EU-Israel business ties have never been stronger. And while Brussels’ support for the Palestinian Authority means the political realm is fraught with often very old complications, business prospects look very healthy.
If Europe has a collective psyche, it is one that is split over Israel. As the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz wrote in January, one part views Israel as an outpost of Western civilization and supports the right to Jewish self-determination. The other sees it as an embarrassing hangover of Western colonialism, or worse, a guilty side effect of its own anti-Semitic past.
A century after the Balfour Declaration — when Britain supported the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people — and 70 years since Israel came into existence after the horrors of war in Europe — some old and some newer contradictions blight Europe’s relationship with Israel.
Take Israel’s reputation as a startup nation, for example. Tel Aviv is widely admired in Europe for its acumen, innovativeness and academic and creative exports, all stereotypical areas where Jews have excelled, in European eyes. But at the same time there has also been a surge in anti-Semitism in Europe. Some Israeli politicians, academics and diplomats, meanwhile, have accused the EU of treating Israel unfairly, but at the same time Israeli governments have hinted that an EU membership bid is a possibility.
Some see this mirrored in the inverse relationship between strengthening business ties and the EU’s deteriorating political and diplomatic links with Israel.