EU Security Missions and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Amr Nasr El-Din

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315312156
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book explores and analyses the various factors that affected the formulation of the common EU policy towards the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP), as well as the specifics of the process by which the EU created EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah. It answers two central questions: firstly, why and how did the EU decide to create and deploy these missions? Secondly, where do these two missions fit into the general EU approach to the conflict in the Middle East?

Based on confidential interviews with various actors in the process, uniquely granted to the author, it reveals the mechanics of decision-making behind the scenes and argues that the EU decision to expand its role in the MEPP, through the creation of the two missions, was closely related to the EU's defined common interests in the Middle East. Further it shows, the missions were, mainly, the result of the EU's already established approaches to further its role in the international political arena.

This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of European foreign policy, EU Politics, Middle East politics and studies, foreign policy analysis, and more broadly to international relations.

1
Introduction

1 The EU and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: a need for a re-visit?

In the early hours of Saturday, 26 November 2005, two teams of EU observers drove through the Kerem Shalom (Karam Abu Salem) border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. The first team went directly to a newly established observation post equipped with a CCTV network a few meters away; the second team boarded an armoured vehicle and drove a few kilometres to the north, escorted by two Palestinian Authority (PA) police vehicles. Their destination was the Rafah Crossing Point (RCP) on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. For the next four hours, the two teams observed the operation of the RCP, thus launching the European Union Border Assistance Mission Rafah (better known by its acronym EUBAM Rafah).

In early January 2006, another EU mission, namely the European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EUPOL COPPS for short), got under way. Its operators, EU police officers, entered their new headquarters in Ramallah in the West Bank to start their first official day of work. These two EU missions – the first of their kind in the history of the EU’s long engagement in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – heralded the start of a new phase.

Before the creation of these two missions, the EU had shied away from performing political and security tasks in this conflict, with noticeable effects on its ability to carve out a major role in the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) (Stein 1997, Asseburg et al. 2003, Musu 2007).^{1, 2} Its role was largely confined to declarations, aid and trade, leading many to describe the EU as a mere financier (Tocci 2005).³

The creation of these two missions, an audacious one-time effort, was welcomed by many regional and international political actors. The two missions were viewed as a much-needed addition to the assortment of tools available to the EU (Asseburg et al. 2003).

This book attempts to examine the circumstances and different political factors that led the EU, at a specific moment in history (precisely in 2004–2005), to expand its role in the MEPP by establishing EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah. The distinctive dynamics of the EU foreign policy formulation process in general and towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in particular will be discussed, with the view to revealing its influence on the shape, size and mandate of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah. Finally, this book will offer some insights into the potential of the EU and its capability and willingness to be a major player in the international political arena.

2 The game changers – EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah: an overview

In the aftermath of the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada, the MEPP faced mounting geostrategic and political challenges. These were the cumulative international pressure to reform the Palestinian Authority (PA) in general and its security services in particular, in addition to Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The collective EU response to these was the formation of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah.

EUPOL COPPS was established to support the PA’s efforts to reform its security sector (an issue that was high on the agenda of PA reform). The mission’s staff was (and still is) composed of civilian employees and unarmed police personnel. Its responsibilities include not only providing advice and support for the PA’s efforts to reform its security services, but also coordinating international aid earmarked for that aim (Council of the European Union 2005, 2012, Bouris 2012, Persson 2014). EUBAM Rafah was created to provide an international third-party presence at the RCP between Egypt and the Gaza Strip in order to facilitate its operation, as stipulated in the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access (AMA) between Israel and the PA (Kadman and Yaron 2009, Persson 2014, Gisha 2015, Klein and Ansell-Brauner no date). European observers were based on the Palestinian side of the RCP; they were tasked with monitoring the work of PA officials and ensuring their compliance with the provisions of the AMA.

