So Greece has secured its third multi-billion Euro bailout in five years (this time, it should get 86 billion Euros over three years). But the conditions imposed on Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, by his country’s creditors will have to be approved by the Greek parliament before July 15. Mr. Tsipras ended up agreeing to everything he once swore to oppose. The risk of being expelled from the euro and of becoming a failed state seems to have taken over his mind. The cost of a “Grexit” undoubtedly was the focus of European leaders as well: a Greek default would have cost European governments and the European Central Bank 340 billion euros (over 3% of the eurozone’s GDP), i.e. far more than what it cost them to keep Greece afloat.

Mr. Tsipras has agreed to harsher conditions than the ones against which he successfully campaigned in January 2015. As for the July 5th referendum, it rejected a more lenient deal than the one imposed on Greece this week. Under the new and harsher deal Greece will have to raise the retirement age, put an end to professional privileges, privatize its electricity market, and liberalize its trading rules, its labor market, and its banking system – all this under the leadership of a diehard Marxist.

In effect, Greece is now under the economic trusteeship of the European Commission (EC), of the European Central Bank (ECB), and of the International Monetary Fund (the so-called “Troika”). Unlike the nuclear deal with Iran, the financial deal with Greece will grant access, without prior notice, to suspicious “sites:” the “Troika” will closely monitor the Greek government’s policy, which will have to include the repealing of any legislation passed under Mr. Tsipras’ government that violates the conditions of previous bailout agreements; the “de-politicization” of Greece’s civil service; the reform of its judicial system; and the deposit of what is left of the country’s assets into an independent fund as collateral.

The result of the Greek referendum proved meaningless because Greece is bankrupt (its debt amounts to 180% of its GDP). Popular will should be honored, but so should debts. Greek voters are entitled to express their opinion, but so are the European taxpayers who have been asked, time and again, to bailout an overspending and untrustworthy government. Mr. Tsipras bowed to the “Troika” after realizing that he had a choice between honoring his electoral commitments and having his country expelled from the euro. His government may not last: a rebellion is already brewing within his far-left Syriza party, and his parliamentary majority is fizzling. He will probably have to form a different coalition or call a snap election. Then again, the “Troika” might just impose a government of technocrats to implement the reforms which Greece is no longer allowed to push off.

The deal with Greece is not a done thing yet, as it must be approved by the Bundestag and other European parliaments. If concluded, the deal will probably and hopefully signal the end of Greece’s fiscal irresponsibility, economic cronyism, and voodoo accounting. This in itself will constitute an achievement and might salvage the euro. Eventually, however, eurozone governments will have to address the contradiction between monetary union and fiscal autonomy. If it takes a Greek tragedy and bailouts worth billions to enforce rules that were agreed upon two decades ago, the time might have come to set up a common fiscal government for eurozone members.

In August 2012, an inter-ministerial committee published recommendations (the Zemah Report) about Israel’s natural gas policy. The report’s conclusions were based, inter alia, on the testimony and recommendations of dozens of NGOs, corporations and government agencies.

The Zemah Report insisted that “the rationale for setting a clear government policy as quickly as possible is to create certainty for lease holders and licensees and to provide an incentive for them to develop the gas fields, so as to ensure the supply of gas required for domestic market obligations.” Claiming that “the perception that allowing exports of natural gas comes at the expense of guaranteeing the economy’s needs is not correct,” the report recommended “promoting the exports of Israeli natural gas intended for consumption of neighboring countries as of the utmost importance.”

While the Israeli government endorsed the recommendations in June 2013, Israel’s antitrust regulator, Prof. David Gilo, decreed that the consortium that operates the Tamar and Leviathan offshore gas fields constitutes a monopoly and therefore blocked implementation of the government’s policy. By doing so, Gilo affected Israel’s economic growth, the government’s revenues, and the country’s credibility (as both the Brookings Institution and Standards & Poor’s warned after Gilo’s decision).

Based on Gilo’s decision, however, the government negotiated a new deal with the Israeli Delek Group and with Texas-based Noble Energy: both will have to sell the two smaller gas fields of Karish and Tanin within 14 months, while Delek will sell its entire stake in Tamar in six years and Noble will reduce its stake to 25%. They will still own and exploit Leviathan, a much bigger field due to operate by 2020. The government will also ensure that the price of gas in Israel will not be higher than that of exported gas, and it may ease the limit on the amount of gas that can be exported. This offer was not good enough for Gilo, however, who resigned a couple of weeks ago.

