Europe uses Israeli elections as excuse for inaction

Opinion polls indicate that it would be unwise to place a bet on March 2 as the date Israeli television channels air the final episode of the popular reality show, “The story of a permanent interim government." With the opening date of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trial on charges of corruption set for March 17, Israel could become the world’s first democracy whose leader splits his time between Cabinet sessions and court sessions. The serial elections — with the third looming on March 2 — not only help Netanyahu’s Likud party hold on to power, they delay the annexation of the West Bank settlements based on US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century” for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The back-to-back elections also enable opponents of the plan — chief among them the European Union (EU) and leading European states — to continue hemming and hawing and dozing in the bleachers. EU foreign ministers who met Feb. 17 to discuss the Trump plan and recognition of a Palestinian state decided to postpone their discussion until after next month’s Israeli elections. “We briefly discussed how best to relaunch a political process … and how best to defend internationally agreed parameters of equal rights and international law,” the ministers’ communique stated. How do they know that Israel will have an elected government next month? How can they be sure that if Blue and White leader Benny Gantz heads the next government rather than Netanyahu, he will have sufficient Knesset votes to impose the principles of “protecting equal rights and international law” in the occupied territories?