To date, Berlin and Paris have preferred to keep a low profile on the Ukrainian crisis. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is unwilling to postpone the opening of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and French President Emmanuel Macron is running for re-election in a country where pro-Russian sentiments run deep. However, US pressure on Scholz and Macron in the post-Merkel era has pushed both leaders to be more vocal and united. Will the EU's tougher stance help defuse the crisis?

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Until a couple of months ago, Germany was run by Angela Merkel, who had Putin's respect. Scholz, Merkel's successor, is not as charismatic, and has been timid and passive on the Ukraine crisis. Scholz was summoned to Washington earlier this month, where officials complained that "Scholz has switched to mute." Germany's refusal to deliver weapons to Ukraine is causing frustration in Kyiv and among NATO members. After their White House meeting, Biden and Scholz tried to show a united front. Yet Scholz refused to refrain from activating the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline should Russia invade Ukraine.

Under Merkel, by contrast, Germany was tough on Putin and acted swiftly. When Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, Merkel convinced all EU members to impose sanctions on Russia. Together with France, Germany established the so-called "Normandy format," which included Russia and Ukraine.

Back then, Europe had a seat at the negotiation table. Today, Putin talks directly with Biden, over the Europeans' heads. Putin sounded dismissive after meeting with Macron in Moscow last week, and suggested that his only real interlocutor was Biden. This is, of course, part of Russia's old practice of divide and rule when dealing with NATO. But Putin would not have ignored Merkel the way he has so far ignored Scholz.

For Putin, Scholz is a more convenient interlocutor than Merkel because he lacks her authority and gravitas and is a member of the Social Democrats (SPD). Having grown up in East Germany, Merkel had no sympathy for Russia. Further, she was also strongly Atlanticist like the rest of her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The Social Democrats, by contrast, have historically been more favorably inclined towards Russia. Since Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik in the early 1970s, the party has sometimes been dubbed Russlandversteher, or "a Russia understander." Moreover, former German chancellor Gerhard Schroder, a member of the Social Democrats, has been very sympathetic to Russia and has been on Putin's payroll for years, chairing the consortium that built Nord Stream 1 and 2.

In addition to chairing the Nord Stream projects, Schroder joined the board of Russian gas giant Gazprom. Moreover, Schroder has recently accused Ukraine of "saber-rattling."

True, Schroder is no longer chancellor, and Brandt sounds like ancient history, but concerns about Germany's new government with regard to Russia are not unfounded. Recently, the government fired Vice-Admiral Kay-Achim Schonbach, the head of the German navy, for saying that the West should show Putin respect and recruit Russia as an ally against China.

Although Schonbach was fired for his comments, he expressed a sentiment shared by many decision-makers in Germany. Indeed, the concept of Russlandversteher has been updated with that of Putinversteher – those who understand Putin.

From its refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine to its insistence on building Nord Stream 2 – that increases EU dependence on Russian natural gas and which was opposed by the United States – Germany is seen as undermining a united Western front.

Nord Stream was built under Merkel, and therefore the Social Democrats are not the only ones to blame for Europe's dependence on Russia's natural gas. The European Union could impose stricter sanctions on Russia, but Putin could close gas pipelines to the EU in response. The consequences would be unmanageable, especially in the winter, since the European Union imports about a third of its natural gas from Russia (on average, though countries like Austria and Finland import all their natural gas from Russia).

Of course, turning off the gas tap would also be costly to Gazprom, and tough Western sanctions would hurt the Russian economy. Nevertheless, Russia would be able to hold on for quite a while, thanks to $600 billion in reserves sitting in its central bank. And so far, Gazprom has made quite a lot of money thanks to the higher gas prices produced by the crisis. So it could be that maintaining the situation without war is good enough for Putin.

Germany poses a problem for the European Union with regard to natural gas because it consumes a quarter of the EU's gas supplies. Moreover, it has become more reliant on natural gas since it decided to shut nuclear plants following the Fukushima disaster.

Germany, however, is not the only reason Putin is hardly facing a united European response. France is part of the problem, too.

