Sometimes there seems to be no more brake. Within 24 hours, the two wars that touch Europe deeply attracted this week with a startling escalation by leaders who think they are inviolable. On Tuesday afternoon, Israeli planes fired rockets on a building in Doha where Hamas leaders reportedly bent over a new American peace proposal. In recent years, Qatar has tried to build a name as a safe location for difficult conversations. With the rocket attack, Israel scored the sovereignty of Qatar and it was all diplomatic standards.
With the maneuver, Israel also made it very clear that it is not at all interested in an agreement with Hamas. Israel wants to wipe Hamas off the map. Israel wants capitulation, no agreements. There is no Gaza peace process, there is only a Gaza investment.
Israel shows the behavior of a loosened warrior for whom the goal justifies the means. With a superior air force and leaning on years of experience with murder attacks abroad, Israel tries to control the relationships in a whole region. Difficult relationships with Arab countries are increasing, probably in the hope of working again – after Gaza – to work on the normalization of relations.
For the time being, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is getting away with this all-or-nothing approach thanks to steadfast American support. The only man who could move Netanyahu to moderation is President Donald Trump and he fails.
Trump and Netanyahu share a dangerous feature: Trump also thinks he is elevated above laws and rules, that he gets away with everything. He also operates according to the adage attributed to Louis XIV: L’état, c’est moi. Washington should make an effort to put the genocide in Gaza in accordance with international law. Instead, the White House dreams over a commercially attractive coastal strip.
Hardly recovered from the newest Israeli escalation, Europe woke up on Wednesday morning with the news that NATO first brought down Russian drones in Putin’s Ukraine war above NATO territory. Putin’s drone provocation fits into a long series of incidents and has all the characteristics of a hybrid attack: easy to deny and not so serious that the opponent is practically forced to hit hard. The Russians quickly denied that it was intentional, but it is unlikely that they were waving, actually intended for Ukraine. About 20 drones reached Poland via two different routes, a number of deeply penetrated the Polish airspace.
Vladimir Putin is also a man who has proven because of the raid in a sovereign country that he has litters on rules. And he also pretends to be unassailable. He has answered countless peace initiatives in recent months with drone and rocket attacks on civilian goals. Also in Ukraine, despite all Western initiatives, there is no peace process.
The world is therefore flashed by men who imagine themselves inviolable – during a visit to China, Putin even speculated with President Xi Jinping about the possibility of turning 150 years thanks to medical progress. Faced with so much unrestrained power of power, there are two options in theory. Defaitism, because no herb has been washed against so much power and intimidating behavior. Or perseverance in the difficult struggle for law, justice and humanitarian decency.
The reactions to Doha and the drones were not particularly impressive, but also showed that not everyone has resigned themselves to the only right of the strongest. The UN Security Council, hardly anything capable of anything in recent years, condemned the Israeli attack on Doha. The US did not use their veto this time to protect Israel. Until now, of Europe, Israel had a lot to fear either. The EU is divided and only a single country – Spain, Ireland – takes serious measures. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen finally asked this week for a partial trade embargo. She may speculate that the EU member states will not agree, but at least it is something. It remains indigestible that Europe does not act harder against a friend of a genocidal war.
In response to the drones, a number of European countries, including the Netherlands, already summoned the Russian ambassador. The drone provocation is a political test for the alliance, which took the time for a collective response. A powerful political answer from NATO is essential. If that response does not come, the next provocation will not take long.
A convincing answer from NATO does require that Trump supports Europeans. His first reaction was half-hearted and striking pro-Putin: it might be a mistake, he thought.
Anyone who cares about the fate of the Palestinians and for a sovereign Ukraine, who cares for an independent and democratic Europe and for an international order in which rules offer small countries, cannot afford the luxury of defaitism. And: inviolability is never forever. Just ask the former dictator of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, who had to leave the field at the end of last year, or from Jaïr Bolsonaro, former president of Brazil, who was sentenced to 27 years in imprisonment this week for an attempted coup.