Lady Catherine Ashton, the EU’s top foreign policy official, has received a remarkable letter from the “European Eminent Persons Group on the Middle East Peace Process.” This self-selected collectivity might more accurately be called the “Formerly Eminent Persons Group,” inasmuch as the first word describing each one of its members is “Former,” but I suppose that these Formerly Eminent Persons do indeed also represent the views of Currently Eminent European Persons. The letter and its list of signatories are copied below. Read more »

The Teachers Union of Ireland voted last week to commence a full boycott of Israel. Read more »

The London newspaper Al Hayat carried a story on February 21 about the intentions of EU states to support Hamas participation in a Palestinian “national unity government.”

It seems that “the European boycott of the Palestinian Government formed by Hamas after winning the 2006 elections will not be repeated,”  according to someone described as a “senior European diplomat.” France and Britain want to relaunch the “peace process,” and this time “on a new basis and without preconditions.”  The diplomat is quoted as saying “today there exists an international consensus on the need for the establishment of a Palestinian State….we welcome the entry of Hamas into the PLO and the fact that it accepted the PLO charter.” Read more »

Denmark has long been regarded as one of the world’s most attractive nations, for citizens and tourists alike. My own visits there years ago as a student were delightful. And the Danes have a wonderful history of civic virtue, not least during the Holocaust. As the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum notes in a web site dedicated to “The Rescue of the Jews of Denmark,” Read more »

For understandable reasons governments in Europe and the Middle East have been focused on political developments in Egypt this week. For less defensible reasons, many governments have also been focused on Israel’s announcement that it plans to build more housing in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Read more »

Francois Hollande is not even president of France yet but France’s tough position on the Iranian nuclear program already looks weaker.

Today the former French prime minister Michel Rocard is in Tehran meeting with top officials including the foreign minister and the nuclear negotiator. As this trip comes only days after Hollande’s victory, and as Rocard is like Hollande from the Socialist Party, it is hard to believe there was zero coordination or that Rocard would have gone if Hollande had asked him not to. If that is indeed the case, let us hope M. Hollande says so, and fast. Read more »

From time to time come reminders that the disease of anti-Semitism remains deeply embedded and very widespread in Europe. Some of these are predictable, coming from the extreme right or extreme left, but once in a while comes a reminder that deserves special attention. Read more »

Lady Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign minister, is supposed to solve diplomatic crises, not create them. But her remarks about the killings at a Jewish day school in Toulouse have created a storm.

According to the Financial Times, “Speaking to a group of Palestinian children in Brussels on Monday, Lady Ashton mentioned a series of deadly incidents in which children were victims, including the shooting attack in Norway last year as well as that day’s killing of three children and one teacher in Toulouse. According to the text of the speech published on her website, Lady Ashton said: ‘When we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives.’” Read more »