There is no French equivalent for the German expression Russlandversteher, but there is a French equivalent for the attitude. Indeed, former French premier François Fillon was recently added to Putin's payroll, joining the board of Sibur, Russia's petrochemicals giant.

Unlike their German counterparts, French conservatives are not unanimously Atlanticists – far from it. Fillon, who ran for president in 2017 as a Gaullist candidate, is a Russophile. Gaullist foreign policy was always about reducing French reliance on the United States. Hence, Charles de Gaulle pulled France out of NATO's military command in 1966.

During the 2003 Iraq crisis, former French president Jacques Chirac (himself a Gaullist) had criticized the governments of eastern Europe, which were about to join the European Union, for daring to show support for the United States. France had built a united front against the war in Iraq with Russia and Germany.

Macron is no Gaullist, although the Gaullist tradition inspires his foreign policy. He has hardly contributed to showing a united front vis-à-vis Russia. On the contrary, he described NATO as "brain dead" and called for "dialogue" with Russia two years ago.

Just like Chirac two decades ago, Macron has been floating the idea of a European army, something the Americans have consistently opposed as an idea that risks undermining NATO.

Macron talks somewhat confusingly about a "strategic autonomy" – a typical French way of using code language. But Eastern European countries oppose the idea as much as the United States does. Moreover, Macron's declarations and views of NATO have played into Putin's divide and rule tactics.

As Scholz was in Washington, Macron flew to Moscow and Kyiv. While Macron's efforts to defuse the crisis are genuine, his diplomacy is not unrelated to France's upcoming elections. France's presidential elections will take place in April, and Macron cannot afford to go against French public opinion, which is split, with strong Russian sympathies that transcend right and left.

The presidential candidate for the center-right, Valerie Pecresse, is a moderate conservative committed to NATO. However, other contenders with clear-cut views, both from the right and left, sympathize more with Russia than with the United States. This includes Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour on the right and Jean-Luc Melanchon on the left. All three have committed to pulling France out of NATO.

Putin knows he can count on French public opinion. Yet things are likely to look different after the elections. According to The Economist's election model, Macron has a 79% chance of re-election. If re-elected, Macron will likely get tougher on Russia, whether Putin invades Ukraine or not.

Despite all this, however, there are signs that Europe's stance on Russia may be hardening.

At the beginning of his term, five years ago, Macron tried to impress Putin by inviting him to the Palace of Versailles and establishing a personal relationship at his vacation home on the Mediterranean coast. But Putin has mostly ignored Macron. Macron has also been angered by the deployment of Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group to Mali, where French troops are under pressure.

Macron now calls Russia a "destabilizing power" for attacking former Soviet republics with hybrid attacks, thus endangering Europe's security. Macron now warns of "serious consequences" if Russia invades Ukraine. He no longer wants to be accused of being too soft or even complicit with Moscow, or of dividing the European Union and NATO. Besides the threat of economic sanctions, Macron has also deployed French troops to Romania to strengthen NATO's presence there.

On Feb. 8, the day after the Putin-Macron meeting in Moscow and the Biden-Scholz meeting in Washington, a trilateral meeting was held in Berlin of the leaders of France, Germany and Poland. The EU's two heavyweights finally showed a united front with Poland, an EU and NATO member that shares a border with Russia (the Kaliningrad exclave).

Finally, Scholz issued a strongly-worded statement on Ukraine, stating: "A further violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine is unacceptable and would lead to far-reaching consequences for Russia, politically, economically and surely strategically, too."

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This new European front and tougher talk coming out of Berlin will hopefully convince Putin to compromise on Ukraine's relations with NATO and the European Union. Europeans surely remember what happens when you let an autocrat get away with grabbing territories hoping that this bite will be the last one. And if Putin gets away with conquering Ukraine, Chinese President Xi Jinping will feel confident about taking control of Taiwan.

One possible explanation for Putin's behavior is that he is using the Ukrainian crisis, which he created, to lift the economic sanctions imposed on Russia after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. If the situation manufactured by Putin boils down to the lifting of sanctions, a compromise might be at hand.

