EU Backs Ukraine But Has Qualms About Israel. That Won’t Work.

One of the hardest things in both business and politics is to know your target market. It is seldom yourself, or even people a lot like you. In the US, business leaders and major donors have been reminding the presidents of elite universities of this over the past two weeks. Also oblivious to their target market are Europe’s political leaders — which is perhaps not surprising. In Brussels, as at Harvard, a secularized liberal elite presides over a vastly cumbersome European Union bureaucracy; after a while, they come to assume that they are their own target market. For who else is there, really?

So it has been since Hamas’ terrorist invasion of Israel on Oct. 7. The immediate response of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, was confused. The commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, tweeted that the commission would suspend all aid to the Palestinians. However, he quickly had to backtrack, as he had not consulted member states, nine of which officially recognize Palestine as a nation. Three others — Ireland, Luxembourg and Denmark — reportedly sought a reference to de-escalation in the EU’s official statement responding to the attacks. (“De-escalation,” like “proportionate response,” is one of those terms that translate as: “We’ll object to almost any retaliation on Israel’s part.”)