Spain and Israel at odds!

I thank blog poster "Anonymous 12:35" for calling this important breaking news to my attention. You can read about it in full by clicking here. The same Ehud Barak who gushed all over Javier Solana November 27 and November 28, 1995 now has been forced to cancel his planned visit to Spain. When the original Barcelona Conference was held on those two days, it was Ehud Barak who said that "at long last, Israel has joined the European club." He went on to enumerate the benefits of "belonging to the European club." He also said that they had "beaten their swords into ploughshares."

The current seven year ENP (European Neighbourhood Policy) treaty with Israel and many other countries in the "Greater European Neighbourhood" was a clarification, strengthening, and revitalization of the treaty achieved by Javier Solana when he came out of the woodwork to big time enter the world stage in November of 1995. It seems that Solana gets significant power boosts as presents just about every November. One wonders if he will be receiving them this year or if he will pass on the structures he has labored to build to a younger man such as Britain's David Miliband.

At any rate, given the news that Spain is intensely anti-Israel, it is not hard to see the potential for the upcoming six month rotating Spanish presidency of the European breaking commitments entered into earlier. The European Neighbourhood Policy contracts/treaties were up for mid term review in mid 2010. It doesn't appear, at least for the present, as though Israel has accumulated the "brownie points" to keep that European Union "kindness" flowing.

In relevant part from that which I beg you to archive and read in full, we read:

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has canceled a November 4 and 5 visit to Spain ^[1] amid a dispute over the command of the European-led United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). The visit was called off after reports surfaced ^[2] that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had secretly asked Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to keep Italy in command of the 13,000-strong UNIFIL force for six months longer than planned, instead of allowing Spain to take over.

Italian General Claudio Graziano is scheduled to turn the command over to a Spanish general in February 2010. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz ^[3] says Israeli officials want Graziano to stay on because they believe that replacing the UNIFIL commander now might further destabilize the already precarious security situation in southern Lebanon. The Spanish newspaper El País ^[4] adds that Italian officials want to retain the command because it would be beneficial to Graziano’s career.

In any case, considering that Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero leads what is arguably the most anti-Israel government in Europe, Netanyahu is probably justified in having some misgivings about a Spanish-led UNIFIL.

Indeed, the unabashedly pro-Arab, pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, and pro-Iranian Zapatero says the Middle East will be a top priority when Spain takes over the six-month rotating presidency ^[5] of the European Union in January 2010. Spanish officials now worry that a six-month delay in taking over the UNIFIL command will deprive Zapatero of a bully pulpit he believes will help him raise his profile in the region.

What next? It's all happening so very fast.

Stay tuned!

CONSTANCE