By law, the economy minister is entitled to overrule the antitrust regulator if he considers that doing so is vital to the national interest. But the current office holder, Aryeh Deri, got cold feet and refused to exercise his authority. Deri claimed that he was not sufficiently knowledgeable about energy policy (he made no such claim when he was appointed economy minister), but the true reason for his decision was fear of the media. The Israeli left is up in arms against the new gas deal proposed by the government (with The Marker, Haaretz’s economy supplement, leading the media campaign). There is a pending petition in the High Court of Justice against Deri’s appointment as minister (because of his past prison sentence) and having already spent two years in jail, Deri knows better than to get the media and the judicial system on his case.

Deri, therefore, asked the government to collectively overrule the antitrust regulator – a move that requires a Knesset vote. As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was proceeding with the vote, however, he discovered that he couldn’t count on three of his cabinet members: Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon (who explained that his personal friend Kobi Maimon is a gas shareholder), but also Housing Minister Yoav Galant (whose appointment, like Deri’s, is being challenged in the High Court of Justice), and Welfare Minister Haim Katz (himself a gas shareholder).

Some of the critiques of the new gas deal are justified, but many are unreasonable. Those who assert that supporters of the deal are corrupt imply that the Israeli government and the finance ministry (as well as simple citizens) have all been bribed by the gas companies. It also takes no small amount of chutzpah to claim that someone who invested billions and put his money at risk to explore potential gas reserves in which the taxpayer didn’t invest a penny is stealing public property.

Sixteen years after the first discovery of its large offshore gas reserves, Israel’s transition from energy importer to exporter has yet to materialize (Israel, by most estimates, has enough gas to provide its power-generating needs for the next 40 years). This transition is long overdue especially since, once sanctions are lifted on Iran, energy investors will rush there and drop Israel if its government proves incapable of making a decision and honoring its commitments. The new gas deal probably has drawbacks, and its details should be fully disclosed to the public. But further delays are causing irreparable damage to Israel’s economy and credibility.

A short video recently uploaded on You-Tube by American producer Ami Horowitz says it all about the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. With a hidden camera, presenting himself as a salesman, Horowitz visits three Irish stores that openly boycott Israeli products. To the first shopkeeper, Horowitz says that he represents a Sudanese company; to the second, that he works for an Iranian farm; and to the third, that he sells the products of a North Korean manufacturer. All three shopkeepers answer negatively when asked by Horowitz if they have any political issue with selling a product from those countries (to the first store-owner, Horowitz insists that his company is “herbicide-free, pesticide-free, Jew-free”). Then Horowitz explains that his company would rather not work with a store that sells Israeli products. “Oh, we don’t, we have a very pro-Palestinian policy,” answers the first shopkeeper. The second proudly discloses a “Boycott apartheid-Israel” sign on his front-door. The third explains: “We have an embargo, we don’t do any Israeli business.”

Obviously, the shopkeepers don’t actually care about human rights or international law. But, then again, neither do BDS activists.

One of the driving forces behind BDS is Omar Barghouti, who co-founded the movement in 2005. Born in Qatar and raised in Egypt, Barghouti moved to the Palestinian Authority. He enrolled at Tel-Aviv University, where he earned a Masters in philosophy and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. Barghouti actively boycotts and defames the country and the university where he is getting his degree and enjoying his academic freedom. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where one has the freedom to boycott and defame one’s alma mater.

The purpose of the boycott that Barghouti preaches in his global travels is not to achieve a two-state solution. As Barghouti explained this week in an interview with +972 Magazine, his purpose is the implementation of the so-called “right of return”, which would grant Israeli citizenship to the actual and alleged descendants of the Arab refugees of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war (according to UNRWA, the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees now number 5 million people). The “right of return” would thus turn pre-1967 Israel into a bi-national state with an Arab majority (the West Bank, by contrast, will be Jew-free). What Barghouti markets as “a moral obligation” is, in fact, the end of Israel.

As Mudar Zahran, a Jordanian-Palestinian political activist, wrote in the Israel Hayomnewspaper this week: “I have personally approached several known BDS movements asking them to boycott many Arab countries for the way they treat my people, and not one time did I find even an iota of interest.” Zahran explains that Palestinians are banned from 72 professions in Lebanon; in Syria, they are starved by the Assad regime and the Islamist rebels; in Jordan, they are banned from most government jobs. Millions of Palestinians in Syria and Lebanon do not have a single representative in parliament. In Jordan, Palestinians constitute 80 percent of the population but only 10 percent of parliamentarians.

