Nick Clegg wants Britain to push the EU to end trade with Israel. In a Guardian article, the Lib Dem leader vies for the left-wing, anti-Iraq vote and argues that the EU “must immediately suspend the proposed new cooperation agreement with Israel until things change in Gaza.”
If we overlook the article’s factually incorrect claim that the EU suspended its “presence on the Egypt border in response to Hamas’s election” — on 10 November 2008, European foreign ministers extended the mandate of the EUBAM Rafah Mission until 24 November 2009 — it proposes a return to the bad old days of EU-Israeli animosity, over-simplifies a complex situation, and is likely to make any future EU role in Middle East peace-making difficult.
I have been very sceptical of Israel’s Gaza strategy. Like Daniel Finkelstein, I too am moved by the squalor, poverty and the death among the Palestinians in Gaza.
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