Europe's new linkage is a dangerous fantasy

For many years, the foreign policy establishment in the West lived by a doctrine that became almost sacred. This doctrine was known as linkage, the idea that every issue in the Middle East, every rivalry, every conflict and every diplomatic stalemate somehow ran through Jerusalem.

For decades, diplomats, analysts, political commentators and policy makers argued that nothing in the region could progress until the Israel-Palestinian conflict was resolved. They spoke about it as though it were the master key that could unlock stability for hundreds of millions of people.

If only Israel and the Palestinians reached an agreement, they said, then extremism would decline, Arab states would modernise, Iran would become less aggressive, sectarian tensions would ease, and the region as a whole would finally find peace.

This became an elegant, almost comforting worldview, simple enough to be repeated endlessly in conferences and think tank papers. Unfortunately, it was also completely detached from reality.

Linkage survived because it was convenient

The Middle East never operated according to the expectations of Western observers. The region was not waiting for a handshake on the White House lawn to resolve its deeper political crises.

The biggest wars in the Middle East, from the Iran-Iraq War to the collapse of Syria, had nothing to do with the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Sunni-Shia divide, which drives many of the region’s most destructive dynamics, long predates the State of Israel.

The civil war in Yemen, the implosion of Lebanon, the rise of the so-called IS and the fragility of Jordan, and many others, all exist independently of anything happening between Israelis and Palestinians.

Linkage survived not because it was true, but because it was convenient. It allowed Western governments to hyperfocus on one conflict rather than confront the complexity of an entire region.

The Abraham Accords delivered the final blow to this outdated theory.

When the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan normalised relations with Israel without any resolution to our conflict, the idea of linkage collapsed under the weight of fact.

Arab states made a simple calculation and cooperation with Israel served their national interests. They were not going to postpone economic development, technological progress, security cooperation, and diplomatic opportunities in order to preserve a Western theory that had never matched their own priorities.

The Accords showed that the path to regional peace runs through strategic partnerships, shared interests, and a willingness to break with old assumptions, not through rigid diplomatic formulas invented decades earlier.

However, a new and more troubling form of linkage has begun to emerge, particularly in Europe.

Not only wrong but dangerous

As nations across the continent face rising immigration pressures and an undeniable surge in Islamist radicalisation, some European leaders have started directly linking their internal problems to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This time, instead of claiming that Middle Eastern peace depended on Israelis and Palestinians, they now claim that European stability depends on it.

They argue that unless they force the establishment a Palestinian state, Europe will continue to face unrest in its streets, radicalization in its schools, intimidation in its universities, and extremism in its mosques.

Instead of asking how Europe allowed Islamist networks and the Muslim Brotherhood to gain influence across educational institutions, social services, and religious bodies, some leaders are suggesting that safety and security in Europe depend on progress in Gaza or Ramallah.

This is not only wrong but dangerous. Europe’s social fractures were not created in Jerusalem and they will not be healed there.

The challenges Europe faces today are the result of decades of political hesitation, cultural insecurity, and a refusal to confront extremist ideas that were taking root within their own societies. The rise of the Muslim Brotherhood across Europe did not happen because of Israeli policy.

Entryism into municipal governments, schools, and civil society organisations did not occur because of a conflict in the Middle East. Islamist indoctrination did not spread because of what Israel does or doesn’t do. These trends grew because many European governments chose to ignore them, hoping they would disappear or soften over time. Instead, they hardened. They also grew more sophisticated, more ideological, and more deeply embedded.

The future of Europe's stability lies not in the Middle East

To claim now that Israel holds the key to fixing Europe’s domestic failures is not only intellectually dishonest, it is morally irresponsible.

It shifts accountability away from European governments that failed to properly integrate immigrants, failed to enforce their own laws, failed to challenge extremist preachers, and failed to protect liberal values in their own countries.

Worse, it once again casts the Jewish people in the familiar and dangerous role of scapegoat. When European leaders imply that unrest in their cities would subside if only the Jewish State behaved differently, they are saying, in effect, that Jews are responsible for the anger and violence directed at them. That is not analysis. That is political evasion.

The first version of linkage was misguided but not particularly malicious. The new version is far more sinister because it blames Jews for problems that has nothing o do with them.

It suggests that the path to European harmony lies in pressuring Israel and establishing a Palestinian terror state, rather than in fixing European policy. It excuses those who have neglected integration for decades. It excuses those who allowed extremist ideologies to flourish.

It excuses those who preferred symbolic gestures over serious reforms, and it does all this while placing the burden of Europe’s internal cohesion on the shoulders of a small country thousands of kilometres away.

Europe’s problems will not be solved in Jerusalem. They will be solved in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Stockholm, by leaders who are willing to tell the truth about what has gone wrong and what must change. Israel cannot fix Europe’s social fractures and it cannot serve as Europe’s shield against extremism.

Nor should it have to.

The time has come for Europe to abandon the illusion of linkage, old and new, and to stop using Israel as an excuse or a distraction. The future of European stability lies not in the Middle East, but in Europe’s own willingness to confront the challenges it has allowed to grow unchecked for far too long.

Ohad Tal is a member of the Knesset, and a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee.