Donald Trump advances a ceasefire framework between Russia and Ukraine, presented as Europe restoring "peace" and "sovereignty". According to draft terms, it would freeze Russian gains, cap Kyiv's forces and bar Ukraine from NATO. The deal is pitched as stability - enforced by the threat of cutting Ukraine's aid.
For anyone living on the world's fault lines, the pattern is familiar. In 1994, Ukraine surrendered the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal under the Budapest Memorandum - a deal offering no binding guarantees, only political "assurances" that borders would be respected and UN action sought if attacked. Those assurances vanished when needed. The mistake was not legal but conceptual: Kyiv trusted promises the guarantors never intended to enforce with power.
What is coming repeats the structure in reverse. Then, Ukraine gave up irreversible capabilities for paper. Now it is asked to give up irreversible territory for more paper. And despite Western talk of "creative" arrangements, nothing creative is proposed - not even a strategic swap like recognising Crimea in return for a neutralised, demilitarised Kaliningrad under international supervision. Such a model acknowledges reality: Crimea is central to Russian identity, while Kaliningrad is a militarised relic whose neutralisation would remove a NATO-Russia flashpoint. Lack of imagination is the point: borders are negotiable only when concessions come from the state under attack. Those who live beside them will absorb the cost.
Europe's rhetoric makes the irony unavoidable. For two years, Brussels has invoked Ukraine's "territorial integrity" as a creed, finding its voice when Moscow was the violator - 19 sanctions packages. Yet the same Europe has avoided that voice for decades when the violator is Ankara.
Cyprus, an EU member state, remains Europe's open wound: its capital divided, 37% of its territory under Turkish occupation, tens of thousands of troops on EU soil and Turkish drones launched from Geçitkale across Eastern Mediterranean routes vital to Jerusalem and Nicosia alike. Europe's answer has been ritual "concern" and dialogue - even though Article 42(7), the EU's mutual-defence clause, was written for exactly this scenario and has never been invoked.
The irony is stark. Europe shows urgency over Crimea and Donbas - territories where it owes no legal duty - while hesitating to act for Cyprus, the only place where its obligations are explicit and unmet. The reason is hierarchy: Russia is punished because it is distant; Turkey is indulged because it sits inside the system and extracts concessions. Moscow coerces; Ankara shapes. Europe denounces Russia's annexation of Crimea while treating the occupation of its own member state as a logistical nuisance.
For Israel, this is not academic. The Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus is a forward operating zone for Turkish power and hostile networks - armed UAVs, missiles, intelligence and financial pipelines enabling Hamas and Iran to operate. Cyprus is part of Israel's security architecture: gas platforms, undersea cables, air corridors, naval routes and the evacuation channels used in the 12-Day War with Iran. Europe's unwillingness to defend a member state is a warning Israel cannot ignore.
That warning is reinforced by European openness to the emerging Trump framework: a ceasefire entrenching Russian control in return for pledges of non-aggression and demilitarised buffers. The same capitals that swore "never again Munich" - the logic of appeasing an expansionist power hoping concessions would buy restraint - now show similar softness toward Ankara, whose occupation of EU territory and leverage within the union elicit caution, not resolve. They oppose recognition of Russian annexations yet prepare their publics for "realistic" adjustments.
Israel has confronted the limits of Western solidarity. On October 7, the world rediscovered sympathy for a wounded democracy; the West stood with Israel. Weeks later, that sympathy collided with the reality of self-defence - and support shifted to hesitation, threats of sanctions and diplomatic pressure. Israel absorbed the turn because it never based its survival on applause.
That moment exposed the difference between Israel and Ukraine. Ukraine entered this war believing neutrality would bring protection. When war came, it fought - but with its economy funded abroad, its air defence dependent on NATO stockpiles and its strategy constrained by Western parliaments.
Israel assumed from birth that no one would fight for it. It built indigenous missile defence, sovereign intelligence, cyber capability, industrial deterrence and doctrines designed to withstand shock while allies debate. When threatened with sanctions, Israel engaged diplomatically but did not bend to economic pressure. That is not arrogance; it is adulthood - the outlook of a sovereign edge state.
Israel learned early what others grasp only in crisis: alliances hesitate, treaties bend and moral clarity abroad rarely survives politics at home. That is why it builds the guarantee that endures - power deployable on day one, without permission.
Europe now confronts the cost of ignoring this truth. It sanctions Russian energy while deepening dependence on TurkStream; warns of Russian nuclear coercion while hosting a Rosatom reactor in Turkey; arms Ukraine while absorbing Turkish drones - including models flown from occupied Cyprus.
A Europe that cannot defend Cyprus yet lectures Israel - that sanctions Moscow while courting Ankara and leans toward a ceasefire locking in Russian gains - should not be surprised if Jerusalem listens politely, smiles thinly and concludes.
From the coming Russia-Ukraine deal, Israel sees no new architecture but a familiar pattern: major powers designing calm for themselves while expecting frontier nations to live with permanent insecurity. Ukrainians are told to accept a "realistic" map; Cypriots to accept partition as "pragmatic"; Israelis to accept vulnerability as "restraint". And when the next shock comes - in the Baltic, Eastern Mediterranean or Red Sea - those same capitals will rediscover the language of sovereignty.
Budapest showed what happens when a state trades capability for signatures; the coming deal shows what happens when it is asked to trade territory for the same. Israel will accept neither. Better controversy than dependence; better deterrence than approval; better sovereign footing than survival outsourced to goodwill.
Even Europe may thank those who learned that lesson early.
Shay Gal is an expert in international politics, crisis management and strategic communications. He works globally, focusing on power relations, geopolitical strategy and public diplomacy, and their impact on policy and decision-making.
