Engaging with the EU
Czech Foreign Minister Karl Schwarzenberg told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Israel must engage with the European Union, rather than trying to treat it as irrelevant. The Czech Republic is considered, along with the Netherlands and Italy, among Israel’s strongest supporters inside the EU, and those countries – along with Romania, Bulgaria, and at times, Germany – form a bloc inside the EU that often tones down or stops critical statements and policies coming out of Brussels.Trust me - if we didn't have an America-and-Israel-hating President sitting in the White House, we wouldn't be having this discussion. We didn't have discussions like this when Bush was President.
Jerusalem, Schwarzenberg said, could do more to win over other EU nations by engaging more actively both with the individual countries, and with the EU institutions in Brussels.
Israel has not, he added, won over friends by essentially telling the EU over the last few decades that its ally is the United States, and that “we want them to be active in the Middle East, we don’t want you to be active. Keep out.”
That attitude, he said, has “left some residue.”
“If you say to someone we are irrelevant,” he said, “the natural reaction is for the person to say, ‘We will show you how irrelevant we are.’”
...
Schwarzenberg said he did not feel Israel was properly understood in the EU. The most recent example of a lack of understanding was Operation Cast Lead. He said that Europeans, not accustomed to war for 70 years, have a difficulty understanding the use of force in any situation.
“Europeans have become great peaceniks,” he said, explaining this attitude.
Schwarzenberg said the European lack of understanding of the need of force does not only apply to Israel, but also extends to the American use of force in Afghanistan, adding: “one does not understand the settlement policy as it is now.”
In the meantime, Germany, one of our supposed 'friends' in the EU, showed once again on Wednesday why the EU is not to be trusted.
Labels: European Union, Karl Schwarzenberg
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:44 PM
4 Comments:
Point of reference. We have a refurbished Torah scroll from the Torah Trust at Westminster Synagogue in our ark. It was rescued at the end of WWII and was the Torah of a Jewish community in Czechoslovakia that was 100% deleted. This Czech man is offloading the responsibility that the Euros have to cure their horror of a sickness. He/they should be engaging their fellow EU and FSU comrades to make these cures (including calling out the Obama people operating in their sphere), not be stepping out from under it by trying to chuck it like a warcrime rocket onto Israel.
Never forget 1973.
Thermblog? 1973? In Germany? Well, I lived there in '72 when the Israeli athletes were slaughtered at the '72 Olympics in Munchen with no interference from any German (and hopefully not the active aid of the German govt people. How to tell?). The Germans just kept on partying through the whole thing, mainly being irritated by the interruption of the Games. What was 1973?
The EU IS irrelevant. How can it expect to be taken seriously in matters of foreign policy with Baroness Ashton at its helm? Ridiculous, unaccountable, unelected institution with no coherence, no power and largely detested by the people that are unfortunate enough to live in it.
The establishment in Europe have completely and utterly lost the plot. I am outraged that this twerp blames Israel for the EU's failures.
Post a Comment
<< Home