Barghouti depicts Israel as the sadistic and malicious oppressor of innocent victims. If he were right, one could not blame Irish shopkeepers for refusing to carry the products of such a monstrous and evil country. But in the age of the Internet and low-cost airlines, those people have no excuse for not double-checking facts and coming to their own conclusions. And if they are truly motivated by the defense of human rights and international law, it is for them to explain why they would not even consider the boycott of actual human rights violators.

The list is unfortunately long, but two countries recently made headlines: Sudan and Myanmar. This week, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir bolted South Africa ahead of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has indicted him on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Darfur. Yet there is no BDS movement against al-Bashir or against Sudan.

Another example is Myanmar, which practices one of the world’s worst form of apartheid against its Rohingya minority. The Rohingyas (a one-million large Muslim minority) are denied citizenship, voting rights, and access to public schools. In 2012, they were victims of ethnic cleansing. Fleeing segregation, abuse and violence, they try to reach neighboring Malaysia and Indonesia, often perishing at sea. Yet the world is indifferent. The Economist dedicated a special article this week to the Rohingyas but it claimed that imposing economic sanctions against Myanmar would be “too blunt a weapon.” So no BDS there, either.

To paraphrase Golda Meir, BDS activists hate Israel more than they love human rights.

The contradictory statements of Orange’s CEO Stéphane Richard about his company’s business in Israel are certainly confusing. Richard’s latest version is that his announced intention to pull out from Israel was not politically motivated. Haim Saban, the owner of “Partner” (the Israeli company that uses Orange’s brand), called Richard’s claim a “blatant lie.” Facts do make Richard’s claim hard to believe.

Richard explained in Cairo that his company wants to “be one of the trustful partners of all Arab countries.” His declarations came shortly after an aggressive campaign orchestrated by French and Palestinian NGOs. In May 2015, a 51-page report entitled “Orange’s Dangerous Liaisons in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” was collectively published by “Association France-Palestine Solidarité,” by “Ligue des Droits de l’Homme (LDH),” by “Confédération générale des Travailleurs (CGT),” by “Union syndicale Solidaires,” by “CCFD-Terre solidaire,” by “Fédération internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH)” and by “Al-Haq.”

On May 26, 2015, the above organizations met with Orange’s shareholders and “asked Orange to publicly and explicitly state its decision to disengage and to denounce the human rights violations that Partner is involved in Israeli settlements in the OPT [Occupied Palestinian Territories]” (as reported by FIDH’s website). Those organizations called upon Orange to recognize “that having business relations with Partner poses risks to the company’s reputation” and they also asked the French government to “respect its international human rights obligations and demand that Partner put an end to its activities in the settlements,” adding that “if Partner does not do so, Orange should terminate its business relationship with Partner.”

While the French government officially condemned any attempt to boycott Israeli companies, France’s Ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud, implicitly condoned Orange’s CEO with the following tweet: “4th Geneva convention : settlement policy in occupied territories is illegal. It is illegal to contribute to it in any way.” Araud was taken to task by Northwestern University law professor Eugene Kontorowich who pointed out that French companies are active in many occupied and disputed territories around the world. Araud blocked Kontorowich from his twitter account instead of answering his questions.

Yet, as Kontorowich argued, French companies that subscribe to the claim that conducting business in the West Bank is illegal expose themselves, and other French companies, to lawsuits for their activities in occupied/disputed territories around the world. The list includes Total’s oil license in occupied Western Sahara (renewed in February 2014 despite protests by the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic), and Michelin’s factory in occupied northern Cyprus. And the list includes Orange itself.

Orange provides cell phone services in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia since 1992 (and considered an occupied territory by the United Nations and by France). In the West Bank, Orange’s services are operated by Partner; but in Nagorno-Karabach, they are operated directly by Orange itself.

If Gérard Araud is right, then it is illegal for Total, for Michelin and for Orange to operate in Western Sahara, in Northern Cyprus, and in Nagorno-Karabakh. Fortunately for these companies, however, Araud is wrong.

As Prof. Kontorowich explains in a new academic article published by the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, recent court decisions in Europe clearly rule that business activity in disputed and occupied territories is not illegal per se. In 2013, a French court (“Cour d’Appel de Versailles”), ruled that it is lawful for Alstom and Veolia to build a tramway in eastern Jerusalem because the Geneva Conventions do not apply to private companies. In 2014, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom ruled that the Israeli company Dead Sea Products’ activity in the West Bank does not amount to a transfer of population and, therefore, does not constitute a violation of the War Crimes Act and of the Rome Statute. Similarly, and also in 2014, the Paris “Tribunal de grande instance” rejected a petition calling for the boycott of Israeli company SodaStream because of its presence in the West Bank.

