The European Union and the Israeli-

Palestinian Conflict: Toothless Tiger over

Peacemaker?

Supervisors: F. Arab
J. Hoogenboezem, Group 12 ID *******
Pigeonhole ***
Date: 31/07/2009
Graduation Dossier I
Version: final draft
 F. Arab – Bachelor Thesis I 2009

Contents

1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................................. 3

2. Brief Historical Overview of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict ................................................. 3

2.1. The EU’s (divided) stances on the Conflict .............................................................. 5

2.2. The Essence of Decision and the EU: Explaining the Lack of a Common Stance .. 7

3. Is the EU Turning a Blind Eye to Israel? ......................................................................................... 9

4. Shortcomings of the EU Peacemaking Efforts and how to Overcome them ................. 13

5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................................. 15

Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................... 17

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1. Introduction

The pre-eminent obstacle to peace is Israel‟s colonization of Palestine.

– Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, 10th of March 2006

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for more than sixty-one years, ever since
the State of Israel was proclaimed in 1948. For the past sixty-one years the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict has been giving rise to regional instability and wars. For many decades the European
Union (EU) has been committed to ending this conflict. A unique mixture of geographical
proximity, historical responsibility as well as the EU‟s ambitions to be a global player has
been driving the EU as a peacemaker in the region.
This paper mainly discusses the relationship between the EU and the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. Specifically, this paper revolves around the question of whether the EU is
only a toothless tiger or really an effective peacemaker in the region. The discussion is started
by addressing the history of the relationship between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the
EU. Explaining the history of the conflict serves as a basis and framework for the remaining
subtopics: the effectiveness of EU peacemaking strategies, assessment of the EU‟s conflict
mitigation methods and the internal disagreement within the EU about the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. While conducting the above outlined research, mainstream as well as fringe experts
(representing opposing views) shall be taken into consideration. This is hoped to facilitate the
construction of a balanced academic paper, respecting all involved parties while allowing for
insights into the point of views of the Israelis as well Palestinians. Theories established by
Edward Said, Samuel Huntington and Graham Allison (Essence of Decision) are utilized,
elevating this paper from the descriptive, while providing new insights into the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict as aspects of it are viewed and interpreted from different perspectives.

2. Brief Historical Overview of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In order to put this research into a clear context it is important to provide the historical
framework, presenting a quick overview of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It
should be noted that the following is a very short summary of the complex history of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Furthermore, there are many differing historical accounts of the
very complicated history of this conflict, while each side usually believes in a different

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version of the same history. Thus much care has been put into the following synopsis in order
to guarantee a reasonably objective account.
The 19th century was marked by a Palestine inhabited by a diverse population of different
ethnicities and religions – living peacefully side by side. At that time an estimated eighty-six
percent of the population was Muslim, while ten percent were of Christian faith and four
percent belonged to the Jewish faith (Weir, 2003). Looking further back in history, it should
be mentioned that Judea was called home by the Jews in ancient times before it was
conquered by the Romans who then gave it the name Palestine. After this the Arabs took over
and lived in Palestine for more than a thousand years in relative peace before the Zionist
movement appeared in the late 1800s. Located in Europe, this extremist minority of the
Jewish population had the main aim to create a homeland for the Jews, or to restore the Jews
to Israel. After they had considered locations in the Americas as well as Africa they finally
agreed upon Palestine (Bright, 1974, p. 44).
As the immigration of Jews into Palestine began, the existing Arab population was largely
disregarded. In the first stages of immigration there seemed to be no problem and the
indigenous Palestinian population accepted the Jewish immigrants. However, as the number
of Zionists immigrating to Palestine dramatically increased, the local population became
increasingly worried. This may be attributed to the fact that many of the immigrating Zionists
openly identified with the aim to take over Palestine and replace it with a purely Jewish State.
After a certain time the breaking point was reached and fighting broke out between
immigrating Zionists and the indigenous population, while escalating waves of violence were
increasing in Palestinian cities across the country (Isseroff, 2007).
As a result of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Palestine was granted to Great Britain under
the framework of a League of Nations mandate. Britain pledged support for the idea of the
establishment of a national home for the Jewish people. Naturally, this plan faced strong
resentment from the indigenous Palestinian population and most of the Arab world. As the
conflict escalated, Britain stopped Jewish immigration to Palestine. However, after the
Holocaust Britain was forced to give in to the increasing demand to abolish the previous
regulation and allow Jewish immigration to Palestine (Weir, 2003).
In 1947 the United Nations (UN) saw it as necessary to intervene and concluded that fifty-
five percent of Palestine should be given up in order to erect a Jewish State. This UN decision
is said to have emerged under heavy Zionist pressure and despite the fact that at that time the
Jews represented less than thirty percent of the overall population, owning only about seven

