European-Israeli Relations: Between Confusion and Change? (ISBN 9652180548)

A hope for improvement:
In the past four years Manfred Gerstenfeld has put together three volumes on the subject of Israel- European relations. The first 'Europe's Crumbling Myths' analyzed the misperception that Europe had truly changed its attitudes towards the Jews after the Holocaust. The second published in 2005 "Israel and Europe: The Growing Abyss" was a careful examination of just how prejudicial and distorted the European attitude towards Israel is. Now in a slightly more hopeful analysis Gerstenfeld takes another look at these long troublesome Israel- Europe relations. He does this by speaking with fifteen distinguished interviewees, all of whom have a fundamentally sympathetic attitude to the Jewish state. Raphael Bardaji was adviser in Spain to the Parliamentary Group of Jose Maria Aznar, Prof. Fritz Bolkenstein a former Dutch defense minister was member of the European Commission from 1999-2004, Rijk van Dam is the executive director of the European coalition for Israel, Guiliano Ferrara is the founder and editor of the Italian daily 'Il Foglio', Efraim Halevy is a former head of the Mossad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in somalia and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia,Ethiopia and Kenya.She fled to the Netherlands where she became a member of the Dutch Parliament. She now works for the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. Prof. Josef Joffe is the publisher editor of the German weekly 'Die Zeit', Irit Kohn was director of the International Affairs Department at the Israeli Ministry of Justice, Prof. Ruth Lapidoth is a world- renowed expert in International Law, Zvi Mazel was with the Israeli Foreign Ministry for thirty- nine years, Dr.Rory Miller is a Dublin born senior lecturer at the University of London, Prof. Anton Pelinka is an internationally known political scientist,Nidra Poller is a freelance writer and novelist, Robbie Sabel teaches international law at the Hebrew University. These experts each gives his own particular insight into an aspect of Israel- European relations. In the course of this we receive a quite full picture of the general situation. As Gerstenfeld outlines it in the lengthy essay which introduces the volume, there have been a number of events within Europe itself ,among them, the subway terror bombings in Madrid and London, the autumn Paris riots of 2005 , the murder of Dutch journalist Theo van Gogh, which have made the Europeans more susceptible to questioning long - held 'myths'. Among these myths is the idea that the 'Israeli- Palestinian conflict is the key to everything' Anyone observing the sectarian violence in Iraq, and the growing Sunni- Shiite split throughout the Islamic world knows what folly that myth is. Another myth the Europeans long maintained is that Arabs may use a great deal of rhetoric of violence but would not actually carry that violence out. A third myth is the 'land for peace myth' which the Israeli left also held. It is that by withdrawing and giving land and even the right to a state to the Palestinians the Middle East conflict would end. The fourth myth relates to the European belief that harsh criticism of Israel actually served some positive political purpose. Now what has happened is that the rise of the Muslim presence and violence in Europe has made the Europeans, or some Europeans better understand the situation more complex than they had previously imagined. These events ideally should make the Europeans better understand the kinds of threat Israel, and now they themselves face from radical Islam. However Gerstenfeld points out a number of reasons why the Europeans will not permit themselves to draw close to Israel. There are several million Jews in the Middle and hundreds of millions of Arabs, more than a billion Muslims in the world. The Europeans are energy- hungry and the Arabs have oil. There is a general left- wing pacifism in Europe which makes it turn away from any suggestion of direct confrontation of violence. Nonetheless Gerstenfeld believes that there is in this time of confusion and change an opportunity for improvement. He believes the Europeans can learn from the experience of Israel in its dealing with threats and violence from the Islamic world. He believes that the time of European self- imposed silence in regard to Islamic violence is drawing to a close. And that the Europeans may be truly awakening to the dangers they face from within. Perhaps the most encouraging element this book presents is the interviewees themselves. Most of them are European friends of Israel. And they indicate that all is not lost in these relations. In fact in the European Parliament the book gives an estimate of twenty percent supporting Israel, twenty supporting the Arabs, and sixty ready to move either way depending on what the issue is. Gerstenfeld by his close work with these people has not simply found, but made friends for Israel in Europe. His constant efforts on this subject make him a kind of one- man foreign ministry. This is an important book for all those who care about Israel's situation in the world. And also for those who care for the saving of the soul of Europe.