The Construction of EU Normative Power and the Middle East ‘Conflict’ … 16 Years on

Abstract

In this article, I revisit my 2007 piece on The Construction of EU Normative Power (NP) and the Middle East ‘conflict’ and bring in Manners' Arrival of NP in Planetary Politics' (NPA) frame to shed light on how the EU's southern neighbourhood and its social and political fragility becomes amplified by the ‘force multiplier’ of climate mitigation. For example, in 2018, Gaza sewage led to the closure of Israeli beaches and the shutdown of the desalination plant in Ashkelon, which supplies Israel with 15% of its drinking water. This is but one example of how Israel and Palestine are not only inter-dependent but, perhaps more importantly, co-dependent. This article therefore draws attention to the urgent need of thinking on the co-constitution of all life on earth, particularly in a climate-conflict scenario such as that of Israel and Palestine. Water scarcity, rising temperatures and electricity interruptions contribute to the region's instability. If policy-makers from the region and beyond are to co-ordinate policy interventions around water and food insecurity for instance, they cannot ignore intractable conflicts such as the Israeli–Palestinian issue and their ensuing implications for planetary politics. Such enduring ‘conflicts’ represent a microcosmic image of the planet as a whole. Along with the other contributions in this symposium, this piece invokes planetary politics as the space where we need – out of necessity – to think differently: Otherwise, others will be writing the script for us.