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percent of the Palestinian land (Weir, 2003). Thus the partition of the Palestinian land
conducted by the UN was regarded to be incompatible with previously established
international rules and regulations, as it did not adhere to the principle of “self-determination
of peoples”. This principle allows people to create the state and system of government
independent from other powers. Thus in this case dividing up the Palestinian people‟s land
was clearly against this principle. One thing led to the other and wars broke out in the years of
1947, 1956, 1967, 1973 and 1982. As mentioned at the beginning of this section, there are
many differing and even opposing views on the historical background of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, while it is extremely difficult to define a certain point which can be called
“the beginning of the conflict” or even identify “who started it”. As this paper is not intended
to deal with the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this topic shall not be investigated in
further depth.

2.1. The EU’s (divided) stances on the Conflict

You know what the funniest thing about Europe is? It‟s the little differences.
– Quentin Tarantino, 25th of April 2003

As an entity, the EU has been long committed to finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. As mentioned before, this is due to the unique position the EU occupies, not only
historically but also morally. Additionally, the conflict‟s destabilizing effect on the region as a
whole – considering geographic proximity to the EU – acts as another driving force for the
EU to help solve the conflict. This relates closely to the “Essence of Decision” by Graham T.
Allison, who came up with the “three lenses approach”, while each lens serves as a way for
analysts to examine events, predict and explain actions of different actors (Allison & Zelikow,
1999). The first lens is the Rational Actor Model, while the second is the Organizational
Process Model and the last is the Governmental Politics Model. In this context only the first
and last model is relevant in order to better understand the actions of the EU and the
difficulties it has been encountering while trying to speak with a united voice (O‟Donnell,
2008, p. 2). The models shall be explained below, while providing examples relating to the
EU after elaborating more on the EU‟s divided stances on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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As it is generally known, the EU is primarily based on inter-governmental cooperation and

therefore strongly depends on all of the (currently) twenty-seven member states within the
EU. Hence, any action the EU is willing to take requires consensus amongst the twenty-seven
member states, which makes it extremely hard for the EU to reach an agreement or a common
stance with regards to certain issues, especially controversial ones such as the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict. One of the main reasons for the internal disagreement within the EU is
the fact that every single country, with its own individual history and attributions to Israel and
Palestine, has a different stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Joffé, 2008, p. 4).
For example looking at the historical pattern of Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark,
France and Britain with regards to Israel, it becomes evident that those countries have been
mostly tending towards the backing of Israel. Each country has its own reasons for doing so,
for example Germany‟s stance is hardly surprising, considering its historical past involving
Hitler, killing several million Jews. As put by the German chancellor Angela Merkel during a
conversation with the Knesset: the country‟s past still “fills Germans with shame” (Joffé,
2008, p. 5). Thus the German‟s relationship with Israel is marked by feelings of collective
guilt associated with an underlying desire for absolution. Another example showing in how
far a country‟s actions are influenced by its past is provided by Britain, as her stance can be
explained considering the role she played during the mandate. Last but not least the French
also share a distinctive connection to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as they were the
responsible imperial power which ordered the division of the Middle East following WWI.
Examples of countries on the other spectrum, more lenient towards Palestinian demands
include Italy, Ireland and Greece. Examples of such Palestinian demands include the creation
of a homeland and eventually a state, or the association of the PLO (Gianniou, 2006, p. 16).
Thus the EU is far away from being a “normal” power when compared to the USA and
other countries. The EU‟s unique inter-governmental structure makes it hard for the EU to
“present a coherent image and to speak with one voice” (Gianniou, 2006, p. 15), hindering the
ability to promote a common position more assertively; causing the motto of the EU “united
in diversity” to seem almost ironic. However, despite all the disagreement between EU
member states and a missing “common approach” towards the conflict, there does seem to be
some sort of general near-consensus about the causes of the conflict. This consensus, found
amongst different EU member states and their populations, in fact tends to see the main cause
of the conflict in the forty years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, while the ending of
this occupation could have brought peace to the entire Middle Eastern region a long time ago.

