By raising the flag on a Palestinian state, they’re not just on the wrong side of history; they’re setting themselves up for defeat

S

eventy-eight years have passed since the UN proposed ending the British Mandate and dividing Palestine into two states — one for Jews and one for Arabs. The Jewish state prospered; the Arab state never materialized.

Some people never give up.

The latest headline-grabbing move by French president Emmanuel Macron, which the UK and Canada joined, trying to create something from nothing by recognizing a Palestinian state at next month’s UN General Assembly, is also destined to fail. Their real goal is to punish Israel and pressure the Netanyahu government to declare a ceasefire in Gaza before September or face a showdown at the UN. They also have ulterior motives — to boost their fading relevance on the world stage, please their growing Muslim populations, and appease their far-left supporters.

Far beneath the surface, Europe’s efforts to back a project it has no power to enforce highlight the continent’s political rot and moral decline.

The weekend edition of Politico magazine summed it up with an opinion piece that shows just how far Europe has strayed, under the bold headline: “Europe’s Future Depends on Confrontation, Not Compromise.”

The authors were Garry Kasparov, once the world’s highest-ranked chess player and current chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative, and Gabrielius Landsbergis, a European Council on Foreign Relations member and formerly Lithuania’s foreign minister from 2020 to 2024. They understand that the Western world is at war with the enemies of democracy, facing existential threats from a global network of authoritarian regimes, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and a vast network of terrorist groups.

They didn’t mention Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Houthis by name, but they didn’t have to.

“Confrontation is a vital part of the ideology of these regimes… Their survival necessitates waging war on their enemies,” Kasparov and Landsbergis wrote. “The EU is not equipped to deal with outside actors who fundamentally threaten its existence, with whom it cannot find a negotiated solution and peacefully coexist.”

They argue the EU, built to minimize risk and seek consensus, is outdated during a war for survival. “What we are witnessing is a sunset of Europe, the decline of a union founded on principles of peace and diplomacy that can no longer effectively respond to the moment,” they wrote. “It [the EU] must transform from a peace-loving commune into an institution capable of responding to threats of real violence, able to stand firm against those who wish for its demise.”

Israel and the United States are coordinating their positions to block the French initiative at the UN General Assembly meeting on September 9. The US is one of five permanent UN Security Council members with veto power. Israel is relying on the US to use that veto if the proposal comes to a vote, and there is no way anyone named Donald Trump will let Europe overshadow the US, especially at the UN.

Israel’s Alternatives

A resentful Europe can still create issues for Israel. The EU and Israel conduct nearly $60 billion in trade annually. About 35% of Israel’s exports go to Europe, and 25% of its imports come from Europe. EU rules require a unanimous vote from all 27 member states to cancel a trade agreement. Israel has enough allies in Europe to block such a move.

The EU’s strongest leverage over Israel would be to suspend its participation in Horizon Europe, the EU’s leading research and innovation program. Such a move would require a majority of 15 EU states representing at least 65% of the bloc’s population. In the past three years, Israel has received over €1 billion in grants for projects of mutual benefit.

Joint projects include Sniffphone, a hand-held sensor used in combination with a smartphone app to detect gastric cancers through a person’s breath; Socrates, which develops robotics to assist in caring for older adults; and G2P-SOL, which helps increase productivity, adaptability, and nutritional values of potato, tomato, pepper, and eggplant crops.

Contrast that with the fact that when the Palestinians took control of Gaza 20 years ago this week, they destroyed the agricultural miracle built by Jewish farmers on desert sands that produced more than 60% of Israel’s “Gush Katif” bug-free vegetables. It’s hard to see why Europe would prefer a Palestinian state over cooperation with Israel, but leaders like Macron and Starmer must be looking at the big picture, even if it’s a desert mirage.

Israel could reduce its vulnerability to potential EU sanctions by expanding trade with non-Western economic powers that don’t take extreme stances in the Arab-Israeli conflict, such as India, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, and certain African nations.

Reality Check for Doomsters

Israel should also explore more options for lessening its reliance on imports from countries that could become hostile.

When Turkey boycotted Israel during the Gaza war, Israel doubled its copper imports from Uzbekistan to replace Turkish supplies. The government should also increase funding for the Israel Innovation Authority and establish a sovereign tech-research fund to replace lost EU funding or collaborations.

The government must also prepare the public and boost national morale and resilience before economic disruption. If the EU were to cut off Israel’s access to Horizon Europe, the media would instantly be ablaze with alarming stories, quoting members of the economic elite about how Netanyahu’s policies are isolating Israel and pushing it to the edge of a financial abyss.

Dr. Adam Reuter’s article on the Hebrew-language Bizportal site, published at the start of the new week, offers the best rebuttal to that line of thinking. Dr. Reuter, chairman and founder of Financial Immunities, Israel’s leading financial risk-management firm, reminded readers of the now “dead letter” that 270 academics, economists, and business leaders issued in January 2023, warning that the Netanyahu government’s pursuit of judicial reforms would scare off investors, drying up funding and investment sources, and lead to a flight of Israeli high-tech industries and a national economic disaster.

As Dr. Reuter stated, 30 months later, the benchmark Tel Aviv 125 Index has increased by 70%, making it one of the world’s top-performing stock markets. Just last week, Israel’s high-tech industry experienced its second-largest “exit” when the California-based cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks acquired Israeli identity-security company CyberArk for $25 billion.

Israel’s successes and the failures of its enemies to build anything more than failed terror states highlight the foolishness of Macron’s proposal for a Palestinian state.

Whether Macron, UK prime minister Keir Starmer, and Canadian prime minister Mark Carney realize it or not, Israel is a reliable ally and trading partner, and also their first line of defense against their enemies.

By raising the flag on a Palestinian state, they’re not just on the wrong side of history; they’re setting themselves up for defeat.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1073)