Israel losing friends in world

Philip Stephens (Financial Times):

Britain’s parliament voted the other day to recognise the state of Palestine. The decision will not change anything on the ground in the West Bank or Gaza. Nor is it binding on David Cameron’s coalition government. Yet this was an important moment, and not just because of Britain’s deep historical connections with Palestine.

The debate opened a window on what Israel’s friends now think about the enduring impasse in the Middle East.

Benjamin Netanyahu has not had a good year.

Israel’s prime minister was blamed by the US administration for wrecking its latest attempt to reassemble a peace process.

In truth, there were obstinacies and obstacles on both sides, but publicly and privately, US officials identified Israel’s land grabs in East al-quds and the West Bank as the principal cause of the breakdown.

Only this month Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary, said he “deplored” plans for more than 2,000 additional homes for Israeli settlers in Palestinian East Jerusalem (East al-quds).

France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius said it put in question Israel’s oft-stated commitment to a negotiated peace.

Europeans have come to see settlement expansion as a strategy calculated to destroy fast-fading hopes for a two-state agreement.

The summer war against Hamas had the solid support of most Israelis.

For its friends abroad, the manner and scale of the military assault on Gaza was baffling and counterproductive. It attracted widespread international opprobrium for no identifiable strategic gain.

Israel can never be denied the right of self-defence against rockets fired from Gaza, but the death of 2,000, mostly civilian Palestinians and the bombing of UN schools was rightly judged to be disproportionate.

Israel lost 70 young soldiers. For what gain? Yuval Diskin, once head of the Shin Bet security service, told Germany’s Der Spiegel, that Israel had turned itself into “an instrument in the hands of Hamas”.

A temporary military success was more than offset by the political gains that accrued to Hamas and the damage inflicted on the Palestinian Authority headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

European governments had backed Mr Abbas’s initiative to forge a joint administration with Hamas as a prelude to serious peace talks.

Now they speculate that the Gaza operation was Netanyahu’s attempt to wreck any accommodation.

These episodes have not undercut the fundamental commitment of allies to Israel’s right to live in peace and security.

They have drained patience and trust and led many to believe Netanyahu prefers a permanent state of war to a difficult peace.

Yet the alternative to two states, as I have heard often during visits to Israel, is one state that comes to resemble apartheid South Africa.

Israel has lost its international audience. When Netanyahu warns about the nuclear threat from Iran, even those who worry deeply about Tehran’s intentions, respond with a weary shrug.

The warnings are seen as a diversion – an effort to distract from his refusal to accept a Palestinian state rather than a clear-headed assessment of a present danger.

This cannot be good for Israel. Such was the backdrop to this week’s vote in the House of Commons. The occasion added lustre to the reputation of the politicians – something too rare these days. The hyperbole and rancour of everyday partisanship made way for reasoned argument.

Israel had lobbied hard against the motion. It was soon obvious it had lost its best friends.

Sir Richard Ottaway, the Conservative MP, explained that his wife’s family had been instrumental in the fight for the creation of Israel: “I was a friend of Israel long before I became a Tory.”
And yet, “to be a friend of Israel is not to be an enemy of Palestine”.

Voicing anger at the land grabs, he concluded with sadness: “I have to say to the government of Israel that if they are losing people like me, they will be losing a lot of people.”