat us benignly.
I say let the highly principled morally sublime Europeans figure out the landscape of terror groups for themselves. It is important that they know that their acts have repercussions, and that our relations with them are actually a two way street, not a master and vassal relationship.
If they want our help, European countries have to be prepared to accept us as we are with no moral preening, and to accord Israel the respect due to a sovereign democracy, one that just so happens to be bailing them out of danger.
The Foreign Ministry's plan to make EU countries' investment in the Palestinian Authority harder to accomplish is only a first step in the right direction.