Could massive EU-US trade deal be extended to Israel?
Wednesday, April 22, 2015 at 08:32PM http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/could-massive-eu-us-trade-deal-be-extended-israel?
by David Cronin 22 April 2015 Electronic Intifada
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership has encountered stiff opposition in Europe. (Jakob Huber/Flickr)
There are many reasons to oppose the planned Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
It is designed to make capitalism the only permissible system in both the US and theEuropean Union. It is being negotiated in a secretive and anti-democratic fashion. The groundwork for it has been laid by an unholy alliance of banks and the manufacturers of cigarettes, cars and chemicals.
And it may be extended to Israel.
Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s trade commissioner, stated earlier this year that “other countries close to us could link into the agreement” after the contents of TTIP are finalized.
Israel enjoys an extremely close trading relationship with the EU. A deal approved by the European Parliament in 2012 paves the way for Israel to be integrated into the Union’s single market for goods and services.
The idea that Israel would be eligible to join TTIP is being mulled over by the cognoscenti in both Brussels and Washington.
Boon for polluters
The Centre for European Policy Studies, an EU-funded “think tank,” issued a paper last year which claimed that Israel was “keen to benefit from effective market access to TTIP.” The paper suggested that the goal of the partnership to achieve a harmonized approach to setting regulations between the EU and the US would be of particular relevance to Israel’s chemical exporters.
It is important to spell out what such “regulatory convergence” — to use the frequently impenetrable jargon of trade negotiators — would mean in practice. As things stand, the EU has more leeway than the US to take precautionary actionagainst substances deemed hazardous towards human health or the environment. A core demand of the chemical industry is that the scope to take precautionary measures should be restricted.
If policymakers capitulate to these demands, then TTIP will be a boon for polluters.
The elite appears to be taking a “not if but when” approach towards Israel’s involvement in TTIP.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace — a deceptively-named outfit partlyfinanced by the Pentagon — recommends that close attention be paid to the order in which outside states are invited to join the “partnership.” As Turkey has a customs union with the EU, it is considered logical by the denizens of think tank land that it should be integrated into TTIP.
Yet if Turkey is invited to join TTIP before Israel, then it may obstruct Israel’s involvement, according to a Carnegie analysis.
Carnegie’s urbane “experts” neglect to remind us that Israel launched an unprovokedattack against Turkey in 2010 when it murdered nine Turkish activists trying to break the siege of Gaza.
Chilling effect
The campaign group War on Want has voiced concerns over efforts by some members of the US Congress to make TTIP conditional on outlawing boycotts, divestment and sanctions aimed at Israel.
Whether or not those efforts succeed, it strikes me that TTIP could have a chilling effect on political activism.
The most contentious proposal on the a table in the TTIP talks relates to a dispute settlement mechanism. In effect, that would be a court system to which only corporations and their legal teams would have access. They would be able to sue public authorities over and demand financial compensation for laws or decisions perceived as barriers to trade.
A European government that bans the importation of goods from Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank could conceivably find itself being sued if Israel joins TTIP. Even if Israel does not join, public authorities could find themselves sued if they bar firms that abet Israeli apartheid — such as Hewlett-Packard or G4S— from applying for contracts.
I am not exaggerating. Clauses on dispute settlement in other free trade agreements have been invoked by big business to challenge progressive measures.
Veolia, the French behemoth known for building a tram network to serve Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, is contesting increases to Egypt’s minimum wage. The tobacco maker Philip Morris is suing against anti-smoking initiatives in Uruguay and Australia. The fossil fuel industry is seeking to overturn Quebec’s ban on the ecologically destructive practice of fracking.
TTIP is not a done deal. It has encountered stiff opposition in Europe. Ultimately, it could be defeated through large-scale public mobilization.
The elite’s apparent willingness to extend TTIP to the apartheid state of Israel makes that mobilization all the more necessary.
