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It’s Europe’s moment in the Middle East - by Harold Meyerson
In the Middle East, it is suddenly the European moment. Israel knows it cannot eliminate Hezbollah through force of arms, and it has realised that occupying hostile terrain is too much of a drain on its physical, political and moral resources. Reversing long-standing policy, it now is calling for an international force to secure its borders. But which nations’ troops should make up that force? The United States, even if it weren’t bogged down in Iraq, is too closely identified with Israel. The Sunni Arab states that might conceivably step forward — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia — would risk an eruption of rage in their streets, and their intervention could also move the entire region closer to a Sunni-Shiite conflagration. All this puts the ball squarely in Europe’s court. And if Europe wants to be taken seriously on the world stage, this is an opportunity it should welcome. The nations of Western Europe, after all, have long, and rightly, called for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. They have worked for a peaceful, bi-national settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
European intervention in southern Lebanon would entail casualties and political risks. But a failure to intervene would undermine every policy goal that Western European nations have for the Middle East, and strengthen the hand of the Cheney-Rumsfeld hawks who believe that American military might is the only solution for the planet’s distempers. For Europe, it’s put-up-or-shut-up time. With the Middle East descending into deeper and deeper cycles of violence, one thing we surely don’t need is a Europe guided by the spirit of Neville Chamberlain.
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