On the other hand, if he is serious about his revisionist agenda in Eastern Europe, the crisis will likely last and even escalate.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

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This is not the only significant political change in Europe. In April, the French will go to the polls to elect their president. While Emmanuel Macron is expected to keep his job, he is no shoo-in: the maverick Éric Zemmour might defy statistics and conventional wisdom, just as Macron himself did in 2017. If re-elected, Macron will no longer need to worry about the future wrath of voters and, therefore, will likely initiate ambitious policy projects both domestically and internationally.

In other words, foreign policy changes are to be expected in 2022 and onward from the European Union's two most powerful and influential countries.

What former US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once dubbed "Old Europe" (i.e., the European Union's founding members who had opposed the war in Iraq in 2003 – Rumsfeld had France and Germany in mind) is going through major political changes. Israel must try and anticipate the most likely outcome of those changes and adapt its foreign policy accordingly.

Has Israel's European policy reached its limits?

For two reasons, 1973 marked a watershed in Israel-European Economic Community (EEC) relations. First, the Yom Kippur War and the ensuing oil embargo enabled France to gather EEC support for its Middle East policy (support for the PLO and demanding a complete Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines). And second, three countries joined the EEC (Britain, Ireland, and Denmark), with two (Britain and Ireland) supporting Arab demands.

The EEC's subsequent enlargements (to Greece in 1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986) further widened the political rift between Israel and the EEC (neither Spain nor Greece had diplomatic relations with Israel at the time).

Under Jacques Chirac's presidency (1995-2007), France redoubled its criticism of Israel and its support for Yasser Arafat, especially during the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Chirac led Europe's opposition to the United States during the 2003 Iraq war, and he castigated the governments of Eastern Europe (dubbed "the New Europe" by then-US Secretary of State Rumsfeld) for being supportive of the United States.

France's historic clout dissolved with the enlargement of the European Union (which replaced the EEC in 1992) to Eastern Europe from 2004 onward. Its ability to impose its critical views of Israel weakened.

Although the 2007 Lisbon Treaty established a High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy, the European Union (by then a club of 28 members) did not and does not have a common foreign policy. Since decisions of the EU's Foreign Affairs Council (or FAC, the common foreign policy executive body made up of EU foreign ministers) requires unanimity, Israel has in recent years been able to block hostile decisions thanks to its close ties with East European governments from the Visegrád Group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia), and Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia).

For example, some of the pro-Israel governments of Eastern Europe denied the FAC the required unanimity to condemn President Trump's decision to transfer the US embassy to Jerusalem, as well as Trump's "deal of the century" peace plan.

Israel's ability to use "divide and rule" tactics in the European Union has been boosted in recent years by a rebellious mood shared by certain member states. In addition, the 2009 financial crisis (which seemed to threaten the euro) and the 2015 refugee crisis (which flooded Europe with Syrian and other Middle East migrants and refugees) undermined the policies of monetary integration and open borders, thus increasing the popularity of Eurosceptic parties and governments.

Britain voted to leave the European Union in a 2016 referendum and officially left the club in 2020. The governments of Hungary and Poland openly challenge Brussels (without turning down its money, however).

In October 2021, for example, Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled that some articles of EU treaties were incompatible with the Polish constitution and that the latter should prevail in case of contradiction. This ruling undermines EU law and jurisprudence by the European Court of Justice. The European Commission has threatened Poland with economic sanctions for this ruling, and Poland might be denied access to €36 billion of EU funds for post-COVID-19 economic recovery.

In private conversations, EU officials often express their annoyance at Israel for torpedoing FAC decisions thanks to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. They warn Israeli diplomats that Israel must choose between Brussels and Budapest. This "warning" seems to be both disingenuous (why should Israel be asked not to play by the rules of realpolitik?) and hollow as Israel has, so far, been able to enjoy the best of two worlds in its relations with the European Union.

Yet Israel's privileged ties with Eastern Europe are reaching a crossroads. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid created a diplomatic crisis with Poland in August 2021 over a law limiting property claims by Holocaust survivors. At this point, Israel can hardly count on the Polish government in EU votes.

