A sovereign democracy is invaded, its citizens murdered, abducted, and raped. After many months of bloody fighting, its main ally, the United States, says it must have a ceasefire, even though its enemy is still threatening to vanquish it, and it will take away U.S. military support if it does not agree to a ceasefire deal.
How do European leaders respond? Do they embrace the leader of the invaded country? Do they offer to turn their economies upside down to compensate for loss of U.S. support? Do they offer ‘boots on the ground’ to help protect the invaded state? In the case of Ukraine, many have, but Israel is a quite different story.
If Ukraine ends up with only European support in its war with Russia, it would do well to remember how poor most European leaders are as allies.
The realpolitik European leaders like
After his election last November, President Trump made it clear that he wanted a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza before his inauguration. In January, he sent his new Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Israel to revive the ceasefire deal that President Biden had been trying to sell to Netanyahu since April 2024. Witkoff arrived on Saturday, January 11th, and insisted on meeting Netanyahu immediately, even though Netanyahu always observes Sabbath.
As the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported,
Steven Witkoff, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, called from Qatar to tell Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides that he would be coming to Israel the following afternoon. The aides politely explained that was in the middle of the Sabbath but that the prime minister would gladly meet him Saturday night. Witkoff’s blunt reaction took them by surprise. He explained to them in salty English that Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear. Thus, in an unusual departure from official practice, the prime minister showed up at his office for an official meeting with Witkoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal.
What exactly happened in that meeting has not been made public, although the Wall Street Journal was briefed that Witkoff said “The President has been a great friend of Israel, and now it’s time to be a friend back.” Since then, we have witnessed the public punishment of Zelensky by Trump and Vance over a ceasefire in Ukraine, so it is not difficult to imagine what happened in the Witkoff/Netanyahu meeting. Netanyahu relies heavily on U.S. military support. 60% of its imported military material comes from the U.S. (compared with 20% to Ukraine from the U.S.). Netanyahu took the pragmatic decision to accept the Biden/Trump ceasefire plan, which he had up until then rejected.
This ceasefire deal involves a phased release of hostages in return for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The ceasefire has enabled Hamas to claim victory. For Israel, it has meant accepting that, for the time being at least, Hamas remains intact both militarily and politically. It has also led to the public, humiliating, and degraded theatre of cruelty conducted by Hamas when releasing hostages. Hamas is using the current ceasefire to rebuild its defences in Gaza. Hamas can gamble that Israel will not break the ceasefire against the wishes of President Trump.
The response of European leaders was not only to uniformly welcome the ceasefire but also to take the opportunity to insist on the ‘two state’ solution to the Israel/Palestine issue. A ‘two state’ solution rewards the Palestinians, who broadly supported the brutal Hamas incursion into Israel, with the prize of a state of their own. In addition, many European leaders have said they will arrest Netanyahu because of the charges against him brought by the International Criminal Court.
We should remember that Starmer had already imposed his own arms embargo on Israel and Macron had called for all military aid to Israel to be stopped. Both Starmer and Macron face domestic anti-Israel alliances between radical Islamists and left-wing camp followers in their own countries.
And the realpolitik they do not like
European leaders welcomed the U.S. bouncing Israel into a ceasefire deal that its democratically elected prime minister did not want. Sadly, even Ukraine itself welcomed the imposition of a ceasefire on Israel. But now they are objecting to a similar deal being imposed on Ukraine. What does that tell us? Macron, Starmer, and others have talked a lot this week about not rewarding Russian aggression and about making Ukraine the arbiter of the outcome of any ceasefire process. What we can be sure of after the Israel experience is that their commitment to sovereignty is not based on principle, but on their own perceived interests. They accepted and welcomed the U.S. using its power to force a ceasefire on Israel but are now objecting when it looks as if the U.S. may do the same to Ukraine.
Ukraine is fighting an enemy which wants to overthrow its elected government and annex Ukraine to Russia, in violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy. Israel, the only Western-style democracy in the Middle East, faces an enemy in Hamas which, backed by Hezbollah, Iran, and others further afield, wants to wipe out all the Jews in Israel. Ukraine faces conquest, Israel faces genocide. But even though Islamist terrorists are murdering European citizens with depressing frequency on the streets of France, Germany and elsewhere, European leaders will not defend the one country, Israel, which is suffering most from Islamist terror.
There is nothing moral about European leaders’ response to what the U.S. is proposing for Ukraine. Their domestic politics determined that they had more to gain domestically by betraying Israel than they had by supporting them. Their response to Trump’s insistence on a Ukrainian ceasefire stems not from absolute commitment to national sovereignty, but from fear of losing U.S. military protection and the consequent need to rearm. European leaders have become acutely aware, as the American commentator Michael Kimmage puts it, that Europe is, “a loose confederation of states with no army and with little organised hard power of its own” and with “an acutely weak leadership.”
The emerging global realpolitik is a massive challenge for European countries, especially, but not only, to those which have ceded sovereignty to Brussels. The idea that the European Union can offer the leadership necessary to mobilise the European public for a war against an external enemy is a hollow joke. European leaders face having to persuade their own people to pay for rearmament and even to be prepared to themselves fight when support for the nation-state is at its lowest ebb for a century or more. We need a new generation of leaders in Europe who understand that defence of the nation-state begins with an end to the denigration of our national histories and a robust defence of free speech and other democratic values. A prerequisite for standing up to external threats, from wherever they come, begins with knowing what you are defending.
