BDS Aside, What EU-Sponsored Causes Can We Pretend Are Grassroots Palestinian Initiatives?

by Josep Borell, European Commission Foreign Policy Chair

Brussels, March 2 – My favorite foreign policy fiction that everyone pretends true involves the underwriting, support, and guidance for projects that ostensibly grew out of organic, local efforts, when in fact they only came about because we decided they must, and allocated the necessary resources. This occurred most famously with the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement: we all repeat the catechism that it emerged from people under Israeli occupation, whose endeavors we shepherded with enthusiasm, when in reality the entire scheme stemmed from international groups gathering twenty years ago in Durban to reframe and relaunch the decades-old Arab boycott of Israel, and tweak the failing approaches to deligitimization of the Jewish State. Such a model deserves replication in other anti-Israel arenas.

Unfortunately, other such projects have proved elusive. We certainly do not anticipate curtailing our support for pro-BDS organizations, even those that, to our chagrin, have taken our endorsement further than good taste perhaps should permit, and engaged in promotion of violence, sometimes violence itself. Occasionally fatal violence, I might add. Unfortunate, as I said; the violent deaths of Jews at the hands of Palestinian activists makes the funding of those Palestinians’ initiatives a political and bureaucratic nightmare, and we prefer to avoid that. It looks terrible. But the success to date of the BDS initiative makes me wonder what other such “grassroots Palestinian” movements we can create, nurture, launch, and fund even as we profess support for the theoretical idea of Jewish sovereignty and safety. Just not like that. Or like that. Not like that, either. Can’t you Jews do anything right? You can’t even do a proper ethnic cleansing, even after we Europeans gave you a master class! Ingrates.

If you’ve got an idea, let me know. My predecessor Ms. Mogherini also made attempts to identify incipient “Palestinian” movements, but she focused, understandably, on other issues, such as smoothing the Iranian path to a nuclear weapon that could finish the job we Europeans couldn’t manage to complete during the Second World War. Or at least replicate it. Replicating successful initiatives is what we’re all about here in Europe.

My inbox awaits suggestions. Last week someone thought they had identified a new project, but in fact we’re already funding illegal Palestinian construction in areas the Palestinian leadership has agreed under Oslo remains under Israeli control. And that’s not credibly a European initiative anyway. We should have thought of it, though. We’ll just have to settle for anti-Zionists calling all Jewish construction a European colonialist project. In fact that’s what our “philanthropy” is, but again, that’s not in good taste.

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