The Guardian view on the EU and Israel: moving beyond mere exhortation | Editorial

7 June

The newspaper speaks of a man in a distant land who brushes aside the concerns of other men in other offices. They say a “tougher approach” is overdue. I read this and set the paper down, and I find myself staring not at the words, but at the space between them.

The problem is always framed as one of power: one man has too much, and other men must summon more. But I must confess, I do not understand the arithmetic. The man in the distant land, this Netanyahu, has no army of his own that is not composed of citizens. He has no treasury that is not filled by taxes. His authority to “brush aside” concerns is a grant, a permission slip signed by millions every day with their obedience. The editors call for a “tougher approach” from Brussels, as if the solution to a man who ignores exhortations is a louder exhortation from a different set of officials. Why would he listen to them, when he does not listen to his own people? And why do his own people allow it?

The truly puzzling thing is the chain of delegation. The people of Europe, through a long and sleepy process, grant authority to Brussels. Brussels expresses concern to Netanyahu. He ignores it. And the proposed remedy is for the people of Europe to grant their officials… what? A sterner tone? A sharper pen? It is as if we are all watching a play where the actors have forgotten the audience holds the key to the theater door. We complain about the performance but remain in our seats, waiting for a different actor to deliver the lines more forcefully. The habit of looking upward for the solution is the very habit that creates the problem. We have forgotten that the power to be brushed aside is a power we bestowed in the first place. Why do we keep giving it?

The more they push, the more he resists. This is the way of hard things. The European ministers speak stern words, as if the weight of their rhetoric could bend a man like Netanyahu, who has built his power on defiance. They do not see that their pressure becomes his justification.

I watch from the quiet of my hut, where the river does not argue with the rocks but finds its way around them. When the EU demands, Netanyahu hardens. When they threaten, he gathers his people closer to him, for nothing unites like an outside force pressing in.

The solution is not in stronger words but in the absence of words. Let the pressure come not from their voices but from the silence they leave. Let them withdraw their support so quietly that Netanyahu does not notice until he is standing alone. The empty space is more powerful than the filled one.

They think they must act. But the deepest action is sometimes to cease acting. Let the situation breathe. Let Netanyahu face the consequences of his own choices without the distraction of European scolding. The river does not shout at the mountain - it simply flows until the mountain is an island.

The harder they push, the more they strengthen what they seek to weaken. This is the way of all things.

The Commission’s exhortations to Mr. Netanyahu are like a small pump attempting to divert a river. I observe the force of the water: it follows the channel carved by its own momentum and the shape of the land. A pump, no matter how well designed, cannot alter the course unless it is of a scale commensurate with the flow itself. The declarations from Brussels are pressure applied at a single point in a vast hydraulic system; the pressure dissipates, the volume of water continues along its established path.

This is a problem of leverage. In a cantilever, the load must be supported at the fulcrum. If the fulcrum is too distant from the point of application, the arm will fail. The fulcrum here is not words, but material consequence. What is the precise mechanism of consequence? I have not yet determined whether the Union possesses a lever of sufficient length and strength, or if its constituent members are themselves a series of smaller levers pulling in opposing directions, canceling out the net force.

The question within the question: does the structure of the Union, with its many chambers and required unanimities for action, inherently produce a system of exhortation rather than directive force? Like a complex gear train where one small, stuck cog prevents the transfer of motion to the larger wheel. I must study the gear ratios. How many turns of the smaller ‘member state’ gear are required to produce one full revolution of the ‘Union action’ gear? The answer likely lies in the design itself.

I leave this unresolved: is the ‘democratic deficit’ often discussed not a deficit of voice, but a deficit of mechanical advantage? A system designed for gradual, consensual motion cannot suddenly generate the torque required to arrest a momentum of such magnitude. The engineering challenge is profound.