Fractured Union: Has Israel Given Up On The EU?

Fractured union: Israel has all but given up on the EU

December 11 was a cold and stormy day in Brussels.

In the morning, European Union foreign policy czar Federica Mogherini welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the European Council headquarters by rebuffing his vision of the entire continent recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

A little later, Netanyahu met with the EU’s 28 foreign ministers for a discussion he hoped could thaw the union’s tough stance on Israel’s policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians, but mainly showed him the Europeans were unmoved by his arguments.

The prime minister was then scheduled to meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker but cancelled the meeting on short notice. His office cited the inclement weather and the need for him to be present later that night at the Knesset for the first reading of a bill that would prevent convenience stores from opening on Shabbat.

In the early afternoon, Netanyahu’s motorcade was still making its way through the snowy streets of Brussels on the way to the airport — where the wings of his Boeing needed to be defrosted before takeoff — when Mogherini chose yet brasher words to reject the prime minister’s vision of European countries moving their embassies to Jerusalem.

“He can keep his expectations for others, because from the European Union member states’ side this move will not come,” she said at a press conference.

Netanyahu’s chilly day in Brussels further deepened an ongoing crisis between Israel and the EU. Bilateral relations have been tense for years, but the union’s pouring of cold water on the US’s recognition of Jerusalem, and Netanyahu’s perceived snub of Juncker, further entrenched a widening gulf between the two parties.

“Netanyahu feels it’s a lost cause,” a well-placed diplomatic source told The Times of Israel recently, adding that the premier now regrets that he even made the trip to Brussels.

“We’re in a very deep crisis. It’s a real, genuine crisis. And if things don’t change, we will hit a brick wall soon.”

Brussels’ adamant opposition to settlement expansion and Israel’s demolition of Palestinian structures, as well as European funding of leftists nonprofits, have angered right-wing Israelis for years.

But the bad blood between Jerusalem and Brussels has reached such depths that some Israeli officials now believe Netanyahu has given up almost entirely on the EU.

In July 2017, Netanyahu was overheard, during a visit to Budapest, calling the EU “crazy” for insisting on linking the advancement of bilateral ties to progress in the peace process.

Tensions were exacerbated after US President Donald Trump’s December 6, 2017, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, a move the union vehemently opposed.

Last winter in Brussels — the de facto EU capital dubbed by Netanyahu’s aides as the “lion’s den” — the prime minister hoped to be able to change the union’s alleged pro-Palestinian leanings. But despite both sides reporting that the meetings were cordial and without any antagonism, in private conversations Israeli officials admit that Netanyahu flew back home deeply disappointed.