Both missions – each in its own distinctive way – became entangled in the dynamics of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and local Palestinian politics, with serious effects on their ability to achieve their goals. In fact, even today, there is a lack of consensus on the degree of the missions’ success, even though many of the obstacles can hardly be said to be their fault. Very soon after its creation, the Gaza Strip fell effectively out of the PA’s control in the aftermath of the 2007 HAMAS takeover, confining EUPOL COPPS to the West Bank. In the early months of its existence, EUBAM Rafah managed to fulfil its role of monitoring the operation of the RCP, but soon enough, it too fell victim to Middle East politics. Israel’s repeated closures of the border crossing hindered the mission’s operation, while the 2007 HAMAS takeover of the Gaza Strip dealt it its final blow. From then on, EUBAM Rafah was destined to virtually cease operation; officially, though, EUBAM Rafah still exists through a very small presence in Israel, but without any specific duties, on the pretext of maintaining minimum operations capability.

Mixed results notwithstanding, it can be argued that both missions were a revolutionary step forward in the EU’s approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Their establishment provided the EU – for the first time in the history of its policy towards the MEPP – with new tools beyond mere declarations, aid and trade. For the first time, the EU had not only created and maintained new institutions and mechanisms to deal with security and political issues; it had also allocated EU personnel to supervise and operate them.

3 EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah: what do we already know?

Being the unique ventures they are, EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah have been extensively covered in the academic literature. They were either studied as part of the overall EU approach to the Middle East conflict, or were analysed as case studies for the deployment of the EU common foreign policy tools. However, EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah have only a marginal presence in academic analyses of the overall EU policy towards the conflict in the Middle East. They are only studied as part of the relative expansion of the EU’s involvement in the MEPP in the aftermath of the second Intifada, where the EU played a central role in sustaining the PA and preventing its collapse (Youngs 2006, Barak 2007, Youngs 2007, Asseburg 2009, Pace 2009, Musu 2010, Pace 2010, Miller 2011, Pace 2011, Musu 2013, O’Donnell 2013). The missions themselves are not thoroughly analysed. Their overall effect on the EU’s role in the MEPP is, in many cases, downplayed and/or dismissed. In fact, the missions’ overall effectiveness as foreign policy tools is questioned, an unfortunate casualty of the tendency in the literature to cast doubt on the EU’s influence and role in the MEPP. Such literature also generally downplays both missions as part of a widespread conclusion that the EU has failed to utilize the various tools at its disposal to secure a greater say in the political dynamics of the Middle East conflict (Musu 2007, Al-Fattal 2010, Musu 2010, Miller 2011, Tocci 2011, Musu 2013, Bouris 2014, Dror 2014, Youngs 2014). To that end, Persson says that in EU’s forty-odd years of engagement in the MEPP, its efforts can only be called a failure (Persson 2011, Persson 2013, Persson 2014).

In contrast, in the literature dedicated to studying the EU’s utilization of its different foreign policy tools (declarations, aid, trade incentives, etc.) EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah have been closely scrutinized. A wealth of studies covers the missions’ operations and their contributions to their respective fields of action (the PA SSR and border management) in detail (Dokos 2007, Hussein 2007, Friedrich and Luethold 2008, Kerkkänen et al. 2008, Sabiote 2008, Kadman and Yaron 2009, Lazaroff 2009, Sayigh 2009, Al-Fattal 2010, Tocci 2011, Bouris 2012, Hatzigeorgopoulos 2013, O’Donnell 2013, Bouris 2014, Youngs 2014). As a side note, EUPOL COPPS has been more extensively studied than EUBAM Rafah. This may be attributed to the latter’s very short life span and limited scope of action.

In the literature studying the missions, there is a general tendency to question the overall effectiveness of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah not only as foreign policy tools, but also as means of supporting the PA and laying the foundation for Palestinian statehood. The missions’ work is described, in many studies, as insufficient, inconsistent, unable to achieve concrete results and even, sometimes, as an indirect and unintended means of subsidizing the Israeli occupation through indirectly shouldering some of its burdens (Hussein 2007, Sabiote 2008, Sayigh 2009, Al-Fattal 2010, Tocci 2011, Bouris 2012, O’Donnell 2013, Bouris 2014, Youngs 2014). Value judgments aside, these studies no doubt provide interesting insights into and cover important aspects of the missions. However, they neglect an important point: why and how the missions were created in the first place.