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The military threats emerging from Arabs, Iranians or Palestinians towards Israel on the other
hand are recognized, however are not identified to be the deeper cause of the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict (Pijpers, 2007, p. 2)

2.2. The Essence of Decision and the EU: Explaining the Lack of
a Common Stance

In order to fit the above into a body of theory, an analysis is conducted below. This analysis is
intended to allow for predictions of actions of governments and to see where the issue of the
EU‟s divided stance is going. Theorizing this analysis elevates it above the descriptive level
and provides new insights into the EU‟s relation with the conflict.
Relating this back to the “Essence of Decision” by Graham T. Allison, parallels can be
drawn between the case illustrated above and the theories outlined by the author. In his work
“Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis” he used this particular crisis to
illustrate his point and to provide a solid case study suited for potential studies into the topic
of governmental decision-making. Allison‟s work was one of the most significant works in
the area of international relations and is said to have revolutionized this field of study. As
mentioned above, two of the three models are relevant in this context: the Rational Actor
Model and the Governmental Politics Model. The Rational Actor Model identifies
governments as primary actors (Allison & Zelikow, 1999). This also holds true while relating
it to the EU, as in the EU the separate sovereign states are the primary actors. This explains a
part of the reason why the EU is finding it hard to agree upon a common stance with regards
to the Israeli-Palestinian government. Each government, being a primary actor, has own
reasons to act in a certain way, as opposed to another government – reasons and examples
were illustrated above.
Another assumption of the Rational Actor Model is that governments asses a certain
combination of goals in the light of the utility they bring about. Finally each government,
based on the results of their assessment, chooses the combination of goals yielding the highest
“payoff” (Allison & Zelikow, 1999). Relating this back to the situation in the EU one can
apply this claim to the relationship between each individual country and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. Each country, compromising the EU, has a different set of goals which would
provide maximum utility in their situation. This can be explained considering their differing
historical relations to Israel and Palestine. As illustrated earlier, Germany for example has a

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relationship of “collective guilt” towards Israel, being more lenient towards Israeli demands.
As a result the combination of goals yielding the highest “payoff” for Germany would be
fulfilling Israeli demands. Such demands include large amounts of financial compensatory
payoffs and political benefits to Israel justified using the Holocaust. This particular topic has
been addressed by Norman G. Finkelstein in his book “The Holocaust Industry”. Thus, while
Germany‟s set of goals differs entirely from Italy‟s set of goals – considering they are both
member states of the EU – one quickly realizes how difficult it must be for the countries to
settle upon a common stance towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the same time, as
long as this theory holds true, the EU will continue to have the same issues with regards to
speaking with one voice until the EU takes the integration one step further and creates a
political union.

Additionally, as mentioned above, the Government Politics Model appears to be relevant in

this context. After Allison had studied works by Huntington and Neustadt he suggested a third
model. It differentiates itself from the other model by actively taking into account court
politics – showing how statesmen get certain tasks done by playing politics, although this is
never admitted. This claim, according to Allison, is even more valid when situations of high
importance are at stake, in this case the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Allison & Zelikow, 1999).
The first claim of the Government Politics Model advances the idea that a nation‟s
actions depend on the negotiations and politics of the top government leaders. Despite sharing
a common objective, different leaders have different techniques and approaches for achieving
the same thing. This is may be associated to the fact that each leader has a differing set of
personal interests and additionally a differing historical, social background (Allison &
Zelikow, 1999). Establishing a link between this first claim of the theory and the EU reveals
another explanation as to why the leaders cannot seem to agree upon one approach to solve
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Each leader has a different approach, and since the EU is an
inter-governmental entity it has to respect the sovereignty of each member state and may not
dominate with regards to the approach or technique – resulting in inevitable disarray (Forman
& Baldwin, 2007).
The final claim made by Allison and Zelikow under the Government Politics Model
states that leaders failing to reach agreement within the core circle risk that opponents may
use this disagreement amongst leaders to their advantage. It should be mentioned that “the
appearance of a consensus” is often enough to prevent the abuse of disarray amongst leaders.

