European scolding of Israel stems from cognitive dissonance, ex-Dutch FM says

Israel’s image as a democratic state bound by law but which also occupies the West Bank is to blame for at least some of Europe’s criticism of Jerusalem, a former Dutch foreign minister said.

Uri Rosenthal, who served as the Netherlands’ top diplomat from October 2010 until November 2012, told The Times of Israel it was that cognitive dissonance, coupled with an impression made by Israel’s leaders that the continent is irrelevant, that led to the overly harsh criticism.

He also accused the United Nations of employing “needlessly inflammatory language” against Israel.

“I wouldn’t say that Israel is being cornered. But Israel is on the defensive,” he said in an interview, regarding the European Union’s stance toward the Middle East conflict. Israel is seen as a “showpiece for the region,” being the Middle East’s only true democracy that values law and order and has a free press and a strong economy. However, he added, there are “some obstacles” to this view of Israel — the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

He insisted, though, that most Europeans are not intrinsically hostile toward Israel.

“The general understanding of international law is that these settlements are illegal and to put settlers there is not particularly helpful to clearing the situation,” Rosenthal told The Times of Israel in Jerusalem Tuesday. “When European politicians are talking about Israel they are talking about a country which meets the standards in many ways,” he continued.

“And then there is kind of demarcated issue that actually makes for a somber curtain over this bright perspective.” However, he added that European visitors to Israel always return with positive impressions of the country. “So a sort of intrinsic antipathy towards Israel, I don’t see it.”

During his term as foreign minister, Rosenthal, who is Jewish and is married to an Israeli, was known as one of Jerusalem’s closest friends on the international arena. “The Dutch government doesn’t appreciate Israel bashing and Israel bashing shouldn’t be acceptable to anyone,” he said in 2010.

On the other hand, he said, Jerusalem could and should do more to actively counteract European anti-Israel sentiments. One of the problems is that Israeli leaders too often focus their attention and admiration on America and marginalize the Old World, he lamented.

“It doesn’t help when — quite understandably, in a way — Israeli leaders create the impression that actually they are only interested in what’s going on in the United States,” he said. Israelis students will, “in an automatic reflex” always prefer an American university for studies abroad, and often are “quite dismissive about Europe,” he said. “It would be of great help if from the Israeli side the leadership would avoid the impression that Europe is actually irrelevant.”

While defensive about the EU’s alleged anti-Israel bias, Rosenthal stated unequivocally that such accusations are correct regarding the United Nations.

“With regards, for instance, to the [UN] Human Rights Council — it’s of course a very bad thing, you don’t need to use many words for it,” said Rosenthal, who taught political science and public administration in Dutch universities before entering politics. “I’ve said often that on the UN level Israel was actually being cornered, always being driven into a corner, bashed with needlessly inflammatory languages in the resolutions, and with a disproportionate amount of resolutions.”

On Monday, the UN General Assembly in New York underscored Rosenthal’s point: Evoking strong denunciations from pro-Israel groups, the GA adopted a whole host of resolutions, all with an overwhelming majority, that harshly criticized Israel, including one that demanded Israel immediately withdraw from the Golan Heights and return the area to Syria.

“The UN’s drumbeat of excessive, disproportionate and one-sided condemnations of Israel causes polarization, threatens to push the parties further apart, and is counterproductive to the already fragile peace process,” said Hillel Neuer, the executive director of watchdog group UN Watch. “The UN’s lopsided adoption of an expected 21 resolutions on Israel, and only four on the rest of the world combined, eclipses the plight of millions of human rights victims in places like China, Russia, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia, whose critical issues are being treated with indifference, and — given the UN’s recent election of those countries to its Human Rights Council — with contempt.”

Then-foreign minister of the Netherlands Uri Rosenthal visits Yad Vashem, Feb 9 2011. (photo credit: Isaac Harari/Flash90)

Rosenthal, the son of Holocaust survivors and a frequent visitor to Israel — he has family in Haifa and Ashkelon — doesn’t really like to discuss his religious affiliation. “I’m not thinking 24/7 that I’m from a Jewish background,” Rosenthal told Haaretz three years ago. “I’m at ease with my Jewish background. I’m not religious at all already from a very young age, though my parents kept some mitzvoth.”

Rosenthal came to Israel this week as a guest of Irgoen Olei Holland, an organization of Durch immigrants to Israel; the Leiden University Alumni in Israel; the Dutch embassy and the Center for Research for on the History of Dutch Jewry. He delivered the annual Cleveringa lecture, which was named after Dutch academic Rudolph Cleveringa, who famously spoke out for his Jewish colleagues during the Nazi period.