Moreover, two Israel allies in Central Europe have recently lost their jobs, or are about to. Czech prime minister Andrej Babis (who may not survive the recent election of October 2021), and Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who recently resigned over corruption charges (which he denies). An upcoming election in April 2022 might threaten even Viktor Orban's premiership: an unlikely coalition spanning from right to left has coalesced around a 49-year-old conservative – Peter Marki-Zay – to unseat the increasingly authoritarian Hungarian leader.

Israel's membership in the new Horizon Europe program (the EU's €95.5 billion R&D budget for 2021-2027) has recently been confirmed, and Israel is lobbying the European Union to renew the Association Council (a yearly meeting between European Union and Israel leaders inaugurated by the 1995 Association Agreement but suspended since 2012).

Publicly embracing Orban to poke the European Union in the eye would be counterproductive at this point (not that Lapid has any intention of doing so). While Israel should continue to discreetly nurture its relations with Central and Eastern European governments to block future undesirable FAC decisions, it should also consider the evolving political map in the European Union – especially in Paris and Berlin.

Macron 2.0?

Emmanuel Macron set a precedent when he was elected France's president in 2017. Besides his youth (he became president shortly before turning 40), he was elected without an established party's backing and obtained a parliamentary majority with a political movement he created from scratch shortly before the election.

Therefore, no scenario, even the most unlikely, should be ruled out for the April 2022 presidential election. That includes the prospects of Éric Zemmour, the new rock star of the French right. A long-time journalist and columnist for the conservative Le Figaro, Zemmour is a prolific writer and a talented debater who became a household name in France with his 2014 book Le Suicide Français (The French Suicide).

This political essay accuses the May 1968 left of having lost the battle but won the war by eventually imposing its politics via academia, the media and the judiciary. As of this writing, Zemmour has yet to officially throw his hat into the ring. Yet even before announcing his candidacy, polls predict that he would place second after Macron in the first round of the presidential election and face Macron in the runoff.

So far, the center-right adamantly refuses to endorse Zemmour. But were the center-right to support him in a runoff, he might win. This is still an unlikely scenario, but one that cannot be ruled out.

Zemmour defines himself as a Frenchman of Jewish religion. His wife and children are Jewish, and he occasionally attends services in an Orthodox synagogue. However, he seems to endorse the model imposed by Napoléon Bonaparte in 1807, that Jews could become full citizens by abandoning the national component of their identity and only retaining the religious one.

In other words, that French Jews could observe their religion but had to embrace the French nation. They could pray in their synagogues but had to replace Jerusalem with Paris.

Hence, Zemmour does not define himself as a Zionist (since the only nationalism he endorses is French), though he supports Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and to defend itself.

A Gaullist, Zemmour resents the United States, and advocates for French sovereignty within the European Union, though he does not support leaving the bloc. Instead, he says he would pull France out of NATO's military command (as de Gaulle did in 1966). He recently declared that de Gaulle's abandonment of Israel in 1967 might have served French interests back then, but should be reassessed today considering Israel's strategic value.

As for a second Macron presidency, it might offer new opportunities for Israel. Under Macron, the French navy has contained Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's irredentism in the Eastern Mediterranean. Macron has also maintained France's military operations against jihadists in the Sahel.

Macron's opposition to Iran's nuclear program has been consistent and firm. And he has denounced anti-Zionism as a new form of anti-Semitism. Macron could go further if re-elected.

A senior French diplomat who is very close to Macron declared off the record at a private venue in August 2021 that, if re-elected, Macron would fundamentally reverse France's traditional Gaullist approach to Israel and the Middle East. France's "Arab policy," he explained, has become outdated in light of the collapse of the Arab world, the Iranian threat, and the post-oil economy.

France's hard and soft power in the Middle East (it has both a naval base and a Louvre in Abu Dhabi) could be usefully complemented by Israel's military might and technological prowess. The same diplomat even declared that France would likely join a military operation against Iran were diplomacy to fail.