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Hence, the conclusion of the last claim is that it is vital for leaders in power to establish a
consensus or else negative consequences arising from the lack of consensus are inevitable.
In order to relate this claim to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it requires some sort of
conversion. Hence, instead of an “opponent” benefiting from the disagreement amongst
leaders it is simply Israel or Palestine “getting their way”. The leaders on the other hand are
the people in power representing their member states within the EU. Thus in order to use this
theory in this context it requires some minor modification, which leaves the logic behind the
theory untouched and intact.
Hence, the last claim explained above can be illustrated and utilized in the context of
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As it is generally known, the EU supports and treats Israel in a
preferential way in many sectors, including the economy, tourism, education and more. By
doing so the EU is essentially going against its own articles of association stating that the EU
shall in no way support a state in breach of international law or human rights (which is clearly
the case in Israel). However, this topic shall be further elaborated on in another section. In this
context it is relevant to establish that the lack of a common EU stance has resulted in Israel
getting away with a number of breaches since some countries are more lenient towards Israeli
demands while others are not. The general disarray has left the EU divided amongst two main
camps – unable to come forward with a clear line of operation which would be the only way
of being firm and consequent vis-à-vis Israel‟s breaches of laws and regulations.

3. Is the EU Turning a Blind Eye to Israel?

In the first part of this section the milestones in EU-Israel relations are addressed briefly in
order to establish an overview and framework for the discussion later which includes the
examination of the legal status of Israel vis-à-vis the EU. Israel has been a partner to the EU
for many decades. Dozens of contracts between Israel and the EU were signed beginning in
1975 where Israel signed an economic cooperation agreement with the European Community.
In 1981 the Delegation of the European Commission to the State of Israel opened. A very
significant milestone was achieved in 1995 as Israel signed the Barcelona Declaration,
officially establishing the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. The Barcelona Declaration is of
immense importance as it serves as the framework for social, political and economic
cooperation between a number of states in the Mediterranean area and the EU. This agreement
and associated breaches shall be discussed in more detail below. In the same year of 1995
Israel signed a so called Association Agreement as a component of the Euro-Mediterranean

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Partnership – granting the State of Israel privileged access to the market of the EU in the year
of 2000. One year later, in 1996, Israel became the very first state, not being part of the EU, to
be granted the right to participate in the EU‟s scientific and technical research programme.
Eight years later, in 2004, Israel signed another agreement permitting it to take part in the
development of Galileo, a new Global Satellite Navigation System intended to compete with
the currently intact, less accurate, American navigation system (I.P.S.C., 2008). In the same
year of 2004 Israel acquired the status of an EU Partner in the ENP (European Neighborhood
Policy). Under the framework of the ENP Israel agreed to an Action Plan containing elements
relating to social, economic as well as political components – causing even more breaches to
surface (European Commission, 2008). Finally, despite the numerous agreement breaches, in
2008 another call was realized to “upgrade” EU-Israeli relations.

In practice the agreements above mean that Israel enjoys a large amount of privileges in the
fields of travel, trade, research and development, sports, academia and culture. It has been
established that this is truly unique to a non-European country. As a matter of fact, Israel is
known to be enjoying privileges which even European non-EU countries are deprived off,
examples are plenty and include the Ukraine and Armenia. Thus on a practical basis this
means that Israel is treated in an extremely preferential manner when it comes to trade, where
it enjoys free trade with the EU in industrial goods. Also farm produce belongs to this line of
treatment. Additionally, any Israeli citizen can travel freely to the EU without having to issue
a tourist visa (Morrison, 2008). Linking this back to the first part of this chapter shows how
signing agreements with the EU is benefitting Israel while breaches of such agreements by
Israel are not punished but rather rewarded by the EU willingness to “upgrade” relationships
every few years.
For example the Israel-EU Association Agreement was signed with the aim to achieve
better integration of the Israeli economy with the EU economy. Politically those agreements
allow for Israel to thrive while providing it with a green card to continue to violate European
and international law without conditionality or being held accountable. Thus one may arrive
at the conclusion that the EU as a whole has positioned itself as a body which is pro-Israel
despite numerous violations of own Articles of Association, including the one which states
that the EU does not support a state which is violating international law and human rights. In
the next part of this paper breaches and violations of agreements mentioned above shall be
examined more closely, while elaborating on the double standards of the EU.