Even an Israeli settlement boycott is too little, too late
The question of punishing illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory was considered separately in Europe and Israel last week, with only superficial differences in the conclusions reached. Israel’s near half-century occupation is in no immediate danger, either at home or abroad.
Some 16 European foreign ministers sent a letter to the European Union’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini, calling for the EU to label clearly Israeli products from settlements to alert shoppers to their true provenance.
Yair Lapid, Israel’s former finance minister and widely regarded as a moderate, angrily phoned Ms Mogherini to warn that major European states were calling for a “de facto boycott of Israel”. He described the letter as “a stain” on the EU, adding that Israel’s economy could face “disaster”.
EU foreign ministers were no less persuaded of the punitive nature of their proposal. Labelling settlements goods would, they wrote, be “an important step in the full implementation of EU long-standing policy” and vital to preserving the two-state solution.
In truth, however, the letter simply continues Europe’s feeble and muddle-headed policy in the face of Israel’s intensifying efforts to entrench the occupation.
After years of internal debates, only a small majority of the 27 EU states have been able to agree on the most ineffectual measure imaginable against products made on land and using resources stolen from the occupied Palestinian population.
Labelling might give conscientious consumers useful information to target settlement goods but, in the unlikely event that a significant number of shoppers chose to act, it would barely dent Israel’s economy.
In fact, even if the EU went much further and agreed to enforce a full-fledged boycott of the settlements – something that’s not on its agenda – it would have little more than a psychological impact.
The reason is that, while on the one hand the EU ponders symbolic gestures against the settlements, it actively subsidises the very state that has been expanding the settlements for almost 50 years.
It does so both through a special trade agreement that makes Europe Israel’s largest export market, and by handing over large sums of aid annually to the Palestinian Authority, which maintains order in the occupied territories on Israel’s behalf.
The pressing need for Europe to show some backbone was underscored last week when Israel’s supreme court considered the question of boycotts.
Israeli human rights groups had petitioned the country’s highest court, long considered a lone outpost of moderation, over a controversial law passed four years ago. The law imposes heavy damages on any Israeli individual or organisation that calls for a boycott of either Israel or the settlements.
The Israeli right’s goal in passing the legislation was clear: to silence internal critics of the occupation, especially those who have backed growing international calls for Israel to face BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions). A similar campaign of isolation turned the tide against Apartheid South Africa.
However, by a narrow majority, the court backed the law. Several judges described calls for boycott as “political terror”; one said BDS stood for “bigoted, dishonest, shameful”. Observers were surprised that the court refused to make a distinction between boycotting Israel and the settlements. Effectively, the judges kosher-stamped the occupation, equating a non-violent political protest against the settlements with “terror”.
Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now observed that in doing so the court had codified Israel’s “de facto annexation” of the West Bank. In practice, the ruling will bar Israelis from showing any solidarity with Palestinians living under oppression. As the Israeli paper Haaretz noted, lobbying to stop theatre companies and musicians from performing in the large settlement of Ariel, in the heart of the West Bank, is now effectively outlawed with the court’s approval.
Uri Avnery, leader of the small Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, which for many years has called unsuccessfully on the EU to boycott settlement products, claimed at the weekend that the ruling proved the judges were simply “afraid” of the growing power of the right.
Without a supreme court prepared to back basic civil rights like free speech, the Israeli right’s hold is unchallenged. Israeli commentator Gideon Levy lamented on Sunday: “We’re about to get our most nationalist government – and there is no one to stop its laws.”
The court’s ruling only highlighted the EU’s shameful cowardice in failing to confront Israel. It is precisely as Israeli political institutions – from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to the judiciary – make common cause with the settlements that Europe needs to find its voice.
The few Israelis prepared to break out of the domestic consensus and stand up for Palestinian rights to dignity and justice need all the help they can get. Not least they need the solidarity of European governments, which should be joining them in calling for harsh – not paltry – penalties against Israel.
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