Israel would be well-advised to closely follow French politics in the coming months, invest in its ties with France, and eventually appoint an ambassador with the required language skills and cultural background to upgrade a relationship ripe for significant changes.

Germany after Merkel

The new German government is a coalition between the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Liberals (FDP).

Historically, Germany's Social Democratic party has been less faithful to NATO and the United States than the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) and Bavaria's Christian Social Union (CSU) alliance.

Social democrats are more eager than the conservatives to engage Russia. Indeed, the German language even has a word to designate politicians (mainly social democrats) willing to engage Russia: Russlandversteher – "one who understands Russia." The right incentives can help such "understanding." For example, former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder is on the Kremlin's payroll to chair the consortium that built the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which increased German and European dependency on Russia's natural gas.

The Greens' diplomatic platform raises serious concerns about the party's future influence on German foreign policy. It calls for a "feminist foreign policy," which would also be "post-colonial" and "anti-racist." The party's platform also advocates "gender analyses for individual country contexts" and "binding guidelines for a feminist foreign policy for the federal government."

On specifics, such as relations with Russia and China, the Greens and the FDP sometimes have similar stances. For example, both parties want to maintain EU sanctions against Russia. The Greens call for halting its construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, primarily for environmental reasons.

At the same time, the FDP wants a moratorium until Russia allows an independent inquiry into the attempted murder of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. The FDP, the Greens and the SPD criticize China's human-rights record and policies vis-à-vis Taiwan and Hong Kong.

How would an SPD/Green/FDP coalition impact Germany's foreign policy toward Israel and the Middle East? The Greens define the close relationship between Germany and Israel as a "central interest." The FDP wants to send "innovation ambassadors" to high-tech cities such as Tel Aviv. The SPD opposes Israeli settlements in the West Bank and deems them a "violation of international law."

The Greens explicitly express their opposition to "unilateral measures such as annexing occupied territories or the ongoing construction of settlements." At the same time, all three prospective coalition partners strongly reject anti-Zionism and the BDS movement.

For the Greens, "the existence and security of Israel" as the nation-state of the Jewish people is "non-negotiable." The SPD defines Israel's existence and security as part of Germany's raison d'être, condemning those who "reject Israel's right to exist." The SPD has supported a ban on the Hamas flag. The FDP sees in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism as a point of reference for acting against "anti-Semitic and anti-Israel business practices, such as those that occur in air travel."

Some politicians from the SPD and the Greens have expressed reservations regarding German military sales to Israel. Since Germany supplies Israel with advanced submarines and navy ships, military ties between Israel and Germany might encounter some obstacles.

At the same time, the co-chair of the Green party, Annalena Barbock, supported Israel and its right to defend its citizens during the May 2021 escalation between Israel and the Gaza Strip. She has also criticized the disproportionate condemnation of Israel at the United Nations. The FDP submitted a bill to the Bundestag in 2019 limiting the number of German votes against Israel at the United Nations, but the bill did not pass.

Germany and Israel's disagreement on the Palestinian issue will likely not be emphasized in the coming years, not least because Israel's heterogeneous coalition is avoiding controversial moves in this intractable conflict.

At the same time, Israel can and should leverage its added value on two issues dear to the upcoming German coalition: renewable energy and Internet connectivity. With the Greens in the coalition, Germany will speed up its Energiewende (energy transition) with renewable energies.

Technological innovation is a crucial factor for improving reliability and reducing the cost of renewable energies, and Israeli technology has what to offer Germany. Moreover, Israeli technology can also play a key role in upgrading Germany's relatively backward Internet connectivity.

While Israel should maintain special ties with East European governments to counter the FAC unanimity it needs to pass resolutions on the Middle East, Israel's "divide and rule" tactics may have reached their limit. Too many bridges have been burned with Poland, and the Orban era might end in Hungary. There has been a change of guard in Austria, and there may be one soon in the Czech Republic.

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By contrast, political changes are taking place, or are about to take place, in "Old Europe" (mainly France and Germany) that can be turned to Israel's advantage. If Macron is re-elected in France, he might significantly modify his country's Middle East policies and participate in a military operation against Iran. Israel will need an able ambassador with the required language skills and political knowledge to build a new partnership with France.