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The double standards which the EU has been maintaining for many decades can be illustrated
using the examples of Russia and Iran. For example, on the 1st of September 2008 meetings
with Russia regarding a new partnership agreement were cancelled by the EU and would not
be continued “until [Russian] troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to 7 August”
(I.P.S.C., 2008, p. 4). This would translate to the equivalent of Russia withdrawing military
troops from Georgia, or the minimum of military personnel located outside Abkhazia and
Ossetia.
Investigating a similar situation involving Israel shows a differing result as to how the
EU reacted to an almost identical situation like the one in Russia in 2008. As mentioned
above while listing the milestones in EU-Israeli relations, the 28th of September 1995 marked
the day in which the State of Israel was admitted as a partner to the EU under the framework
of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. This agreement for extended partnership was reached
in 1995 even though up until that date Israeli troops had been, since 1967, occupying parts of
the Palestinian Territories (Gaza and the West Bank) and Syria. Furthermore, at that time
Israel had been occupying parts of Lebanon since the year of 1978 (I.P.S.C., 2008, p. 5).
Hence, from this example it becomes already clear that the EU has been applying
extremely differing standards vis-à-vis Israel and Russia. This short case study reveals that if
the same conditions which were applied in the case of Russia would have been applied to the
Israeli case then Israel today would probably not be a partner under the Euro-Mediterranean
framework. The reason for that is that the EU would not have agreed to partnership
negotiations until the Israeli military had withdrawn from the above mentioned occupied
territories which include the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Syria (Bright, 1974, p. 85).

What might be more astonishing then such rather obvious double standards is the fact that,
despite significant breaches of agreements from the Israeli side, the EU remains happy to
further deepen the relationship by signing even more agreements – agreements which are
often already contravened by the time of signing. This is due to the fact that the initial
conditions laid out in the agreement, which Israel is obliged to meet in order to qualify for the
agreement, are never met (The Guardian, 2009). One example, brought in to support this
claim, may be derived from the case of the Barcelona Declaration. As previously mentioned,
the Barcelona Declaration provided the framework necessary in order to establish the Euro-
Mediterranean Partnership. The Barcelona Declaration requires the states which signed it to

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“respect the territorial integrity and unity of each of the other partners”. Additionally a
number of norms of intentional law are obliged to be respected by the signatories.
In 1995 Israel, Syria and Lebanon agreed to the Barcelona Declaration and signed it
accordingly, becoming EU partners in November of the same year. However, at the time of
signing Israel clearly did not meet the conditions required by the declaration: to “respect the
territorial integrity and unity of each of the other partners” (in this case Lebanon and Syria)
therefore breaching the Barcelona Declaration. At the moment of signing the declaration
Israeli military forces were occupying parts of Syria and Lebanon; this includes the
annexation of the Golan Heights. In other words, the Barcelona Declaration is yet another
agreement which was breached by Israel at the moment of signature. By allowing negotiations
with Israel and admitting it as a partner despite not meeting the basic conditions, the EU
turned a blind eye to Israel‟s breach of the agreement during a very early stage. The situation
did not change significantly up until today, as Israel maintains the occupation of parts of
Lebanon and Syria, while the EU continues to turn a blind eye. Additionally frequent
invasions of Lebanese airspace by Israeli military aircraft has been reported, while the same is
reported for Syria occasionally – the last major airspace breach having taken place in Syria in
late 2007 where Israeli military forces hit and destroyed infrastructure allegedly serving
terrorists (Aljazeera Magazine, 2007).
As mentioned previously, the EU has been continuously turning a blind eye to Israeli
breaches while continuing to “upgrade” relationships with Israel, the 16th of June 2008
marking the most recent significant “upgrade” (The Guardian, 2009). It should be mentioned
that under the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership the State of Israel is also obliged to “act in
accordance with the UN Charter”. As it is widely known today, Israel has largely failed to act
in compliance with UN rules and is in fact the country with the largest amount of UN charter
breaches worldwide (I.P.S.C., 2008, p. 5).