A clear gap in the literature has emerged. The creation process of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah is seldom covered. Even when it is granted some attention, this generally takes the form of a couple of introductory lines of broad background riddled with sweeping generalizations. In most cases, the creation of the missions is presented as a mere by-product of favourable regional and international political developments, which were, by the same token, important factors in the limitations that faced both missions afterwards (Sabiote 2008, Sayigh 2009, Miller 2011, Kristoff 2012, Hatzigeorgopoulos 2013). The one study that does offer some insights into EUPOL COPPS’s formulation process and traces it to its direct predecessor (EU COPPS) focuses on one specific project executed by the mission (a communications network) and not on its formulation process per se (Kerkkänen et al. 2008). This is a grave oversight, for the following reason: namely, that the missions’ creation process sheds a great deal of light on the inner workings of the EU itself. To view the missions as a mere response to regional political developments is to ignore the internal European dynamics which influence its foreign policy.

It may be safe to say, therefore, that despite the wide coverage of the issues related to the nature and operations of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah, the literature provides virtually no insight into the creation process of the two missions. Consequently, the EU’s unprecedented decision to expand its involvement in the MEPP and to deploy new political tools to deal with it (EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah) is dealt with superficially. A great many analysts reduce these complicated processes to a mere by-product of regional and international politics (Barak 2007, Musu 2007, Sabiote 2008, Asseburg 2009, Sayigh 2009, Al-Fattal 2010, Musu 2010, Miller 2011, Persson 2011, Kristoff 2012, Hatzigeorgopoulos 2013, O’Donnell 2013, Tocci 2013, Dror 2014). Since the available literature largely fails to examine the EU decision-making process regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and to question the manner in which the EU and the governments of its member states reconcile their different and sometimes contradictory interests, there is, by extension, a gap in analysing how this process affects the final policy outcome.

This book aims at studying and analysing the creation of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah, not as a by-product, but rather as a complicated negotiation process which (1) involved EU actors, as well as regional and international ones, and (2) was influenced by a variety of factors, both regional and international, as well as the EU’s own common foreign policy formulation mechanisms.

4 Research questions

Why did the EU decide to expand its role in the MEPP in 2005 via the creation and deployment of EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah? How were the two missions created?

To adequately answer this question, two sub-research questions are dealt with:

• 1 Which actors played defining roles in creating the missions?
• 2
  • a) What factors influenced the EU’s decision to create and deploy EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah?
  • b) How did these factors affect the missions’ formulation processes and their final outcomes? To what extent did they hinder and/or facilitate the roles of the different actors involved?

As a postscript, the conclusion discusses the possibility of using EUPOL COPPS and EUBAM Rafah as prototypes for the development of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 EU foreign policy formulation process: intergovernmentalism and supra-nationalism
• 3 The EU foreign policy machinery: who does what and how?
• 4 A never-ending story: the EU and the Middle East conflict
• 5 Seeking a role or seeking reform: EUPOL COPPS and the Palestinian Authority security sector reform
• 6 Securing borders, securing roles: EUBAM Rafah and the EU’s role at the Gaza border crossing
• 7 In search of answers
• Appendix 1 Guide to interview codes
• Appendix 2 Council Joint Action 2005/797/CFSP of 14 November 2005 on the European Union police mission for the Palestinian territories
• Appendix 3 Council Joint Action 2005/889/CFSP of 12 December 2005 on establishing a European Union border assistance mission for the Rafah Crossing Point (EUBAM Rafah)
• Appendix 4 Map of the Gaza border crossings (as of March 2007)
• Index