As for Germany, its upcoming coalition will not fundamentally alter its policy toward Israel, though it might raise some difficulties on military exports. With Germany, Israel's current government can and must leverage Israeli technological excellence to contribute to Germany's energy transition and infrastructure upgrade.

Significant political changes are occurring in Europe. Therefore, Israel's foreign policy would be well advised to take advantage of these changes by updating its reading of Europe's political map.

Featured on JNS.org, this article was first published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

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If the deal remains moot due to the Palestinians' refusal to negotiate, can Israel enjoy its territorial benefits until the Palestinians change their mind, if they ever do? The deal's 181 pages provide no answer to that question, and therefore Israel cannot act without a nod from the Trump administration. If such a nod is not given before the November 2020 election and if that election is won by a Democrat, the deal will become letter morte.

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While Israel should secure US support for the deal's partial implementation in the absence of negotiations, it must also pre-empt and mitigate the opposition of the European Union and of the United Kingdom. This must be done not only by neutralizing unanimous decisions from the EU's foreign affairs council thanks to the votes of European governments sympathetic to Israel, but also by convincing European leaders and opinion-makers that the "deal of the century" is not, in fact, inconsistent with international law and with the two-state solution.

Early European reactions to the deal provide an indication on how and where Israel should invest its diplomatic efforts. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell issued a statement in which he claimed that the Trump plan "departs from … internationally agreed parameters" and warned that Israeli annexations in the West Bank would "not pass unchallenged."

France said it welcomed President Trump's efforts, would "study" his plan, and reiterated its commitment to a two-state solution and to international law. The British government welcomed the Trump plan and called it "a serious proposal," encouraging Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate on its basis and insisting that it was for them to determine if the plan suits their aspirations and concerns. Germany was more lukewarm, welcoming, on the one hand, the plan's endorsement of a two-state solution but questioning, on the other hand, the plan's compatibility with international law. Poland said it saw in the plan a "valuable basis" for future negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, and Hungary vaguely said that it supports "all efforts" aimed at solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Thanks to the votes of Italy, Austria, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, the EU's foreign affairs council was unable to pass a resolution that was meant to criticize the Trump plan and to warn Israel not to proceed with annexations in the West Bank. Israel's "divide-and-rule" tactic among EU members was successful once again. But Israel must also influence European public opinions and decision-makers of the plan's advantages and of its consistency with international law.

Europe's leading opinion-makers and mainstream media are mostly hostile to the Trump plan. Britain offers a typical example: while the British government was forthcoming, most British newspapers are aghast. The Economist asserted that the plan "will not bring peace" and "may spell the end of the two-state solution." A Guardian columnist wrote that the deal must be rejected because it allegedly goes against "countless UN resolutions, the Oslo accords of 1993, the Arab peace initiative of 2002 and the fundamental idea that Palestinians, like Israelis, have the inalienable right to self-determination."

Israel must fence-off these arguments and hammer the following ones to European audiences.

The ultimate outcome of the Oslo accords was meant to be a "final status" but that status was not pre-determined. The accords' signatory on behalf of Israel, the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, did spell-out shortly before his assassination what this "final status" should look like: a demilitarized Palestinian state with limited sovereignty over about 70% of the West Bank (and the entire Gaza Strip), and Israeli sovereignty over united Jerusalem as well as over the Jordan valley and settlement blocs.

The "deal of the century" implements Rabin's vision, but with one major difference to the Palestinians' advantage: reciprocal territorial swaps between Israel and the Palestinian state (something Rabin would never have dreamed of, let alone approved). Israel shall annex about 30% of the West Bank, and the Palestinian state shall annex a territory similar in size within pre-1967 Israel (in the Judean desert, in the Negev at the border with Egypt, and north of the West Bank) so that the territory of the Palestinian state "encompasses territory reasonably comparable in size to the territory of the West Bank and Gaza pre-1967" (page 12). The plan guarantees the contiguity of the Palestinian state within the West Bank (via bridges and tunnels) and between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (via a tunnel).