Orange, of course, is entitled to operate and not to operate wherever it wants. But if it decides to end its contract with Partner because of the claim (rejected by European courts) that Partner’s activity in the West Bank is illegal, than Orange will implicitly endorse the claim that its activity in Nagorno-Karabakh is illegal as well.

Either way, Orange, and other French companies, would be well-advised to think twice before buying into the phony claims of political NGOs and of uninformed ambassadors. As Stéphane Richard realizes at this point, Israel intends to fight back. And as he may soon find out, the counter-attack will not only be economic but also legal.

The fact that those who used to identify themselves as the “peace camp” changed their brand to the “Zionist camp” in Israel’s recent elections is not fortuitous: most Israeli voters no longer buy the claim that establishing a Palestinian state will bring peace, yet at the same time those very voters are also willing to accept the idea of Palestinian statehood in order to preserve Israel’s Jewish majority.

This acceptance, however, is coupled with skepticism: 20 years of negotiations with the PLO have failed to produce an agreement, and Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza has proved the shortcomings and dangers of unilateralism. In addition, with Arab states imploding one after the other, with ISIS progressing, and with Iran expanding its tentacles around the region, the idea of establishing another failed and hostile Arab state bordering Tel Aviv seems counter-intuitive. Most Israelis feel that they are in a Catch 22 situation, faced with an array of bad options.

To liberal American Jews, however, it all looks much simpler. Surely there is no complicated equation that Jewish goodwill cannot solve. And since the equation has not been solved yet, Jewish goodwill must be extracted from those recalcitrant Israelis. Hence the J-Street phenomenon. J-Street definitely stands out among US lobbies. I can’t think of any Turkish lobby in Congress advocating Turkey’s withdrawal from Cyprus and the establishment of a Kurdish state; nor was I able to find an Indian lobby demanding India’s withdrawal from Kashmir, or a Moroccan lobby making the case for an independent state in Western Sahara.

Liberal American Jews, such as Peter Beinart, claim that Israel is isolating itself from the rest of the Jewish people because Israelis are moving to the right while Diaspora Jews are moving to the left. The very opposite is true: both Israel and the non-American Diaspora are moving to the right. Liberal American Jews are the exception and they are the ones being isolated. All recent elections in Western democracies prove it.

In Britain’s 2015 elections, 70 percent of the Jews voted conservative. So did 52 percent of Jewish voters in Canada’s 2011 elections. In Australia, most Jews have abandoned the Labor Party for Tony Abbott’s Liberal Party (a conservative party despite its name). French Jews massively supported the conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2007 and 2012 presidential elections.

Why have American Jews become the exception rather than the rule? One possible explanation is that American Jews, as opposed to their European brethren, do not need the army’s protection in order to go to synagogue. The massacres at the Jewish school in Toulouse, at the Jewish museum in Brussels, and at the Jewish supermarket in Paris did not happen in America. Like Israelis, European Jews understand the meaning of being the target of Jihad. American Jews don’t.

Another explanation is that US public opinion is strongly pro-Israel while European public opinion is not. Therefore, no political party or media outlet can thrive in America on an anti-Israel agenda. The very opposite is true in Europe. America’s political culture and discourse still enable liberal Jews to be supportive of Zionism. The same cannot be said of Europe and of Canada, where liberal Jews feel that they have been betrayed by the left, and have therefore crossed the political line.

Yet current trends on US college campuses suggest that America’s left might not be immune from the process that is throwing European and Canadian Jews into the arms of the right. In February 2015, Rachel Beyda, a student at UCLA, was asked during her confirmation hearing to the Student Council’s Judicial Board how she could possibly be unbiased given her Jewishness. According to the Washington-based Louis Brandeis Center, more than half of America’s Jewish students personally witnessed or experienced anti-Semitism on campus in 2014. Over 200 US campuses host the “Israel apartheid week” every year. In the summer of 2014, the Boston police had to protect a pro-Israel student rally from pro-Palestinian mobs who shouted “Jews back to Birkenau!”

Those who shout “Jews back to Brikenau” do not differentiate between Jews who support Palestinian statehood and those who don’t. J-Street has unsavory companions for whom the struggle against Israel never started at the 1967 lines and will never end there. Most Israeli and European Jews have figured this out, not because they are smarter but because they live in a tough environment where being a useful idiot can cost you your life.