Furthermore, human rights and democratic principles have been and continue to be violated
according to numerous independent reports. The importance of the respect for democratic
principles and human rights is also highlighted in Article 2 and regarded as an absolutely
essential element of the Euro-Med Agreement, of which Israel is a signatory as mentioned
earlier. One example of Israel failing to fulfill Article 2 of that agreement is the method of, as
the EU called it, collective punishment of the Palestinian people in the form of economic
strangulation. This method utilized by Israel is clearly against international humanitarian law.

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However, the EU has turned a blind eye yet again, refusing to end the Agreement until Israel
is found to abide by the rules again.
Another example, not directly related to the Euro-Med Agreement, is the case of the
European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). Israel has been part of this agreement for over
fourteen years and has been, ever since it signed the agreement in 1995, contravening the
rules and norms stated in the agreement. For example, the ENP requires the signatory states to
actively protect the rights of minorities. In the case of Israel, the agreement also obliges it to
take steps in order to settle the conflict in the Middle East, while specifically protecting the
Arab minority present in Israel. In April 2008 the European Commission published a report
on Israeli progress which came to the following conclusions: “Issues raised in the framework
of the political dialogue included inter alia: the peace process, the situation in the Middle East,
the situation of the Arab minority in Israel, restrictions of movement in West Bank and
Gaza Strip, the construction of the separation barrier, administrative detentions, the
dismantling of outposts, the envisaged expansion of certain Israeli settlements in East
Jerusalem, more checkpoints. Little concrete progress has however been achieved on the
issues as such.” (PANA, 2008).
Thus as mentioned before, while Israel‟s legal status is highly problematic in
numerous aspects, the EU remains a partner always willing to sign more agreements, as
shown by the example of the decision taken by the EU on the 16th of June 2008 to continue
advancing and strengthening EU-Israeli relations in all aspects.

4. Shortcomings of the EU Peacemaking Efforts and how to

Overcome them

Throughout the previous discussion it became apparent that the EU still only holds a
supporting role. However, the potential for the EU to make a significantly larger contribution
towards the internal peace effort should also be noted. For decades the EU, as a collective
entity, has been committed to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, being the leading donor
to Palestine. Throughout those decades numerous approaches to establishing lasting peace
were utilized – none of which proved especially effective. Shortcomings, hampering the
effectiveness of the EU as a peacemaker include the internal dividedness of the EU with
regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the effective exclusion of Hamas from the peace
process, double standards, as well as the EU‟s blind eye towards Israeli breaches of

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agreements. The following section of this paper is devoted to reflecting on the shortcomings
of the EU peacemaking efforts, while offering alternative solutions towards the end of the
section (O‟Donnell, 2008, p. 2).
Including or excluding Hamas from the peace process? This question has given many
policy makers involved in the peace process a headache, usually more than once. It is a
question of tremendous importance, often pondered upon by the EU. An increasing amount of
independent studies is suggesting that including Hamas will act as a major accelerator in the
peace process. Up until this date Hamas is isolated by the EU, US and Israel – with harsh
sanctions applied on the group. The ultimate goal is to bring about the collapse of Hamas.
However, as it stands today, Hamas remains in control of Gaza and seems to grow stronger
with every attempt to crush it. Clearly the involvement of Hamas, being the main
military/political force on the Palestinian side, is needed in order to eventually establish long
lasting peace (Haaretz, 2009). It holds true that the aggressive rhetoric and violent tactics
currently employed by Hamas are unacceptable. However, involving Hamas may provide the
group with a favorable environment possibly triggering a transformation to an increasingly
responsible player. In this context as trend may be observed: oftentimes diplomats and
ministers refer to supporting democracy synonymously with supporting the president‟s office.
The US for example openly and solely supports Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority‟s
president – with the long-term objective of eliminating Hamas. As for the EU a similar
agenda is observed, whereby EU governments are increasingly in support of the president‟s
office. Such an approach may be viewed upon as one-sided and therefore insufficient in
establishing long lasting peace (Youngs, 2007).
Evidently, showing Palestinians that the “West” cares to improve their standard of
living will contribute towards the peace process. Prior to 2006 the economic state of the
Palestinian territories was already catastrophic, as the EU and other actors decided to cut off
aid to the Hamas led government. Coupled with increased Israeli sanctions, Gaza is left at the
brink of a humanitarian crisis. Naturally, unemployment and associated poverty are “fuelling
alienation and radicalization” (O‟Donnell, 2008, p. 3) hampering the overall peace process. It
is important for the EU not only to uphold aid efforts, but also to engage in efforts with Israel
in order to restore the freedom of movement within the Palestinian territories. Needless to say
that without such efforts EU development assistance will have little or no effect at all (CEPS,
2007, p. 1).