Hence does the Trump plan fulfil the requirements of Security Council resolution 2334, adopted in December 2016 during the Obama administration's last days. While President Trump had denounced this resolution (as did many US lawmakers), his plan abides by it. UNSC 2334 constituted a setback for Israel because it does "not recognize any changes to June 4, 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations."

Since the Palestinians do not agree to changes to the 1967 lines without land swaps, UNSC 2334 in effect denies Israel the territorial gains that were possible under the more flexible Security Council resolution 242 (which did not require from Israel to withdraw to those lines). By including land swaps of similar sizes, the plan is consistent with UNSC 2334. As for other "countless UN resolutions," adopted by the General Assembly, they are non-binding and they lack moral authority since they passed thanks to a political "automatic majority" of autocracies that trample the rule of law and whose human rights record is dismal.

Finally, the plan does not deny the Palestinians' right to self-determination. It sticks to the two-state solution and aims at achieving "mutual recognition of the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and the State of Palestine as the nation-state of the Palestinian people, in each case with equal civil rights for all citizens within each state." That state shall be demilitarized, and its sovereignty shall be limited so as not to endanger Israel's security. On the other hand, the Palestinian state will be lavished with a $50 billion "Marshall Plan" to build its infrastructure and boost its economy. The US is offering the Palestinians the deal offered to the Germans and the Japanese after World War Two: trade your destructive ideology for economic prowess.

This destructive ideology feeds policies incompatible with peace: the payment of salaries to families of terrorists, the demonization of Jews in schoolbooks and in the media and feeding the illusion that the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees have a "right of return" to Israel. The Trump plan sets the historical record straight by reminding that the 1948 war produced both Arab and Jewish refugees (in similar numbers), that UNRWA keeps alive the refugee problem instead of solving it by integrating them in their host countries.

The plan provides a strong argument for maintaining Jerusalem united under Israel's sovereignty: only Israel (unlike Jordan before 1967) has guaranteed religious freedom and the preservation of all religious sites in the old city. Precisely because the plan recognizes the city's importance to the three monotheistic religions, in insists on maintaining it under the sovereignty of the region's only country that respects religious freedom and the rule of law. At the same time, the city's neighborhoods outside the security fence shall be under Palestinian sovereignty and constitute the capital of the Palestinian state.

The Palestinians have already rejected the plan outright even before seeing it, thus being consistent with their rejectionist position since partition was first proposed in 1937. If the Palestinians persist in rejecting negotiations, Israel will likely proceed with annexations that the EU opposes. The only way for Europe to stop that is by convincing the Palestinians to negotiate with Israel an imperfect deal that would give them a demilitarized state on a territory similar in size to the pre-1967 West Bank and Gaza Strip and whose economy will be rebuilt and boosted by a $50 billion investment.

This article was originally published by the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

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Many people want to adopt the presidential system, under the assumption that it is more effective and efficient than a parliamentary one. That is incorrect. A president who loses his or her parliamentary majority, which often happens in the US and less often in France, is paralyzed and cannot implement his policies. Whereas in presidential regimes in which lawmakers are elected based on proportional representation, as in most South American countries, the president must receive the support of several parties to promote legislation and implement policy.

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The three times when Israel elected its prime minister in a direct election, there might have been a clear decision, but nothing improved in terms of governability. The opposite – the double ballot, one for a party, and other for prime minister, revoked the incentive to vote for one of the two big parties, and thereby increased the rifts in the Knesset and the prime minister's dependence on his coalition partners. When Ehud Barak lost his coalition in 2000, he was left unable to govern. The fact that he was elected directly became irrelevant.

Another proposal is to adopt regional elections, which tend to create two big parties and wipe out sectoral parties almost entirely, thus allowing the prime minister to depend on his own party and releasing him from coalition pressures. Other than that portrayal of the system being incorrect (in Britain, the prime minister sometimes needs a coalition, like David Cameron in 2010 and Theresa May in 2017), so the limitations of the regional system are greater than its strong points – especially in a divided society like Israel.