Ever since Muammar Ghaddafi’s Libya was elected in 2003 to chair the United Nations human rights commission, nothing the UN does should come as a surprise. Yet even by the UN’s standards, recent events break new records of tragi-comedy.

Last week, on May 20, the annual assembly of the UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a resolution (104 votes in favor, 4 against, and 6 abstentions) condemning Israel for allegedly violating the “health rights” of Syrians in the Golan Heights. This resolution was adopted as Israeli hospitals treat, Syrians who flee Assad’s massacres. Syria, of course, knows that Israel treats Syrian victims of their own government’s barbarity. But Syria found a way, at the WHO conference, to have Israel blamed and itself whitewashed: a statement circulated by the Syrian delegation at the WHO conference accused Israel of providing medical care to Syrians only so that they can “resume their subversive terrorist activities directed against the country’s peaceful citizens and its infrastructure.”

The WHO, by contrast, had nothing to say about the “health rights” of Syrians massacred by their government (200,000 killed, 3 million refugees, and a disastrous health situation); of Yemeni victims of Saudi Arabia’s bombardments (1,850 killed, 7,394 wounded, 545,000 displaced); or of Ukrainian victims of Russia’s rampant annexation of their country (6,000 killed, one million displaced, plus an imminent danger of Europe’s first polio epidemic in decades).

The WHO’s shameful resolution was promoted by the Arab states, first and foremost by Saudi Arabia, whose representative warned that countries voting against the WHO’s Kafkaesque resolution would not be considered “peace loving states” by the Wahhabist theocracy. It is the same Saudi Arabia that recently condemned Raif Badawi, a blogger who advocates free speech, to a thousand lashes and to ten years in prison. And it is the same Saudi Arabia that punishes its citizens with beheading, with amputations, and with eye-gouging. Yet Saudi Arabia was elected in 2013 to the so-called UN Human Rights Council and it is currently running for the 2016 presidency of that body.

This tragi-comedy would not be happening without the consent of Western democracies. Unfortunately, most European Union (EU) countries do not stand by their own principles and do not form a united front against the cynical manipulation of the UN. Last week’s WHO resolution that singles out Israel and whitewashes Assad was passed with the support of major EU members such as Britain, France, and Germany. In 2013, the EU did not oppose Saudi Arabia’s election to the Human Rights Council, and it will probably not oppose Saudi Arabia’s election to the Council’s presidency in 2016.

It seems that the EU has not yet internalized the fact that Saudi Arabia is not as powerful as it used to be. Since the 1973 oil crisis, Europe has gotten used to dancing to the tune of the Saudis. Yet as time passes, standing-up to Saudi Arabia becomes economically sustainable.

Saudi Arabia is no longer the world’s largest oil producer, having been displaced by the United States thanks to the technological revolution of shale oil. The changing structure of the world’s oil market is lowering the prices of oil, and this trend is likely to continue (oil prices dropped from $110 a barrel in May 2014 to $65 today). Precisely as the oil revenues of the Saudi petro-state are declining, its government needs to fund a war in Yemen. As a result, Saudi Arabia is now running a 15% budget deficit. The government admittedly has large foreign cash reserves, but oil exports account for 90% of its revenues and it continues to spend as if oil prices hadn’t dropped. Indeed, it is spending even more because of the war in Yemen.

Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical omens do not look good, either. The country is surrounded by an Iranian-controlled ring (Iraq, Syria and Lebanon in the north, Yemen in the south). Iraq, once a Sunni-ruled shield against Iran, has imploded. In Yemen, the Saudi air force has so far been unable to stop the progress of the Iran-backed Houthis. The emerging nuclear deal between the United States and Iran will not only seal Iran’s regional clout, but it will also further lower oil prices by lifting sanctions on Iran’s oil exports.

Europe, which invented the concepts of raison d’État and of Realpolitik, and which produced Machiavelli and Bismarck, cannot be blamed for remaining faithful to its traditions. But precisely because European foreign policy is exclusively based on interests, the EU would gain from adapting its policy to the vulnerability of Saudi Arabia.

The visit to Israel of Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, is meant to revive the EU’s involvement in the so-called “Middle-East peace process.” “The status quo” is not an option, declared Mrs. Mogherini ahead of her visit. Among EU members, France is actively promoting a new Security Council resolution on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The French initiative would define the former armistice line of 1949-1967 between Israel and Jordan as an international border between Israel and a Palestinian state; it would designate Jerusalem as the capital of both Israel and a Palestinian state; and it would call for “a fair solution” to the issue of Palestinian refugees. Such a resolution, if adopted, would in effect completely endorse the Palestinian position and sideline Israel’s, and it would constitute a grave departure from Security Council Resolution 242.

