A “Dear Europe” Letter

by Victor Rosenthal

Negotiations are underway between Israel and the European Union for Israel to sell natural gas to Europe, which wishes to end its dependence on Russia for fuel. Italy and Germany presently get 40% and 35% of their gas from Russia, respectively. Russia recently informed Finland – which just announced that it would like to join NATO – that it would stop selling it gas. The dispute is officially about a Russian demand to be paid in rubles, and it represents only a small amount of Finland’s energy supply, but the political overtones are unmistakable. The delivery of Israeli gas, via Egypt, could begin as early as this coming winter.

Naturally, I welcome the idea that Israel will be able to help the Europeans in their time of need. It can get very cold in Europe in the winter. So I have prepared a draft of a letter that our government could send to the EU in order to get the ball rolling. It’s warmish now at the end of May, but Berlin, for example, is located at 54.5 north latitude, and temperatures there in January average 1 degree C. So let’s get started!

Dear European Friends and Allies,

1. We in Israel are excited to hear of your interest in buying some of our natural gas. We’ll be happy to sell it to you. But there are a few small bumps in the road to iron out first. So here they are:We demand that you reverse your blatantly racist decision to demand that Israeli products from Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights, and eastern Jerusalem be labeled according to the ethnicity of the producer, and not as products of Israel (see 16 here).
2. Your subsidizing of illegal construction by Palestinian Arabs in Area C of Judea and Samaria, a zone which by international treaty is supposed to be under full Israeli civil and security control, is an egregious violation of Israeli sovereignty and international law, and must stop immediately.
3. Your continued financial support, which amounts to millions of Euros annually, to subversive Israeli NGOs, terror-linked organizations in the Palestinian Authority, Gaza, and other locations, and NGOs promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories as well as BDS and lawfare against Israel, constitutes non-military warfare against the Jewish state. We demand a halt to this activity.
4. Your consistent support for our enemies in the UN in their efforts to deny and obscure the Jewish history of sites such as the Temple Mount, despite the overwhelming archaeological and historical evidence, demonstrates bad faith or cowardice, and is not consistent with a desire for good relations.
5. Your desire to reach an accommodation with Iran that will allow the regime to have nuclear weapons is not only threatening to Israel, it is dangerous to yourselves, who will soon be in range of Iranian missiles.

We understand that you have strong feelings of guilt for your colonialist past, and for the collaboration of many Europeans with the Nazi effort to liquidate the Jewish people. But it’s absurd, even pathological, to try to ameliorate these feelings by helping the heirs of the Nazis, whose leaders included Hitler’s associate Amin al-Husseini and the Father of Terrorism Yasser Arafat, to continue the Nazis’ genocidal program. We suggest that you apply some of the millions – perhaps billions – that you will save by ending your financial and diplomatic war against Israel to actual humanitarian causes.

We also understand that a growing segment of your population is Muslim, and that the great majority of them are anti-Zionist, even antisemitic. Pandering to these attitudes can be useful for short-term political gain, but you should understand that they are also anti-Western. Appeasing them is much like feeding a crocodile in the hope that he will eat you last (apologies to Winston Churchill).

We are looking forward to working to provide you with a warm winter, just as soon as you reverse your irrational anti-Israel policies!*

Israel
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* I’m not holding my breath.