Israel isn't on Europe's side

so Europe shouldn't be on Israel's side either

Sunak Supports Israel

The BBC reports that British PM Rishi Sunak supports Israel:

Rishi Sunak has promised the UK will stand with Israel, as its leader appealed for backing for a "long war" against Hamas. Speaking after a meeting with the British PM in Jerusalem, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu said his country would need "continual support".

It comes as Israel prepares for a ground invasion into Gaza after the deadly Hamas attack on 7 October.

Mr Sunak said the Palestinian militant group represented "pure evil".

"We will stand with you in solidarity, we will stand with your people. And we also want you to win," he told reporters.

British Support for Israel

This is not the first time the British government has taken Israel's side:

Rishi Sunak has voiced “unequivocal” UK support for Israel “not just today, not just tomorrow, but always” in a lengthy statement to mark one week since Hamas militants murdered 1,300 Israeli civilians and soldiers, and took more than 150 people hostage.

In his 300-word statement, Sunak tells the Israeli people and the Jewish community in the UK that they will have his government’s unstinting, unqualified support in the face of evil, and that it will do everything in its power to address a surge in antisemitism cases over the past week.

“I know that the days and weeks ahead will continue to be very difficult. To the people of Israel, I say: Britain is with you.

Incidentally while the UK government is on Israel's side, British public opinion is not.

UK public opinion leans more towards Palestine than Israel

By 24% to 10%, more Brits sympathise with Palestine while the majority (66%) take neither side:

Sunak has lit up government buildings in the colours of the Israeli flag, including the Westminster Parliament (pictured below) and 10 Downing Street:

Since Britain's a democracy (stop laughing at the back), shouldn't the British government take a position supported by the British people?

Looking at Scotland, the Scottish parliament refused to fly the Israeli flag. Brits (and Scots) agree with the Scottish parliament on this:

Since the job of the Scottish Parliament is to reflect the will of the Scottish people, it is right and proper that they didn't light it up in Israeli colours on this occasion. (One could argue that the Scottish people should have wanted them to -- but that's a separate argument).

Is Israel on our side?

Sunak might say Britain is on Israel's side, but is Israel on our side?

To answer this cast your mind back to February last year, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Immediately, European countries gave as many weapons as they could spare to Ukraine. They also allowed 4 million Ukrainian refugees to settle in Europe. This demonstrates that (in terms of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis) Europeans see each other as all belonging to the same civilization. In terms of the ingroup/outgroup dichotomy Europeans see themselves as one big ingroup.

At the same time, Israel gave no weapons to Ukraine. They refused even to sell weapons to Ukraine. They did let in some Ukrainian refugees -- but only Jewish ones. In terms of Clash of Civilizations, Israel is a civilization isolate. Or to put it another way, their ingroup is limited to their fellow Jews -- everyone else is to be treated transactionally, for what one can get out of them.

I am not, incidentally, criticising or complaining about Israel for this -- they are perfectly entitled to draw their ingroup wherever they want. I merely think that if they draw their ingroup to exclude us (by which I mean Europeans) then we should likewise draw our ingroup to exclude Israel. That would be entirely fair (though I'm sure the Israeli government would scream "antisemitism" until they realised it wasn't working any more). More important than fairness, it would best advance European geopolitical interests.

So, if a European country is attacked, we can expect other European countries to go to their aid (especially if they have mutual defence treaty). This means that one European country is stronger and more secure if other European countries are stronger; the fact that their ingroup includes all of them makes it in each country's interest that the other countries are strong (militarily and economically). Whereas, since Israel cannot be relied upon to help a European country which has been attacked, European countries gain nothing from Israel being militarily or economically strong; therefore European countries have no interest in helping Israel.

What I talk about Europe doing things I mean though its nation states and also its main supernational body, the European Union. Of course, Britain isn't currently a member of the EU, but it is widely expected that it will rejoin, as Brexit is widely seen to have failed.

Consequences of Europe telling Israel it's on its own

I think the main consequence would be that people throughout the world would realise the EU is growing a pair of balls, that's it's not afraid of being confrontational.

It would be a signal to all the countries in the world that if they displease the EU, there may well be negative consequences for them. This will incentivise countries to be more concerned about what the EU wants and scared of displeasing it.

While the EU, with 450 million people and 20% of world GDP has great power potential, it has not manages to use that potential to get its way in the world. This can easily be seen by Russia's decision in 2022 to invade Ukraine. Putin knows full well the EU's economy is ten times the size of Russia's and that if EU was determined it could easily beat Russia, but went ahead with the invasion anyway because he calculated that Europe would be too cowardly to do anything.

(as an aside, the most important thing for Europe needs to do now has however nothing to do with Israel: it is to set up factories to mass produce weapons -- such as artillery ammunition and drones -- in vast quantities, such that Ukraine will be able to knock Russia out of the war in 2024 or 2025, and that Europe will be militarily strong, even if Trump with wins the 2024 US election, stops supporting Ukraine and leaves NATO. Having said that, anything that shows Europe is being more serious about power-politics is a step in the right direction.)

Civilisation and language

In Clash of Civilisations, Huntington states (my emphases):

Publics and statesmen are less likely to see threats emerging from people they feel they understand and can trust because of shared language, religion, values, institutions, and culture.

[...] A civilization is thus the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species. It is defined both by common objective elements, such as language, history, religion, customs, institutions, and by the subjective self-identification of people. People have levels of identity: a resident of Rome may define himself with varying degrees of intensity as a Roman, an Italian, a Catholic, a Christian, a European, a Westerner.

[...] The central elements of any culture or civilization are language and religion.

Of these factors language is the most important, for the practical reason that if two people don't share a language they can have nothing to say to each other, and the wider reason that language is the medium of transmission of culture, so two societies with the same language are bound to have similarities in their cultures.

European languages (particularly English, Spanish, French and Portuguese) are widely spoken outside Europe and it makes sense for European countries that speak those languages to cultivate links with their fellow language speakers outside Europe. These links should be cultural, diplomatic, economic and ideally military.