Because the regional system keeps entire sectors from being represented, because only representatives of districts that receive the largest numbers of votes are elected to parliament, it increases social tension and encourages radical moves. The yellow vest movement in France, for example, took to the streets and shut down the country because – among other reasons – they had marginal if any representation in Parliament, which is controlled by French President Emmanuel Macron's party. In addition, excluding large sectors, some of them extremist, from parliament, spurs them on to "occupy" one of the two big parties and radicalize its members.

This phenomenon is growing stronger in recent years in countries like the US and Britain. In Britain, the Conservative Party is controlled by supporters of Brexit, who were once considered an extremist minority, and is has lost classic Conservatives, such as the grandson of former prime minister Winston Churchill. The Labour Party, which moved to the Center and in effect ceased to be socialist under former prime minister Tony Blair, was taken over by radical Marxists. In the US, meanwhile, most of the Democratic candidates for president espouse ideas that used to be outside the consensus, while the Republican Party is under unprecedented influence by Evangelical Christians and opponents of free trade.

In Israel, a system in which representation is proportional to votes is vital to offer all sectors fair representation and ensure peace. The system does tend to give little parties "extortionate" power, but on the other hand, it also creates checks and balances against the prime minister. It is by no means a perfect system, but the attempt to improve it by raising the minimum electoral threshold turned out to be a mistake because reducing the number of parties through a higher minimum threshold actually increased the power of mid-sized parties to extort. This happened because the more parties we have, thanks to a small or nonexistent minimum threshold, the more coalition options the prime minister has, which makes him or her less vulnerable to political extortion.

The Israeli electoral system is not flawless, and it sometimes creates a political mess. But instituting more reforms that could become part of the good intentions that pave the way to hell is not the way to overcome the current crisis.

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It is difficult to discern a clear criterion in Rivlin's boycott policy. Even readers of Haaretz will find it difficult to understand when it is permissible to sacrifice your values and principles for the good of realist political considerations. An agreement signed between Israel and Turkey in June 2016 that ended a six-year rift over Israel's May 2010 interception of a Turkish flotilla that was trying to breach Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip was described as "necessary" by Haaretz journalist Zvi Bar'el. Netanyahu's decision to approve the reconciliation deal was "brave" and "the right thing to do" according to Channel 10 correspondent Barak Ravid, this despite the fact that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an anti-Semitic tyrant.

So why is it that these considerations are invalid when it comes to Italy?

There is no country in the world whose foreign policy is based strictly on moral considerations. The question is: Do ties with "rebel" governments in Europe serve Israel's interests? The answer, to a certain extent, is yes.

The 2008 economic collapse coupled with the 2011 Arab Spring spawned a financial crisis in Europe, waves of refugees and terrorist attacks from the Islamic State. Millions of people blame the European Union for the loss of jobs and control over their national borders. Hence the growing popularity and number of political parties that demand responsibility for determining economic and immigration policies be restored to the national government – see the governments of Poland, Hungary, Austria, Italy and Greece, the Alternative for Germany party, the leader of France's National Front party Marine Le Pen and lest we forget, Brexit.

They all admire Israel and what it represents: a proud nation-state with a traditional society and a thriving economy that defends its borders, fights terrorism and even riles the European Commission. Thanks to friendly ties with Eastern European countries, Israel has succeeded in breaking the consensus in Brussels. Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania blocked an EU resolution condemning the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As for Iran, the Visegrad Group, which includes the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, makes it difficult for the European Commission to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Tehran. Recently, Israel signed a memorandum of understanding with Cyprus, Greece and Italy to build an underground pipeline to export natural gas to the EU.

The special relations with these "rebel" EU states serve Israel's national interest, because they allow Jerusalem to implement a policy of "divide and conquer" on issues such as Jerusalem and Iran and help promote the export of natural gas to Europe despite opposition among some on the continent to the idea.

On the other hand, Israel has no interest in breaking up the EU, a senior commercial partner with whom it has a free trade agreement, and seeing the widespread proliferation of nationalist parties and governments that tend to oppose free trade and identify with Putin's Russia.

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