A European takeover?

Barely were Western sanctions lifted from Iran, after it signed a nuclear deal with key Western powers, than its president, Hassan Rouhani, went shopping in Europe, namely in Italy and France, where he received red carpet treatment.

This forward-looking approach should show the Arab world what it needs to do now that the events in the region have shown the Arab Spring for what it is, a fruitless endeavour, especially with regard to the lingering Israeli occupation of most of Palestine since 1967.

French President Francois Hollande treated his Iranian guest with full state honours; he signed some 20 agreements with Rouhani.

France is also presently pushing for new negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis, a move Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected.

The Palestinians have nevertheless welcomed the recent call by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for a new peace initiative to end the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank.

If Israel fails to do so, Fabius said, France will consider recognising the Palestinian state, as the European Union had recommended.

In December 2014, the French National Assembly and Senate voted in favour of a non-binding recognition of a Palestinian state.

A prominent world leader who visited Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt a month ago was Chinese President Xi Jinping who seemed eager to build business relations with the region. The trip reportedly “paid off”.

The New York Times reported that “China is concentrating on buying and selling in the Middle East, playing Riyadh and Tehran off each other for better oil deals, leaving strenuous diplomacy to the United States”.

In Saudi Arabia, China’s biggest oil supplier, Xi visited the Yasref oil refinery, China’s largest investment in Saudi Arabia. In Egypt, where he met with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, he reportedly splashed around $1 billion in financing Egypt’s central bank and a $700 million loan to the state-owned National Bank of Egypt.

His speech before the Arab League was also reportedly filled “with loans of eye-popping sizes to Arab countries”.

But the most arresting event involving foreign leaders this week was the column by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in The New York Times, which angered the Israeli leadership.

The headline, an attention getter, was “Don’t shoot the messenger”. The article emphasises the fact that “history proves that people will always resist occupation”, which is the case in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, now home for over 500,000 illegal Israeli settlers.

His main point: “It is inconceivable… that security measures alone will stop the [Palestinian] violence. As I warned the [UN] Security Council last week, Palestinian frustration and grievances are growing under the weight of nearly a half-century of occupation. This won’t make it disappear. No one can deny that the everyday reality of occupation provokes anger and despair, which are major drivers of violence and extremism and undermine any hope of negotiated two-state solution.”

Ban said that illegal Israeli settlements “keep expanding” and the Israeli government has approved plans for over 150 new housing units in illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank, adding that “last month, 370 acres [150 hectares] in the occupied West Bank were declared ‘state land’, a status that typically leads to exclusive Israeli settler use”.

As far as the Palestinians are concerned, Ban said, they “must make political compromises to bring Gaza and the West Bank under a single, democratic governing authority according to principles laid down by their national umbrella organisation, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation”.

“We are reaching a point of no return for the two-state solution, and I am disturbed by statements from senior members of Israel’s government that the aim should be abandoned altogether,” Ban said, adding that “when heartfelt concern about shortsighted or morally damaging policies emanate from so many sources, including Israel’s closest friends, it cannot be sustainable to keep lashing out at every well-intentioned critic”.

In other words, “keeping another people under indefinite occupation undermines the security and the future of both Israelis and Palestinians”.

Much of the criticism should be aimed at the big powers that are feeding the conflict, with no intention to bring it to a just end.

The writer is a Washington-based columnist.