From Republic.ru, Oct. 10, 2024, https://republic.ru/posts/113902.
Complete text:
Emmanuel Macron was not wrong. Joe Biden has called for a ceasefire in Gaza – and “logic” demands that France stop supplying arms to Israel. Everything is clear here, but where is this consistency when Macron postpones his own recognition of Palestine indefinitely, although France has always advocated the coexistence of two states – Israeli and Palestinian – and he himself supported this idea?
The French president shows no more consistency than the US president, and the drama is that inconsistency has become the norm on both sides of the Atlantic. The best example of this is Ukraine. The Americans and Europeans unanimously believe that Putin cannot be allowed to win, since in that event he will continue to implement his ambitious plans to recreate the Russian Empire. Therefore, Western countries are supplying Ukraine with enough weapons to resist aggression, but forbid using them to strike military targets on Russian territory.
They fear that Putin’s defeat would plunge the world’s largest country into chaos and lead to a loss of control over its nuclear arsenal. In other words, the Americans and Europeans do not want Ukraine to win or lose, because, in their view, Russia’s defeat would be as dangerous as its victory. They know what they don’t want, but they don’t know what they do want, and the same inability to make a decision and move to action is being demonstrated in the Middle East.
For three decades, the US and European Union have jointly advocated for a two-state solution in the Middle East but have never been willing to force both sides to accept it. Fearing the strengthening of an anti-Western front that includes Arab countries, Iran and Turkey, they dare not make it clear to the Palestinians that the West will stop vetoing the annexation of the occupied territories if they continue to reject sustainable partition. And out of fear of Sunni Islamists and Iran strengthening in the region, they have never threatened to withhold economic and military aid to Israel if it obstructs the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The Europeans and Americans have thus doomed themselves to helplessness, and now that Israel has defeated Hamas and decapitated Hezbollah in response to the Oct. 7 massacre, they are preventing it from bombing Iranian nuclear facilities. The West is well aware that the Islamic Republic will soon acquire nuclear weapons and yet forbids Israel to prevent this, fearing a long wave of terrorism.
Americans and Europeans are paralyzed by fear of the unknown in both the Middle East and Ukraine. The main thing for them is to avoid “escalation” in both places and to maintain the usual framework. Even though the world has long lived without common rules and frameworks, and the only way to achieve international stability is to formulate and enforce clear and universally acceptable objectives.
In Ukraine, the West would make great progress by saying, first, that it would favor political and territorial compromises between Kiev and Moscow, and second, that it would lift its veto on the use of weapons on Russian territory if Putin refuses to negotiate a troop withdrawal and achieve a modus vivendi. As for the Middle East, judging by Benjamin Netanyahu’s panicked reaction to Macron’s words about cutting off the supply of weapons used to strike Gaza, the US and EU could, by threatening to withdraw aid to Israel, quickly force it to agree to a Palestinian state.
The EU and the US are strong enough to stop the growth of international chaos. Moreover, they are the only ones capable of doing so. They just need to overcome their fears and relearn how to talk.