The ambiguity of the EU

Editorial

The European Union has taken two actions in recent days that have pleased and displeased both sides in the Mideast conflict.

Last week, the EU adopted “guidelines” that would prevent any EU funding for agencies operating in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Nongovernmental organizations involved in joint projects would be defunded if any activities were taking place outside Israel’s pre-1967 borders. The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Catherine Ashton, denied that the action prejudges negotiated settlement of the issue, but Israeli officials are predictably unhappy with the meddling. With such an action, Europe has sent the message to Palestinians that they do not need to compromise just as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tries to jump-start negotiations.

On the flip side, Israel, along with Canada and other Western states, are praising the decision – belated but better than never – of the EU to list Hezbollah as a terrorist entity. The declaration effectively makes the organization an illegal entity in the 28 member-states of the EU. Fully 11 years after Canada declared Hezbollah a terrorist entity, Europe has now caught up. Motives are not entirely clear, but the fact that Hezbollah brought its murderous ways right into the EU last year – killing five Israelis, a Bulgarian bus driver and one of the bombers at a Bulgarian airport last year – seems to have focused the minds of Eurocrats who have otherwise been remarkably nonchalant about terrorism that targets Israelis.

In what could be the EU casting a lame line of diplomacy to its Muslim community – or just an embarrassing attempt at being prudent – the EU declared Hezbollah’s “military wing” as a terrorist entity, while tacitly recognizing the alleged “political wing” of Hezbollah.

While Canada’s Foreign Minister John Baird praised the EU’s action, Israel’s prime minister said it didn’t go far enough.

“As far as the state of Israel is concerned, Hezbollah is one organization, the arms of which are indistinguishable,” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement, adding that Hezbollah “has imposed terrorist rule on wide sections of Lebanon, has converted them into an Iranian protectorate and is stockpiling tens of thousands of rockets there. These have been placed in the heart of civilian populations and are designed to be fired at population centres in Israel.”

While the EU’s action against Hezbollah’s explicitly violent streak is welcomed, the corollary is a presumably unintended legitimization of Hezbollah’s agenda. The EU has, on one hand, condemned Hezbollah as a terror entity while, with the other, legitimized Hezbollah as a civilian force – as if an organization whose raison d’être is armed insurgency can be neatly compartmentalized into two distinct segments. Both “wings” are headed by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and inextricably tied to the Iranian revolutionary regime.

In essence, there can be no such thing as a “civilian” or “political” arm of an organization that uses violence against civilians to advance its ends. As long as Hezbollah has a “military wing,” it is an organization outside the bounds of civil, political affairs.

The European Union has played a contradictory role in Mideast affairs, to put it mildly, sometimes helping and sometimes hindering efforts for a lasting resolution of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The moral and intellectual dissonance the EU has exhibited by speciously segregating “bad Hezbollah” from “good Hezbollah” is a perfect encapsulation of Europe’s ambiguity.

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