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Finally, having analyzed countless texts published by European policymakers, a

certain trend can be identified: the slowly increasing acceptance of a so called “Long War”
based on Samuel Huntington‟s theory “The Clash of Civilizations”. Rather than further
working towards a practical and efficient solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
policymakers seem to “surrender” to Samuel Huntington‟s theory which states that inevitable
and systematic violence will emerge as a result of cultural differences. As brought up by
Edward Said, the theory of the identification of the “Other”, thus Occident vs. Orient, is also
relevant in this context: as the distinctions between the “Other” and the “Self” solidify the
possibility for independent and innovative policymaking regarding the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict is greatly reduced (Joffé, 2008, p. 7). Such newly emerging developments are to be
monitored and taken into consideration when developing new policy.

5. Conclusion

Throughout the research conducted for the purpose of formulating this paper, it has become
apparent that the EU clearly has the opportunity to become more active in the peace process.
The EU Ambassador Patrick Laurent came to the same conclusion while discussion the
shortcomings of the EU‟s policies in the Middle East on September 12th 2008 (Mahdawi,
2008). Members of the EU ought not only to voice their apprehension regarding the ongoing
conflict but also demonstrate serious dedication to be major players, supporting the vision of a
peaceful Middle East. Indeed, the EU has the opportunity to play a more significant role in the
peace process, especially in current times “given the poor credibility and all-time low
success rate of the United States in the region” (CEPS, 2007, p. 2).
However, in order for the EU as an entity to work efficiently and be recognized as a
major player it is vital that the different EU member states settle their differences and work
together more closely on achieving the common goal of peace in the Middle East. Other
shortcomings, hampering the effectiveness of the EU as a peacemaker include the effective
exclusion of Hamas from the peace process, double standards, as well as the EU‟s blind eye
towards Israeli breaches of agreements. With reference to the title of this paper it may be
concluded that until such issues have been resolved, and unless the EU seizes the opportunity
to play a greater role in the peace process, it might just remain a toothless tiger over a
peacemaker. It is time for the EU to reorient its policies from “crisis management to crisis
solution” as Dr. Muriel Asseburg, a CMEC scholar, put it (Mahdawi, 2008).

15
 F. Arab – Bachelor Thesis I 2009

With regards to shortcomings of this paper it should be mentioned that the EU‟s
double standards could have been better demonstrated by introducing an additional section
specifically analyzing the EU‟s relationship with Israel vis-à-vis Russia and Iran. However,
due to time constraints and general limits of this paper it was not possible to elaborate on this
topic. For similar reasons it was not possible to further elaborate on the influence of the
United States upon the EU, demonstrating how the EU is heavily influenced by US decisions
in numerous ways. Those and other topics which were only touched upon in this paper should
be viewed as suggestions for further research. Finally, it should be acknowledged that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a historically and politically highly complex topic. Hence due to
the nature of this particular conflict the objectivity of sources used in this paper may not be
always guaranteed. However, utmost attention was paid while selecting sources in order to try
and grantee a balanced discussion – respecting both, the Israeli and Palestinian point of view.

16
 F. Arab – Bachelor Thesis I 2009

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