Europeans should enjoy it while it lasts. The invasion of the White House last Monday by seven European leaders, in effect as bodyguards for Volodymr Zelenskyy, produced a rare alignment of diplomatic positions with Donald Trump’s America, even persuading him to talk approvingly of some sort of still-undefined American involvement in providing security guarantees for Ukraine after a ceasefire.
No one knows how long Trump will stick with this position, not even Trump himself. But what everyone should worry about is that September is going to see Trump and most of those European leaders taking diametrically opposite stances on a different conflict, namely Gaza, potentially causing a row that might destabilize other agreements over Ukraine or trade.
Gaza and Ukraine share the painful characteristic that both are wars being orchestrated by leaders accused by the International Criminal Court of war crimes, namely Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, but they are also different in one important sense. In Ukraine the Europeans and Americans are both inextricably involved and so cannot ignore each other whether they like it or not; in Gaza, the Europeans are just bystanders so Trump can ignore them if he wants to or just dismiss whatever they say as irrelevant.Pledge your support
Last month when France’s Emmanuel Macron announced his intention to recognize Palestine Trump accordingly dismissed it as irrelevant. He has essentially ignored Britain’s subsequent announcement that it will do the same, and Germany’s announcement that it is stopping the sale of weapons to Israel. Moreover, Trump last week underlined his difference of opinion with the Europeans by labeling Netanyahu (and, naturally, himself) as a war hero rather than a criminal, although by giving Putin the red carpet treatment during his visit to Alaska Trump was being pretty forgiving to the Russian leader too.
Disagreements, especially with Trump, are quite normal, even if European leaders have tried to mask them through flattery and sycophancy. The problem with the disagreement over Israel and Palestine is that next month it is going to be aired very publicly, on American soil, at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which formally opens on September 9. Both Macron and Britain’s Keir Starmer have said that their countries’ recognition of Palestine will take place at the General Assembly, unless by that time Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire and Israel has shown it is committed to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
It is possible that the first of those conditions might be met, but there is zero chance of the current Israeli government committing itself to a two-state solution. Talks about a ceasefire, brokered by Egypt and Qatar, have been said for several weeks now to be close to an agreement, although in the end much may depend on whether Israel sticks to its pre-condition that Hamas agrees to give up its weapons. And even while those talks have been going on, the Israeli Defense Force has been extending its control over more of Gaza, including last week the densely populated area of Gaza City.
The most optimistic view of the ceasefire negotiations holds that the leadership of Hamas (the name is the Arabic acronym of the group’s formal name of Islamic Resistance Movement) may be poised to follow the example of the Irish Republican Army in the 1990s, which chose to give up its military fight with the British in Northern Ireland and to become a political party instead. That is what Israel has been demanding Hamas must do, and the prize for agreeing would be the chance to compete in elections for the Palestinian National Council, which may take place before the end of this year.
However, the Irish case is not a perfect precedent: in 1998 the IRA did agree to “decommission” its weapons as part of the peace agreement, but it agreed to do so only after the other parts of the agreement had been fully implemented. In the end, the IRA took more than seven years to destroy or relinquish its weapons. And no one in Northern Ireland believes that either the IRA or its Protestant opponents truly gave up all their weapons.
That is why Israel is insisting that Hamas lay down its weapons in advance of a ceasefire rather than afterwards. But just like in Northern Ireland, there will never be any reliable way to prove that all weapons have been given up. This would be true even if Hamas were to convert itself into being a political party instead of a militia since a militia could simply be formed in parallel, under another name.
The real question, which is equivalent to the real question about Ukraine even though the context is very different, concerns how long the Israeli government wants to continue its war in Gaza. The signs are, as with Putin in Ukraine, that Netanyahu retains a strong appetite for war. By setting as his goals both the release by Hamas of the remaining 50 hostages (of whom only 20 are believed to be alive) and the elimination of Hamas as a militia, Netanyahu has essentially ensured that the goals can never be definitively achieved.
Last week, the Israeli government confirmed its contempt for the idea of a two-state solution by approving a new settlement project in the West Bank that will divide that territory into two. The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, condemned this decision as a breach of international law that will “critically undermine the two-state solution.” Germany joined that condemnation.
The only real hope of changing Netanyahu’s calculations about the war in Gaza and about the two-state solution would be if the US government were to join such condemnation. There is currently no sign at all that Washington will do so. A delegation of European leaders to the White House would stand no chance of changing Trump’s mind on this, unlike with Ukraine. For Palestine, only a delegation of Arab leaders, led by Saudi Arabia, could make him even pay attention to the issue.
The stage is therefore set for an unusually noisy and controversial United Nations General Assembly next month. France, Britain and others will have to make a loud noise if their recognitions of Palestine are to have any impact on Saudi Arabia and the other Arab states. The Arabs’ style is generally a more discreet one. But the reality is that unless those Arab states summon up the courage to lobby Trump, the war in Gaza promises to be permanent and the idea of a functioning sovereign state for the Palestinians promises to be permanently buried.
Formerly editor-in-chief of The Economist, Bill Emmott is currently chairman of the Japan Society of the UK, the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the International Trade Institute.
First published on his Substack, Bill Emmott’s Global View, this is the English original of an article published on August 22 in Italian by La Stampa. It is republished here with kind permission.
