Guardian Unlimited: Brussels needs to break with Washington - by John Palmer

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Brussels needs to break with Washington - by John Palmer

As the world holds its breath in the aftermath of the ceasefire in Lebanon the international community must mobilise every available resource to ensure that the atrocities of the past month are never again visited on the innocent peoples of the region. First and foremost it is time for the European Union to take stock on what responsibilities it must shoulder in the coming weeks to create an unstoppable momentum behind a negotiated peace settlement not only of the war in Lebanon but also in the Israeli Palestinian crisis. The time has come for the EU to declare openly its independence from Washington in foreign policy, above all in the Middle East.

But the EU will only be able to play a coherent and effective lead role if - first and foremost - it is honest about the chasm that separates the views of most European states and peoples and those of the Bush administration. That there have been, and still are, profound differences of approach on the wider Middle East situation between the European Union and the United States is hardly a secret. But EU leaders are still reluctant to speak openly and honestly about the extent of the divisions across the Atlantic on foreign and security policy.

For a start the EU might try to get to the bottom of the reports that the Israelis got prior clearance from Washington for a war against Hizbullah as far back as the spring. Already there are commentators in the Israeli media blaming President Bush personally for pushing the Olmert government into a militarily doomed and politically disastrous attempt to obliterate Hizbullah in predominantly Shia southern Lebanon. There is also an increasingly lively debate in the US foreign policy community about the extent to which the US has abandoned a truly independent strategy in the Middle East in favour of an ideologically conceived support for whatever the (partly Christian fundamentalist-led) pro-Israeli lobby canvasses at any time. The tensions that this issue is generating between the US State Department and the rest of the Bush administration are increasingly evident.