I’m not suggesting that the two countries have decided to join forces against the European Union. As things stand, I doubt Iran and Israel can see eye to eye on any cause.
But the unfolding conflict in the Middle East may soon make Europe see the two countries as accomplices. As a result of Iran’s continuing aggression against Israel, both direct and by proxy, a new refugee crisis beckons, and the EU is ill-equipped to handle it.
As it is, the ideological attempt to create a bloated pan-European Leviathan is failing – and largely because of the fallout from an explosion of Muslim immigration. For all the fiery speeches, the EU is constitutionally and philosophically incapable of solving this problem.
Europeans have learned to shrug with indifference when observing the steady empowerment of the EU. Most members are net recipients of EU funding, and few people will reject handouts on a matter of principle. Some nod their agreement at tirades about compromised national sovereignty, but the masses are quite complacent about that sort of thing.
Comparing, say, France with pre-Brexit Britain, one detects a similar demographic breakdown. The intelligentsia are predominantly pro-EU and the common folk are just as predominantly anti. Yet one detects little appetite in France or elsewhere in Europe for actually leaving the EU, as opposed to making it less bossy and meddling.
Should France get a referendum similar to ours in 2016, it’s hard to tell which way it would go. But this is futile speculation because the French upper classes will block any such development, and they have more power in their country than their British counterparts have in theirs.
One would think the EU should therefore be quite secure and so it would be – but for one nagging issue: porous borders and the ensuing influx of Muslim immigration.
That influx is threatening to flood the political mainstream in Europe, sweeping away the pro-EU sentiments residing therein. Because – and let me make perfectly clear that, as founder and chairman of the Charles Martel Society for Multiculturalism, I deplore such attitudes – Europeans don’t mind a bit of diversity, but they dislike too much of it.
When they see their neighbourhoods overrun with people who talk funny, dress eccentrically and behave oddly, they begin to complain first, rebel second. That gives an open goal to the big hitters on the national-populist fringe, and they are beginning to score heavily.
Just the other day the Austrian Freedom Party ran away with the national elections, and its parteigenossen from other countries have either done the same already or are threatening to do so in the future. Another million or so arrivals from the Middle East may well tip the balance in their favour.
As it is, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Geert Wilders in Holland, Viktor Orbán in Hungary are already in charge, while the National Rally in France and AfD in Germany are close to electoral victories. Even in the Anglophone countries close to my heart, Britain and the US, unchecked immigration is a key electoral issue for nationalist candidates.
Those European parties that run the anti-immigration issue up their flagpole aren’t the best friends of the EU. The idea of a single European state governed out of Brussels by grey-faced bureaucrats goes against the grain of nationalism or even patriotism. For the sake of consistency if nothing else, the nationalist parties must make anti-EU noises to the point of disavowing that organisation.
Hungary and Poland lead the way, but Holland and Italy aren’t far behind – for now. However, the situation is changing by the day. Up to a million Lebanese have already been displaced by the on-going conflict, and most of them are fleeing to Syria.
Something tells me they don’t see Syria as their final destination. In fact, they are certain to take the path to Europe well-trodden by millions of others. Nor is it the only path: Turkey is another popular stopover on the way to France or Germany.
Why can’t Saudi Arabia or the UAE take them, you may ask? Aren’t Muslims duty-bound to offer hospitality to their brethren in distress? They are but they don’t. One detects no willingness on the part of the rich Islamic states to open their doors to immigrants from Lebanon, Syria, North Africa and Gaza.
They haven’t forgotten what such hospitality did to Lebanon in 1975-1990, when a beautiful and westernised Middle Eastern country was turned into smouldering ruins by the Civil War caused by Palestinian immigrants. If there is one thing the Saudi and Gulf Arabs cherish as much as money, it’s social tranquillity. They obviously know something Europeans don’t.
So far the EU has tried to curtail the influx by bribing the governments of Turkey and Syria to limit the outflow. That has kept the numbers of new arrivals down to millions, as opposed to tens of millions. Yet even that has proved too heavy a burden for Europe’s fragile finances to bear.
Neither Turkey nor Syria is among Israel’s best friends. Europe is, or at least pretends to be. That stance may make those two countries reluctant to offer the EU a helping hand at its time of need. Hence a new migrant crisis looms large over Europe, with unpredictable consequences.
Much as I despise the EU and the ideology behind it, I’m not going to gloat over its misfortune. Its financial troubles – and France has just announced a deficit spinning out of control – affect us as well, what with the growing economic globalisation.
But what I really dread is a Europe of countries run by nationalists of various political hues. Nationalism by definition presupposes not only the love of one’s own country but also hostility to those of a less fortunate nativity.
A Europe run by national-populist parties will become a powder keg, and the conflict between Israel and Iran threatens to hoist such parties to power. By this, I certainly don’t mean to imply that Iran and Israel are equally complicit in creating this fraught situation.
Iran is the indisputable aggressor, while Israel is fighting for her survival. Yet both an anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic animus is strong if still largely dormant in Europe. Most anti-Semitic outrages there are committed by refugees from Muslim countries or their children.
However, most nationalist parties in Europe have anti-Semitic antecedents. Some have tried to live that heritage down, but the sentiments thrive at the grassroots. That’s why, as such parties gain more power, their countries may well turn against Israel. I don’t know how soon or how strongly, but such a development is likely.
Meanwhile, the refugee crisis continues to fester in Europe, and it’s threatening to blow it apart. I’ll be on hand to tell when that happens, but you’ll probably know it without my help.