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What Would the End of the EU Mean for Israel?

Feb. 23 2016

The European Union, beset by severe fiscal problems and the mass influx of migrants, and faced with rising anti-EU sentiment in the UK, Poland, and elsewhere, no longer seems to have a certain future. Israeli policymakers, writes Manfred Gerstenfeld, must consider the possible effects of its demise or transformation:

A total break-up of the EU has both advantages and disadvantages for Israel. Rather than dealing with the EU, nominally representing 500 million citizens, Israel would then have to deal with many smaller countries. This may be beneficial when such countries attempt to meddle in Israel’s internal policies, [since they would no longer have] the power of a supranational body behind them.

However, if the EU does disintegrate completely, countries such as Sweden—which is ruled by an anti-Israel government dominated by social democrats—may embark on more extreme policies toward Israel when not bound within the EU to seek compromise. Although the absence of an EU may make it easier to face off against the Swedes, very undesirable precedents may be created.

In the light of all this a shrinking of the EU’s power and competencies without an actual breakup would probably be best for Israel.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Europe and Israel, European Union, Israel & Zionism, Israel diplomacy, Sweden

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic