Monday, in the Jordan Valley, potentially threatened with imminent annexation, Fatah held its most important rally against Israeli territorial desires. Under the blazing sun of Jericho, the ruling party in the Palestinian Territories has managed to assemble an impressive bunch of diplomats, supposed to embody the unanimous opposition of the international community to the designs of Benjamin Netanyahu. With the exception, of course, of the United States, persona non grata. UN envoy to the region Nickolay Mladenov made a lyrical speech (“You are not a tenant of this land, you have not thrown away the keys, you are at home here!”) and the Russian, Chinese, Jordanian and Japanese ambassadors succeeded each other in the gallery, going there for some of a few words of Arabic.
While playing “where is Charlie” in the rows of diplomats, the French journalists could only note the absence of their representative. No trace of the French consul in Jerusalem, who was content to attend a preliminary briefing before disappearing. Making him the only one absent from the raid among the members of the Security Council … with the Americans, whose ties with the Palestinians are broken. Annoyed by the astonishment of several correspondents, the consulate stressed that there was no political reading to be drawn from this empty chair. Same story, officially, on the side of Ramallah. “The consul said he had another meeting, we started our meeting late,” says a Palestinian negotiator. Let us not draw any conclusions, especially since the French position is clear to us. ”
“Consequences”
However, do not push the official too hard to get a “more” : “The problem is not the position of France, predictable, but that in the current emergency, it does not take leadership. On annexation, we hear Luxembourg more than Paris, it still means something! ”
Before the UN Security Council as in the Senate, France repeated the same elements of language this week. Wednesday, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian presented his strategy at length “Preventive and dissuasive” at the Palais du Luxembourg. In unambiguous terms, the head of French diplomacy described the annexation of sections of the West Bank, whatever its perimeter, as a “Historic turning point”, a “Serious violation of international law”, who cannot remain without “consequences”.
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Even if Le Drian denies doing anything but “Declaratory”, he knows that any large-scale response requires the unanimity of the Member States of the European Union, which is impossible to obtain on the issue. And the famous “consequences” to stay little or badly defined, the word «sanction» appearing to be taboo for a good part of Europeans, starting with Germany. As for the rare responses that have been sketched out (suspension of Israel’s participation in university exchanges and research programs, strengthening of the differentiated labeling of products coming from the settlements, freezing of ministerial visits), they especially confirm Israel in the idea that the price to pay will not be insurmountable. “Small perversities in Brussels, nothing to block Netanyahu”, concedes a senior European diplomat, little convinced of their effectiveness, already grumbling before “The exorbitant cost of tracing the products of the settlements, which, ironically, will be borne by the EU, not by Israel!”
Soft belly
In reality, behind the facade of “Warnings” Europeans as the date of July 1 fixed by Netanyahu to start the process approaches, the Twenty-Seven are divided, not in two but three groups. On the one hand, there is the Hungarian-led pro-Israel blocking minority of Viktor Orbán, the “Bibi” of the East, followed by its partners in the Visegrad group (Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic). To this quartet are added Austria as well as Greece and Cyprus, Mediterranean neighbors of Israel linked by growing strategic interests. In contrast, Luxembourg has imposed itself in the unexpected spearhead of a muscular response, with Belgium, whose parliament voted overwhelmingly for the establishment of a list of sanctions in the event of annexation, as well than Ireland, Portugal and the Scandinavians. In a kind of soft belly are hidden France and Germany, which seek above all to do «Profile bass», as Brussels diplomats reported to Reuters.
The recognition of Palestine as a state, envisaged by some countries, seems to be postponed sine die by France. “When the time comes, in the appropriate framework and format, when this decision will be useful”, said Le Drian. “To make it a sanction would send a terrible, very negative message”, confirms a source close to the Quai d’Orsay. Opinion relayed by the aforementioned Palestinian negotiator: “If recognition becomes a threat, does that mean that our state is a curse, a punishment?”
“For the moment, the Europeans are on the line of the American democrats: the incantation, with as main argument that the annexation will be bad for Israel, for its image as for its security, decrypts Gérard Araud, former French ambassador to Tel Aviv and Washington. That’s basically saying, “Why bother you with this?” We don’t talk much about the Palestinians in this story, we try rather to use the Israeli national interest ”. In other words by Le Drian, “Annexation is nobody’s interest”, playing on the moral fiber of the Hebrew State and the specter of the binational or even apartheid State, in addition to the destabilization of a region already saturated with conflicts.
“France to help the Palestinians, it’s over”
“From Sarkozy to Holland and to Macron, there is a great continuity in timidity, continues Araud. France, a great knight to the aid of the Palestinians, it’s been over for twenty years, even if the Israelis still want to pass the French for pro-Palestinian bombings. Since the rise of anti-Semitic acts in France, it has become internal politics, with the obsession to do nothing that could “import the conflict”. What condemns, in fact, these extremely timid positions, especially since the French Jewish community, largely aligned on Likud, cannot be a relay, unlike American Jews, for example. ”
At the same time, contrary to the mantras on international law and the Two-State solution hammered in public, in the salons of Western chancelleries, it is the little music of the “realism” which returns more and more insistently. In their briefing and with a few tweezers, some senior diplomats no longer hesitate to rehabilitate half-word le plan Trump, vilified six months ago, who would have at least “The merit of leaving the field as it is”, assures one of them, in a brutal new world where the benchmarks have exploded and where multilateralism has fallen into disuse. “Above all, as we have seen with Crimea or Syria, the penalty is out of the game …”
“Toxic”
Another diplomat, retired this one, goes further: “Macron, like others in Europe, no longer wants to touch this conflict, even with a pole. It has become completely toxic, while being relegated to the bottom of the list of international summits. The Palestinian cause is just a symbol, which everyone is tiptoeing about – and the Arabs are leading the way. ”
In recent days, the Israelis have hinted that the topography of the annexation could be limited to the settlements around Jerusalem, sparing the Jordan Valley. A major transgression which would then pass for a concession to the international community, which in turn, could be less severe. «There will be condemnations and some measures, but nothing very visible or tangible for Israel, the idea not being to hurt, considers a good connoisseur of the file, in Tel Aviv. The Israelis expect in the medium term a relative “normalization”, as with the Golan and East Jerusalem (annexed by Israel at the beginning of the 1980s, note). Quitte to degrade, for a time and on the surface, relations with Europeans… ”
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