A Tale of Two Ceasefires
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) gestures as he takes part in joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital Kiev, on August 19, 2019.
Photo: SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP
A sovereign democracy is invaded, its citizens murdered, abducted, and raped. After many months of bloody fighting, its main ally, the United States, says it must have a ceasefire, even though its enemy is still threatening to vanquish it, and it will take away U.S. military support if it does not agree to a ceasefire deal.
How do European leaders respond? Do they embrace the leader of the invaded country? Do they offer to turn their economies upside down to compensate for loss of U.S. support? Do they offer ‘boots on the ground’ to help protect the invaded state? In the case of Ukraine, many have, but Israel is a quite different story.
If Ukraine ends up with only European support in its war with Russia, it would do well to remember how poor most European leaders are as allies.
The realpolitik European leaders like
After his election last November, President Trump made it clear that he wanted a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza before his inauguration. In January, he sent his new Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Israel to revive the ceasefire deal that President Biden had been trying to sell to Netanyahu since April 2024. Witkoff arrived on Saturday, January 11th, and insisted on meeting Netanyahu immediately, even though Netanyahu always observes Sabbath.
As the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported,
What exactly happened in that meeting has not been made public, although the Wall Street Journal was briefed that Witkoff said “The President has been a great friend of Israel, and now it’s time to be a friend back.” Since then, we have witnessed the public punishment of Zelensky by Trump and Vance over a ceasefire in Ukraine, so it is not difficult to imagine what happened in the Witkoff/Netanyahu meeting. Netanyahu relies heavily on U.S. military support. 60% of its imported military material comes from the U.S. (compared with 20% to Ukraine from the U.S.). Netanyahu took the pragmatic decision to accept the Biden/Trump ceasefire plan, which he had up until then rejected.
This ceasefire deal involves a phased release of hostages in return for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The ceasefire has enabled Hamas to claim victory. For Israel, it has meant accepting that, for the time being at least, Hamas remains intact both militarily and politically. It has also led to the public, humiliating, and degraded theatre of cruelty conducted by Hamas when releasing hostages. Hamas is using the current ceasefire to rebuild its defences in Gaza. Hamas can gamble that Israel will not break the ceasefire against the wishes of President Trump.
The response of European leaders was not only to uniformly welcome the ceasefire but also to take the opportunity to insist on the ‘two state’ solution to the Israel/Palestine issue. A ‘two state’ solution rewards the Palestinians, who broadly supported the brutal Hamas incursion into Israel, with the prize of a state of their own. In addition, many European leaders have said they will arrest Netanyahu because of the charges against him brought by the International Criminal Court.
We should remember that Starmer had already imposed his own arms embargo on Israel and Macron had called for all military aid to Israel to be stopped. Both Starmer and Macron face domestic anti-Israel alliances between radical Islamists and left-wing camp followers in their own countries.
And the realpolitik they do not like
European leaders welcomed the U.S. bouncing Israel into a ceasefire deal that its democratically elected prime minister did not want. Sadly, even Ukraine itself welcomed the imposition of a ceasefire on Israel. But now they are objecting to a similar deal being imposed on Ukraine. What does that tell us? Macron, Starmer, and others have talked a lot this week about not rewarding Russian aggression and about making Ukraine the arbiter of the outcome of any ceasefire process. What we can be sure of after the Israel experience is that their commitment to sovereignty is not based on principle, but on their own perceived interests. They accepted and welcomed the U.S. using its power to force a ceasefire on Israel but are now objecting when it looks as if the U.S. may do the same to Ukraine.
Ukraine is fighting an enemy which wants to overthrow its elected government and annex Ukraine to Russia, in violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and democracy. Israel, the only Western-style democracy in the Middle East, faces an enemy in Hamas which, backed by Hezbollah, Iran, and others further afield, wants to wipe out all the Jews in Israel. Ukraine faces conquest, Israel faces genocide. But even though Islamist terrorists are murdering European citizens with depressing frequency on the streets of France, Germany and elsewhere, European leaders will not defend the one country, Israel, which is suffering most from Islamist terror.
There is nothing moral about European leaders’ response to what the U.S. is proposing for Ukraine. Their domestic politics determined that they had more to gain domestically by betraying Israel than they had by supporting them. Their response to Trump’s insistence on a Ukrainian ceasefire stems not from absolute commitment to national sovereignty, but from fear of losing U.S. military protection and the consequent need to rearm. European leaders have become acutely aware, as the American commentator Michael Kimmage puts it, that Europe is, “a loose confederation of states with no army and with little organised hard power of its own” and with “an acutely weak leadership.”
The emerging global realpolitik is a massive challenge for European countries, especially, but not only, to those which have ceded sovereignty to Brussels. The idea that the European Union can offer the leadership necessary to mobilise the European public for a war against an external enemy is a hollow joke. European leaders face having to persuade their own people to pay for rearmament and even to be prepared to themselves fight when support for the nation-state is at its lowest ebb for a century or more. We need a new generation of leaders in Europe who understand that defence of the nation-state begins with an end to the denigration of our national histories and a robust defence of free speech and other democratic values. A prerequisite for standing up to external threats, from wherever they come, begins with knowing what you are defending.
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