Sun. Feb 9th, 2025

Europe can and must be part of the Israeli victory

December 25th 2024 , , , , ,
Olaf Scholz and Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem Photo: GPO/Maayan Toaff

By Dr. Emmanuel Navon

To complete its victory over Iran’s axis of aggression, Israel needs not only the United States, but also the major powers of Europe. Those powers have the opportunity to reap the benefits of Israel’s victory and be part of the “day after” by cooperating with the incoming US administration and trading preaching for realism.

On October 7, 2023, Israel was humiliated, traumatized and threatened by Iran's multi-pronged jihadist ring of aggression. Today, Israel has won the game. The Iranian “Ring of Fire” has been dismantled, leaving Iran on the defensive. Three of the proxies Iran’s proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah and the Assad regime – have been neutralised or eliminated. The Houthis in Yemen can still fire missiles at Israel and disrupt shipping in the Red Sea, but they are vulnerable to Israeli airstrikes. As for Iran itself, its failure to inflict significant damage in its two massive attacks on Israel (in April and October 2024) has been a source of humiliation for the Islamic Republic. So too was Israel’s devastating counterattack on 26 October.

The war that broke out on October 7 was, from the start, a war between Iran and Israel. Israel has not yet achieved total victory, but it will achieve it. The prospect of a large-scale military strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has never been more feasible or more likely. The crumbling of the Iranian Axis and the incoming Trump Administration have turned “total victory” from a slogan into a palpable reality.

In this ongoing war, cooperation between Israel and Europe’s three major powers — Britain, France and Germany — has been both crucial and uneven. Those three European countries are also known as the “E3,” an informal foreign and security affairs forum established in 2003, shortly after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, which focused primarily on negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Those negotiations led to the JCPOA in 2015, but that agreement is no longer relevant. The United States withdrew from the deal in 2018, Iran has since become a nuclear threshold power, and the military option against Iran’s nuclear sites is no longer an empty threat.

The E3 may therefore have lost some of its raison d’être, but Israel’s cooperation with the three most powerful countries in Europe has not. Germany is Israel’s second-largest military supplier after the United States, and has purchased Israel’s “Arrow 3” anti-missile system. Britain and France were actively involved in air defence against Iran’s two missile attacks on Israel. The French and British navies play a role in combating Houthi trade disruption in the Red Sea.

The fact that Israel and Europe are facing, together, the Russia-Iran axis of aggression should make the partnership between Israel and the E3 obvious. It should be, but it isn’t. Germany has admiringly supported Israel’s right to defend itself and rejected calls to limit military exports to Israel. Britain and France have not. The British government has restricted military exports to Israel and President Macron has called for a military embargo. He has twice tried and failed to ban Israeli companies from military displays in Paris.
As Israel emerges as a major power in the Middle East, backed by a US administration that will support it for the next four years, it is time for the E3 countries to reconsider their Middle East policy, bearing in mind that although the Russia-Iran Axis suffered a serious setback, Russia is unlikely to be defeated in Ukraine.

Russia suffers from many weaknesses. It has a relatively small GDP of $2 trillion (barely larger than Spain’s, but ten times smaller than China’s) and a shrinking population of 144 million (about 40% of the US population and a tenth of China’s). It relies on Iranian and North Korean supplies to fight in Ukraine, and it had to abandon Assad. But its economy has proven resilient to sanctions. Its military industry is running at full capacity. It has an almost infinite reserve of troops. And it has a huge nuclear arsenal, which Putin has threatened to activate.

When Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, EU members were spending on average less than 1,4% of their GDP on defence. It took another decade and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for that figure to reach 2%. Russia, by contrast, spends 8% of its GDP on defence (or, should I say, on offence). Adjusted for the cost of paying troops, Russia spends more on its armed forces than Britain, France, Germany and Poland combined. Poland already spends 4% of its GDP on defence, and aims to increase that sum to 4,7% by 2025. But what about Germany and France?
Germany has a constitutional provision limiting annual structural deficits to 0,35% of GDP. France, by contrast, has a budget deficit of 6% of GDP and French national debt will likely reach 115% of GDP by 2025.

Both countries have seen their governments crumble this year. Germany is going to a snap election in February, but France cannot hold another snap election until July. Meanwhile, a governing majority cannot be formed in the National Assembly. The British government is more stable, but faces discontent. The Labour Party, which is less “de-Corbynised” than Keir Starmer would have us believe, controls 63% of the House of Commons, but only managed 34% of the popular vote.

To complete the defeat of Iran and prevent the collapse of Ukraine, the E3 should replace legalistic formalism with political realism. This does not mean that Europe should abandon its principles. But it does mean that the time has come to realise that complex problems cannot be managed, let alone solved, with simplistic slogans.

There will be no new nuclear deal with Iran. Ukraine will not regain its 1991 borders. Establishing a failed, autocratic XNUMXnd Arab state alongside Israel will not bring peace and stability to the Middle East. The Islamic Republic can be defeated, but the Russian empire can only be contained.

If the E3 countries want to be constructive in the Middle East in the next four years, they must cooperate with the United States and Israel in the war against Iran's Axis of Aggression, and keep Qatar's malign influence at bay. In Europe, the E3 must help contain Russia not only by cooperating with the United States to reach a sustainable compromise with Putin, but also by significantly increasing European defense spending. The two things are related, because NATO can only contain Russia from a position of strength.

Cooperation between Israel and Germany is a good example: German-made submarines in Israel help deter Iran, and Israeli-made anti-missile systems help Germany deter Russia.

Finally, the E3 must be on the same page at the United Nations. This organization has long been hijacked by autocracies that abuse the letter and spirit of international law against the free world. Democracies do a disservice to their own values ​​by falling prey to this farce. Precisely because the free world has become a minority at the UN, the least it can do is stand united in voting in the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. This should start with the E3 countries.

The past year brought with it important achievements and victories. To achieve total victory, Israel needs not only the United States but also the major powers of Europe. These powers have the opportunity to reap the benefits of Israel’s victory and be part of the “day after” by cooperating with the incoming US administration and trading preaching for realism.

Source: JISS – Jerusalem Institute for National Security Studies

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