As the EU’s Economic Hold over Israel Wanes by Evelyn Gordon

...Elected politicians, whose voters expect them to produce economic growth, tend to be much less enthusiastic about economic sanctions against Israel than EU bureaucrats, who aren’t answerable to any electorate. Nevertheless, EU bureaucrats still wield a great deal of power, and they are likely to come up with more anti-Israel measures in the future. Thus over the long term, Israel’s best defense is to sharply reduce its economic dependence on Europe. And as the trade statistics with Vietnam show, Israel is making rapid strides toward doing exactly that.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analysis from Israel..
04 December '15..

The deputy prime minister of Vietnam visited Israel on Wednesday, prompting Jerusalem Post reporter Herb Keinon to delve into some fascinating trade statistics. Bilateral trade between Israel and Vietnam totaled almost $1.1 billion last year, a fivefold increase in just five years, and is now more than double Israel’s trade with Austria and four times its trade with Norway. In fact, Keinon later tweeted, Israel’s trade with Vietnam now exceeds its trade with 21 of the European Union’s 28 member states. And Vietnam is just one country; Israeli trade with other Asian countries has also burgeoned. All of which goes to show that one of Israel’s biggest Achilles’ heels – its economic dependence on an increasingly hostile Europe – is swiftly disappearing.

Taken as a whole, the EU is still Israel’s largest trading partner, but its lead has been shrinking rapidly as Israeli trade with other parts of the globe expands. Moreover, many of the European countries most hostile to Israel are among its least important trading partners. Norway, Sweden, and Ireland, for instance, would star in any list of the most hostile countries, yet each of them conducts less trade with Israel than Vietnam does. In other words, the countries that are most hostile to Israel tend to be those with relatively little ability to cause it economic harm.

Israel has long since ceased to count on Europe for diplomatic support. In international forums, many European countries reflexively back even the most outrageous anti-Israel resolutions, while even Israel’s best friends in Europe rarely do more than abstain. This past May, for instance, every EU country voted for a UN resolution declaring Israel the world’s worst violator of health rights (perhaps they think Israeli hospitals should stop treating Syrian war victims or cancer patients from Hamas-run Gaza?).

A Good Time for Israel to Stop Courting Europe, Turn to Asia

...Such diplomacy need not be an either-or scenario, but just as Washington navel-gazes and forgets that the United States and the targets of our interest are not alone in the sandbox, so, too, do Europeans forget that they are not the world’s moral barometer or the doyens of the elite club with which everyone wants favor. Not only is Southeast Asia booming as many of its countries largely abandon ruinous socialist practices and authoritarianism, but many now also face the same Islamist terror threat which Israel has been confronting for decades. There is a convergence of interests; let us hope that Israeli officials stop wasting undue energy on the Sisyphean task of pleasing European officials inclined to dislike them and recognize that such efforts might lead to greater results with a new eastern push.

Michael Rubin..
Commentary Magazine..
05 July '15..

European officials and European civil society often like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of human rights and morality. In reality, Europe has become a moral vacuum and, once again, a breeding ground for casual hate, racism, and anti-Semitism. This has become clear not only through the example of sophisticated elites like former Irish President Mary Robinson, British Labor politician Jeremy Corbyn, or Daniel Bernard, the late French ambassador to the United Kingdom, but also in the increasing European obsession with stable, democratic Israel, while countries surrounding Israel degenerate into anarchy, generate millions of refugees, promote genocide, and incite and sponsor terrorism.

A lot can be written about why so many in Europe — or, for that matter, within the Obama administration and increasingly among other Democratic stalwarts — have become so hostile to Israel and its ability to defend itself against threats ranging from Hamas, to Hezbollah, to Islamic State and Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Sinai. Perhaps it was the end of conscription in many countries which widened the divide between those with military service and understanding, and those without. Perhaps it was the insulation that developed from having outside powers guarantee security so that individual states seldom had to. Perhaps it’s the legacy of European anti-Semitism, the most virulent kind, which can no longer be masked by European smug self-righteousness. And perhaps it’s the “old Europe, new Europe” divide once described by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Poles, Czechs, and Romanians remember what it is like to live under tyranny while time has diluted “Old Europe’s” understanding of reality.

Israel has long considered itself almost a European country; the European immigration that marked early Zionism shaped that character, even if geography and immigration from Turkey, Iran, India, and the Arab world also bestowed Israel with a Middle Eastern character. Indeed, Tel Aviv is much like Alexandria and Beirut once were, and like Istanbul still is, at least for the time being: a veritable mixing grounds of east and west.