The former armistice line between Israel and Jordan never was, and was never meant to become, an international border. Resolution 242 does not demand an Israeli withdrawal to that armistice line in exchange for peace – only a withdrawal “from territories” in a way that would provide Israel and its neighbors with “secure and recognized boundaries.” The 1949 armistice line cannot possibly be considered a secure boundary, since it created a 15-kilometer narrow “waist” between Israel and Jordan, surrounding Jerusalem and overlooking Tel Aviv from mountainous heights. As for Jerusalem, it is not mentioned at all in Resolution 242.

Resolution 242 calls for “a just settlement of the refugee problem,” apparently making the proposed French resolution redundant. But the French proposal makes two radical changes regarding the refugee issue. First, it only refers to “Palestinian refugees.” What is meant by “refugees” in Resolution 242, however, is both the 600,000 Palestinian refugees from Israel and the 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries. As the US ambassador to the UN in 1967, Judge Arthur Goldberg, explained after the adoption of 242, this resolution “refers both to Arab and Jewish refugees, for about an equal number of each abandoned their homes as a result of the several wars.” Moreover, what 242 means by “refugees” are the actual Arab and Jewish refugees of the Arab-Israeli wars, not their descendants.

The Palestinians, however, claim that the status of refugee applies to all descendants of the 1948 refugees. Even though there is no legal ground and no historic precedent for such a claim, it has become accepted in today’s “newspeak” and, apparently, by French diplomats. Therefore, according to the Palestinians and to the French, a “fair solution” must be found not for the Jewish refugees, not for the actual Palestinian refugees, but for the descendants of the Palestinian refugees (which number about 5 million according to UNRWA).

The French resolution does not expect the Palestinians to abandon this ridiculous claim, which has been the main reason for the failure of the “peace process” for the past two decades. When Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas explained to former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2008 why he did not accept the peace offer of then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, he said that he could not abandon the “right of return” (as reported by Rice in her memoirs “No Higher Honor”). The French resolution makes no demand of the Palestinians, leaving open the “right of return” issue, even though this fantasy was the excuse used by both Yasser Arafat (in 2000) and by Mahmoud Abbas (in 2008) for not signing a peace agreement with Israel.

In a meeting I had this week with a delegation of French parliamentarians, I asked them if they had a solution to the conflict in Cyprus. Their answer was a clear “no.” I also asked them if they weren’t “tired” of the 40-year Turkish occupation of Cyprus (an EU member). Their answer was also “no.” And so when I asked them how they envisioned the future of Cyprus, they explained that the “status quo” was the only option. When I tried to understand why they washed their hands of the Cyprus conflict while being obsessed with the Israeli-Palestinian one, their answer was no less amazing: “Because the conflict in Cyprus doesn’t produce instability.”

Now, the Middle-East is the most unstable region in the world, with people killing each other, with countries imploding, and with Iran and ISIS filling the void. Yet the French can think of nothing more urgent than establishing a failed state in the midst of the only stable and successful country of this war zone.

As long as France and the EU do not drop the so-called “right of return” from their diplomatic initiatives, the Israeli-Palestinian status quo will not only continue, but it will also be the only realistic option – just like in Cyprus.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to expediently change a basic law for the mere sake of distributing fictitious government jobs is worthy of a banana republic, just as his effort last year to dissolve the presidency because of his dislike for the front runner was an embarrassment.

In March 2014, the government passed the so-called “governance law” with the declared intention of ending the legendary instability of Israeli politics. The law raised the Knesset eligibility threshold from 2% to 3.25%; it limited the number of government ministers to 18; and it forbade the appointment of ministers without portfolio. At first glance, all three changes are welcome: the Knesset has an unusually high number of small political parties; Israeli governments include unnecessary and almost comical ministries (such as a “Minister for the Negev Desert and for the Galilee” and a “Minister for Senior Citizens”); and ministers without portfolios are a waste of the taxpayer money. Yet the “governance law” made Israel even less governable. This law should be repealed entirely because it is counterproductive, but it should not be partially amended out of political expediency.

