Flanagan has debut on Middle East diplomatic tightrope

Charlie Flanagan paid his first visit to the Middle East as Minister for Foreign Affairs this week when he visited Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

On the standard diplomatic tightrope walk that marks such visits, he met political leaders on the Israeli side (foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, Labor leader Isaac Herzog) and the Palestinian side (President Mahmoud Abbas, prime minister Rami Hamdallah). He visited the impoverished Gaza Strip but also an Israeli village whose close proximity to the enclave puts it within range of even the most rudimentary rockets.

He laid wreaths at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, and at the tomb of Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. He even bumped into Tony Blair at the airport.

Flanagan framed the visit as a “listening exercise” and stressed “balance” in his approach. But the long-standing pillars of Ireland’s policy were restated: support for a two-state solution, opposition to continued expansion of Israeli settlements and an emphasis on human rights and the rule of law.

Declaring Ireland’s “steadfast support” for the Palestinian people, Flanagan announced a further €4.7 million in funding for UN agencies working with Palestinian refugees.

The Irish visit was one of a series by European foreign ministers in advance of a mooted initiative led by the EU's new foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini, to restart the moribund peace process.

The circumstances hardly look propitious. The Middle East is in flux, with many of its key players, including Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, preoccupied by social or economic instability and the effects of the rise of Islamic State.

Washington, still smarting from the failure of John Kerry's peace initiative last year and focused on Islamic State as well as the Iranian nuclear talks, seems disinclined for now to give the effort another push.

Israelis go to the polls next month after a campaign in which misgivings about the viability of a two-state solution have been recurring. Moreover, Europe may have leverage (the EU spends about €1 billion a year in the West Bank and accounts for 40 per cent of Israel’s trade), but forging a common position from the range of opinions will be no easy task.

Yet the case for urgent action is clear. Israel's withholding of the transfer of tax funds to the Palestinian Authority has put it under huge financial strain, prompting Martin Indyk, US special envoy to last year's failed talks, to speak this week about "the collapse of the Palestinian Authority" as a real danger.

Then there is the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza. Not a single house has been rebuilt since last summer’s 50-day war, donor money has been slow to arrive and critical infrastructure is creaking. The mood in the strip, Flanagan said, was of “deep hopelessness”.