Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 04/2015

European leverage and a new Israel-Palestine approach

Lara Friedman

December 2014

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Abstract

With their own interests challenged and growing domestic constituencies pressing for action, European leaders are asking what Europe can do to reaccredit its policies in the Israeli-Palestinian arena, notwithstanding U.S. opposition. In this context the time has come for Europe to adopt a new Middle East policy paradigm in which European leverage is identified and employed as part of a coherent effort aimed not at altering the behavior of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but at altering the political environment in which Netanyahu and his challengers on the right operate.