As I predicted in a previous article, raising the eligibility threshold has made Israeli politics more unstable still because it reduces the coalition options of prospective prime ministers and because it increases the extortion power of mid-size parties. This was confirmed by the recent elections. Had the threshold been maintained at 2%, Eli Ishay’s Yahad party would have entered the Knesset with three seats, which would have increased Netanyahu’s coalition options and spared him his current razor-thin (and unsustainable) 61-seat majority in the 120-member legislature. Because there are no more “micro-parties” in the Knesset, Netanyahu was left without an alternative after being stabbed in the back by Avigdor Lieberman. And once Netanyahu was hung out to dry, Jewish Home leader Nafatli Bennett was able to extort him.

Higher eligibility thresholds have proven counterproductive is other countries, as well. In Germany, for instance, the eligibility threshold for the Bundestag is 5%. In the 2013 federal elections, the Liberal party did not pass it, leaving Angela Merkel without her natural partner and without a coherent coalition. She had no other choice but to form an unnatural coalition with the Social Democrats.

Reducing the number of ministers has also made matters worse, because in coalition politics the best way to prevent lawmakers from voting against the government is to have them join it. The second Netanyahu government (2009-2013) was stable precisely because it was inflated. Does that mean that inflated governments are a good thing? No, but they are a necessary evil in a dysfunctional political system such as ours. The “governance law” treated the symptom instead of the illness. The illness is called pure proportional representation. Rather than reforming the voting system for the Knesset, the “governance law” took away one of the most efficient ways of circumventing the chronic instability produced by pure proportional representation.

This is not the first time that Israel has conceived an ill-advised reform of its dysfunctional political system. In 1992, the Knesset passed a law that was also meant to provide stability: direct election of the prime minister (like presidential systems), and separate ballots for political parties. With such double voting, people lost the incentive to choose between Labor and Likud because the identity of the future prime minister was no longer determined by the size of his party. As a result, the number of small parties increased, and the directly-elected prime minister had to handle more unruly coalitions than in the past (the law was repealed in 2003).

I am not making the case against reforms, but against bad ones. Israel’s political system is unstable and does need to be fixed, but the right way. Even the chronically unstable Italy finally figured it out.

Italy’s political system was also characterized by a nearly comical political spectacle of musical chairs when its voting system was nearly pure proportional representation between 1946 and 1993. But thanks to the determination of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the Italian parliament just approved a reform that might finally introduce political stability to Italy. In a nutshell, the new law will give a party that wins 40% of the vote bonus seats in order to form a majority of 340 in the 630-seat lower house (if no party hits the target, a run-off will be held between the two biggest ones).

So Italy offers a glimpse of hope, but then again electoral reform requires an ingredient which Israel currently lacks: leadership.

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany. Such a historical date provides an opportunity to ponder the past and to contemplate the future. “Long live the cause of freedom! God save the King!” proclaimed Winston Churchill, the ultimate hero of the war, on the 7th of May 1945. Back in January 1942, Churchill declared in front of the US Congress: “If we had kept together after the last war, if we had taken common measures for our safety, this renewal of the curse would never have fallen upon us. Do we not owe it to ourselves, to our children, to all of mankind, to make sure that these catastrophes do not engulf us for a third time?”

Seventy years later, can we confidently say that the renewal of the curse will never fall upon us? The victors of 1945 are nearly as divided today as they were after the surrender of their common foe. The leaders of America, Britain and France will pointedly be absent from Russia’s victory celebrations on May 9. Russia and the West are at odds over Ukraine and Iran, and Russia’s celebrations will turn into a show of might and defiance. Britain has become a marginal international player, France is struggling with economic paralysis, and America is wary of military confrontation.

Critics of the emerging agreement over Iran’s nuclear program often compare it to the 1938 Munich accords. The 1925 Locarno Treaties are probably more accurate an analogy. In those treaties, Britain and France agreed to “reintegrate” Germany into the international community in exchange for a German commitment to stop challenging the borders imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. In truth, however, Germany was only asked to recognize its western borders but not its eastern ones. As Polish diplomat Józef Beck declared at the time: “Germany was officially asked to attack the east, in return for peace in the west.”

Germany’s then-foreign minister, Gustav Stresemann, brilliantly fooled the West. On the one hand, he claimed that a weak Germany would expose Western Europe to the dangers of Soviet bolshevism. On the other hand, he initiated a policy of rapprochement with the Soviet Union. Were Britain and France not aware of Stresemann’s deviousness? They were, and yet they decided not to confront Germany. The ultimate reason for this self-imposed restraint was provided by French foreign minister Aristide Briand: “My foreign policy is dictated by our birthrates,” he famously said. In other words, France felt too weak to confront Germany. Yet France had no illusions about the Locarno Treaties; indeed, it started planning the Maginot Line shortly after their signature.

