European credibility in the Middle East is in ashes

“Everything we worked for for three years was destroyed in a few days.” That was how a senior official described the destructive effect that the European response to the conflict between Israel and Hamas has had on diplomatic relations with the Middle East.

There have been intense efforts to mend ties in the weeks since the European Commission projected the Israeli flag on the Berlaymont, announced and then retracted an immediate suspension of all Palestinian aid, and appeared to give unqualified backing to Israel’s retaliation to the Hamas massacre.

But diplomats say it has been difficult to reverse the early impression of one-sided support for Israel. Even if leaders in the Arab world see the differences in position between EU countries and institutions, it is much harder to reach the public.

Some describe it as the worst blow to relations between the West and the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “I don’t know how we are going to fix this,” said one European diplomat in a country bordering Israel.

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The disillusionment was articulated clearly in a speech by King Abdullah of Jordan at a peace summit in Cairo, Egypt, last week. “Anywhere else, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water, electricity and basic necessities, would be condemned. Accountability would be enforced immediately, unequivocally. And it has been done before recently in another conflict. But not in Gaza.

“The message the Arab world is hearing is loud and clear. Palestinians lives matter less than Israeli ones. Our lives matter less than other lives. The application of international law is optional. And human rights have boundaries. They stop at borders, they stop at races and they stop at religions.”

One effect of the perceived double standard has been to poison European efforts to build global solidarity in support of Ukraine and to isolate Russia. “They see violations of international humanitarian law, the flattening of entire districts, and they ask how is that different from Kharkiv and ask us to condemn it,” a second European diplomat in the region said. “The Europeans are quite silent. The Russians and Chinese will exploit this in the future, and are already exploiting it.”

Some fear it will be harder to achieve European strategic goals in the region: such as co-operation to prevent migration and return rejected asylum seekers, energy deals to ensure reliable alternatives to Russian oil and gas, and help in avoiding the circumvention of western sanctions on Russia.

The leadership of the Gulf countries is seen by diplomats as pragmatic, and is expected to seek to normalise relations after the conflict has died down. But the view of the public is different, and the anger is so widespread that diplomats have warned of increased security risks for diplomatic missions and ordinary European citizens in the Middle East.

“People are killed in hundreds. I don’t know if people in Brussels know that, do they not have emotions when they see that hundreds of people are killed?” said one local who has worked for the EU in the region. “I promoted the EU values. I feel cheated.”

Some might ask why anger would be particularly focused on Europe when the United States is Israel’s main military backer?

There are two reasons: Washington behaved as expected whereas the Europeans – who promote themselves as a force for peace and international law around the world – were seen as behaving hypocritically. Secondly, the European voices that appear to represent the pro-Israel position of the broader “West” drown out the others.

The common EU position that was painstakingly knit together at a summit of the 27 national leaders last week disintegrated on impact the next day when the UN General Assembly voted on a motion drafted by Jordan calling for a an “immediate, durable and sustainable humanitarian truce”.

Ireland was among eight EU countries to vote in favour, along with Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Hungary joined the small minority globally along with the United States and Israel that voted against. The remaining 15 EU countries abstained.

This latest public split has communicated internationally that the EU is too internally divided to be relied on to follow through on foreign policy promises.

“There’s a lot of dissonance. You never know if [chief EU diplomat Josep] Borrell says something, does Ursula von der Leyen agree, and then what about the member states?” the second diplomat said. “It’s showing we’re not to be taken seriously as a foreign policy actor in the world.”