Ask Israel’s closest allies in Europe their assessment of the invasion of Gaza these days and there is not as much difference in their positions to that of Ireland as you might expect.
The top leadership in countries such as Germany agree that the civilian death toll is excessive. They don’t support the illegal settlements in the West Bank and see them as an obstacle to peace.
They want humanitarian aid to get into Gaza, and have been telling the Israeli leadership that it cannot forcibly displace Palestinians into Egypt or anywhere else.
They insist the eventual outcome should be a two-state solution, and that only the fulfilment of Palestinians’ legitimate aspirations to freedom and self-determination will ultimately ensure Israel’s security.
Those who hold back from calling for a ceasefire have done so on the grounds that Israel should be allowed an opportunity to eliminate Hamas, believing this is a justified response to the attacks of October 7th.
Unlike in the immediate aftermath of those attacks – and in reflection of widespread public outrage at the civilian toll – they tend to now qualify their support to say that its military operation must be conducted in line with international law.
While optimists hope that eliminating Hamas will bring the two-state solution closer – by getting rid of a force that opposes it and ending the division between Gaza and the Palestinian Authority-administered West Bank that has complicated efforts towards peace – critics see this as a futile and counterproductive aim.
These include a former Israeli negotiator in peace talks to the Palestinians, Daniel Levy. He recently urged opponents of a ceasefire to desist from “encouraging Israel to hang on to the historically discredited fiction that armed resistance rooted in an oppressed people can be eliminated by the deployment of even more ferocious military methods”.
Talk has now turned to what will happen to the Gaza Strip once Israel’s current offensive concludes.
This reflects that allies of Israel do not have infinite patience for its retaliation, and also that the highly emotive conflict is causing domestic political turmoil in countries around the world.
The US and the EU want a conclusion.
What that could look like was laid out this week in speeches by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and US secretary of state Antony Blinken.
Their main points resembled each other. They both said there should be no forced displacement of Palestinians, no reoccupation of the Gaza Strip by Israel, and no continuing blockade of Gaza by Israel. They also said Hamas should not be allowed to rebuild its strength.
Von der Leyen suggested a United Nations international peace force could be deployed in the territory, while Blinken and others have suggested that the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority should be in charge.
It is possible, however, that the Western friends of Israel have already made an error in their response to the conflict that will make such a future more difficult to attain.
There was always a possibility that the ferocity of Israel’s response could fuel support for armed resistance among Palestinians, and this certainly seems to have been the calculation of Hamas.
To Palestinians, the last month has demonstrated that the pro-Israel block of countries within European Union will limit its ability to criticise Israel, even when it announces a cut to food and water to a civilian population or bombs a densely-populated refugee camp. Even at the cost of the EU’s own credibility.
This communicates that the EU will not be willing to pressure Israel to make the concessions that would be necessary for a two-state solution, namely in reversing the government’s support for illegal settlements in the West Bank.
These settlements have undermined the two-state solution by seizing an increasing proportion of the area’s water supplies, undermining its viability and agricultural base.
They have also discredited the Palestinian Authority in the eyes of the public, making it deeply unpopular and allowing more radical factions to characterise it as the stooge of Israel or the US.
Both the United States and the EU have the leverage to pressure Israel to make concessions if they wish to. Israel is highly reliant on the US militarily, and the EU economically.
But the past month has sent the message that there is little political will to use this leverage. It has left Palestinian moderates isolated, and given them few arguments to convince more militant factions that they can count on international oversight and should trust the process of working towards a negotiated peace.