Ultimately, the Second World War erupted because Western democracies did not have the will to confront Germany even as they had the power to do so. The Jewish people became one of the main victims of this unfolding tragedy. Winston Churchill had much sympathy and admiration for the Jews, and the war against Hitler would never have been won without him. But he lost the 1945 election at the height of his glory. The new Labor government of Clement Attlee did all it could to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state, even as the horrors of the Holocaust were being revealed and as Jewish survivors were trying to reach the Promised Land.

Today, Jews are no longer at the mercy of world powers, but Israel’s fate is influenced by international politics, as it always will be. There is still a price to be paid for the cowardice and blindness of others, but sovereignty and power make that price affordable.

As Israel’s political parties were negotiating the guidelines of the next government coalition, the Likud party raised the issue of judicial reform with the intention of changing the way Supreme Court judges are appointed. While this is a domestic issue and a legitimate matter of debate in an open society, the European Union expressed concern (according to Israel’s Channel 2 news) about Likud’s proposal.

The EU’s unsolicited opinion about what is strictly a domestic Israeli matter stems from both arrogance and ignorance. From arrogance, because the way Israel decides to appoint its judges is none of the EU’s business. From ignorance, because in most European countries and other western democracies, the executive and legislative branches have more influence over the appointment of judges than in Israel.

Since Israel lacks a written constitution, the separation of powers between the three branches of government was never clearly delineated. Israel’s Basic Laws outline the powers of the three branches, but since the early 1990s the judicial branch has unilaterally and dramatically expanded its powers by allowing itself to repeal legislation, by turning the legal opinions of the attorney general into instructions which the government must obey, and by granting a de facto veto power to the judiciary over the appointment of Supreme Court judges. As a result, Israel’s judiciary is both overpowered and self-appointed.

In Israel, Supreme Court judges are appointed by a committee composed of three sitting Supreme Court judges, of two representatives of the Israeli Bar Association, of two members of Knesset (one from the opposition and one from the coalition), and of two government ministers (including the Justice Minister). In 2008, the law was amended so as to require the support of all committee members taking part in the vote, minus two. Indeed, a candidate needs the support of seven committee members to be elected. Since the Supreme Court has three representatives on the committee, it has a de facto veto power over the appointment of its new members (especially since the three judges can almost always count on the support of the two representatives from the Bar). On the surface, therefore, the committee is balanced. In effect, Supreme Court judges themselves decide who will join their ranks.

By granting such power to the judiciary over the appointment of Supreme Court judges, Israel is unique among Western democracies. In other Western democracies, the supreme bodies entitled to repeal legislation are appointed by the executive and legislative branches.

In the United States, Supreme Court judges are appointed by the president, and their appointment must be approved by the Senate. In Canada and in Australia, the Prime Minister and the Justice Minister have the final say on the appointment of Supreme Court judges. In Japan, Supreme Court judges are selected by the government and formally appointed by the Emperor (Supreme Court appointments must be approved every ten years by referendum).

The same goes for Europe. In Germany, Federal Constitutional Court judges are appointed by the legislative branch (the Bundestag and the Bundesrat). In France, the Conseil constitutionnel is composed of former Presidents of the Republic and of other members appointed by the executive and legislative branches, i.e. the president of the Republic, the Speaker of the National Assembly and the Speaker of the Senate. In Holland, Supreme Court judges are appointed by the government and by the Parliament. In Austria, members of the Constitutional Court are appointed by the government upon the Parliament’s recommendation. In Spain, most of the twelve members of the Constitutional Court are appointed by the legislative and executive branches: eight by the legislative, two by the executive, and two by a judicial council which is itself selected by the parliament. In Portugal, of the thirteen members of the Constitutional Court, ten are appointed by the parliament and three by a judicial council itself selected by the parliament.

Only in Britain, like in Israel, are justices and representatives from the Bar also involved in the appointment of Supreme Court judges (since the establishment of the court in 2009). But Britain’s Supreme Court does not repeal laws; it can only recommend to parliament the amendment of laws. In Israel, by contrast, the Supreme Court unilaterally granted itself the power to repeal laws.

The reform proposed by Likud (and vetoed by Moshe Kahlon, who himself had co-signed a 2007 Knesset bill which was intended to introduce some change in the appointment of Supreme Court judges) would have made Israel’s procedure more similar to Europe’s. There is, therefore, something intriguing and inexplicable in the fact that the EU expresses “concern” when Israel tries to adopt the European way of appointing Supreme Court judges.