For too long, however, Israel has if not ignored Asia than put it on the backburner. Sure, there was been sporadic outreach to China, but this was both half-hearted and misguided: When it comes to the Middle East, Beijing is the ultimate realist. Immediate commercial concerns means everything, broader principle mean little if anything.

Yes, the Pivot to Asia is a Success

The pivot to Asia is a great success. Trade with China and India has risen rapidly and relations keep improving. No, not the U.S. pivot, which is imaginary. Israel’s.

Elliott Abrams..
Pressure Points..
05 December '14..



The pivot to Asia is a great success. Trade with China and India has risen rapidly and relations keep improving.

No, not the U.S. pivot, which is imaginary. Israel’s.

Consider this report in The Diplomat:

A convergence of commercial interests have led the People’s Republic of China and the State of Israel to develop an increasingly integrated bilateral economic partnership that is poised to flourish over the next decade. Bilateral trade has experienced a 200-fold increase since diplomatic ties were formally established in 1992, surging from $50 million to $10 billion in 2013, with plans to double that figure in the next few years….

Increasingly, China has turned to Israel to acquire the technology necessary to maximize agricultural output and efficiency, as well as to develop a proficient water purification and reclamation apparatus that can sustain the Middle Kingdom’s urbanization and economic expansion throughout the 21st century. As a nation that boasts 22 percent of the global population, but just seven percent of the world’s arable land, developing a sustainable agriculture sector to efficiently maximize output remains a pressing concern for China…. To address this growing concern, China and Israel signed a deal worth $300 million in 2012 to export Israeli water technology that will improve agricultural efficiency in China.

A year after Mr. Netanyahu’s [2013] visit, Chinese Vice Premier Liu Yandong made a similar trip to Jerusalem in May 2014 with nearly 400 Chinese government and business officials to forge new avenues of economic collaboration. One of the hallmarks of the trip was the signing of a bilateral agreement between Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Tsinghua University in Beijing to jointly invest $300 million to establish the XIN Center for scientific exchange and collaboration. According to officials from TAU, the center will “pursue strategic cooperation in research and teaching and serve as an international hub for scientific and technical innovation” while focusing on research and development projects in a variety of sectors including sustainable agriculture, solar power, water reclamation, and biotechnology.

First thing to notice is the numbers. But the second thing is that this isn’t a weapons sales relationship; it is more broadly based, with a special focus on agriculture.

As Israel shifts eastward

...Despite the centuries of anti-Semitism that marked most European nations and the guilt borne by them for their actions during the Holocaust, Europe, in recent years through the machinery of the European Union, has waged a constant campaign of criticism and condemnation of the policies pursued by Israeli governments, going so far as to impose economic sanction against Israel. Nothing of the sort has come Israel’s way from the Far East or India. Unlike Europe, China, Japan, and India have no history of anti-Semitism. Quite the contrary - they demonstrate admiration for the ancient Jewish civilization and Israeli achievements in science and technology, and are eager to expand cultural and economic relations with Israel.

Moshe Arens..
Haaretz..
26 May '14..

Slowly but surely Israel is pivoting toward the East. Years ago that would have been a most unexpected development. After all, most of Israel’s population originated from Europe, and most of its leadership had its roots in Europe. For many years Israel might have been considered, for better or for worse, an outpost of Europe in the Middle East. Whether Europe loved Israel or hated Israel, Europe remained Israel’s closest connection to Western civilization. But a change is taking place. Our prime minister has visited China and Japan, and it is a fair bet that he will visit India in the near future. Who knows, Korea may even be next.

On reflection this is not totally unexpected. For many years the economic development of the countries in East Asia has been outpacing the economic development of Europe. Japan made giant strides in the years after World War II. South Korea followed suit. China has become the economic wonder of the twenty-first century. There are, as well, indications of accelerated economic development in India, the world’s largest democracy. It is natural that Israel’s economic relationship with these countries would begin to rival its relationships with the countries of Europe, a Europe which seems to be in permanent economic crisis and lagging behind the Asian tigers.

But that is not the only reason for this turn to the East by Israel. Europe is the graveyard of European Jewry. They were slaughtered in the killing fields of the Soviet territories, now Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, and Ukraine, that the German army occupied during Operation Barbarossa. And they were gassed in the industrialized killing installations established on Polish soil. Almost all of Europe was involved, directly or indirectly, in the murderous scheme to exterminate the Jewish people. The French and the Dutch shipped their Jews off by railroad to Auschwitz, knowing full well the meaning of that destination.