OVER the BLUE HORIZON A
OVER the BLUE HORIZON A killing in the Jewish Museum in Brussels and an infant girl in the sea near Crete: fragments of two Middle East conflicts which just got worse. By Andrew Rettman Photo: iom.org The International Organisation for Migration says 2014 was the deadliest year on record for Mediterranean crossing deaths, but is unable to say why. On 24 May 2014, a lone man opened fire at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels, a short bus ride from the EU institutions, killing four people. On 14 September, a nameless two-year old girl was rescued by the Greek coastguard near Crete after floating in the sea for three days. Both are fragments of conflicts on the other side of the Mediterranean which got worse in 2014 and which will cause new problems for European counter-terrorist officers, defence chiefs, humanitarian workers, and diplomats in the year to come. The Brussels gunman was a “foreign fighter”. Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-year old French national, was arrested carrying a gun wrapped in the flag of Isis, one of the Islamist groups in Iraq and Syria. He had spent 2013 training in Syria before using his French passport to get back into the EU’s borderless Schengen Zone. Photo: FreedomHouse2 FOREIGN FIGHTERS The Syrian civil war has been going on for three years. It entered a new phase in 2014 when Isis seized control of large parts of Iraq, including revenue-generating oil facilities, and threatened to take the Kurdish capital Erbil and Baghdad. By the end of the year, Isis flags were spotted in Libya. It also saw greater numbers of European Muslims - foreign fighters - attracted by Isis’ brutal vision of an Islamic Caliphate. The US estimates there were between 2,000 and 3,000 of them in the region in November, many from Belgium, France, and the UK. Meanwhile, the two-year old girl is thought to have come from Syria or Gaza. She was one of about 500 people trying to cross the Mediterranean to claim asylum in Europe, most of whom Photo: un.org had come from Gaza. Their boat sank when human traffickers rammed it, drowning almost everybody. SEA-CROSSINGS African, Asian, and Arabic refugees have been attempting the sea-crossing for a long time. The number of people who died trying this year passed 3,400, compared to 700 in 2013, despite EU and Italian search and rescue operations. The number of Syrians keeps growing because almost 4 million people have now fled the country. But the exodous of Palestinians from Gaza is a new factor. It follows an Israeli land incursion in summer, which killed more than 2,000 people, and comes amid ever-harder living conditions due to Israel’s blockade. If Isis became a strategic threat in Iraq, the Arab-Israeli conflict also became more complicated with Israeli plans for new settlements which, if constructed, will mean there can be no two-state solution. PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD The Isis surge prompted Barack Obama to order air-strikes in Iraq and Syria. Unlike the 2003 Iraq war, the US did it as part of a coalition of 60 states, including the main EU and Arab powers. But the US leader warned at a Nato summit that the nature of Isis, which is an ideology as well as a movement, means it will take “years” to stop. The hardening Israeli position also prompted an EU reaction: threats of mini-sanctions, such as labeling of settler goods in European shops, and a wave of non-binding motions in European parliaments calling for recognition of Palestinian statehood. But diplomats say European frustration means nothing unless the US, Israel’s security sponsor, tries to restart Arab-Israeli peace talks. Commenting on this year’s developments in Europe’s southern neighbourhood, one senior EU contact said: “There’s only one thing you can count on in the Middle East: It always gets worse”. • Photo: james_gordon_losangeles Photo: idf Unknown fighter in Syria. The US estimates that about 2,000 European Muslims have gone to Syria to fight alongside Islamists, posing a terrorist threat if they return. War damage in Gaza after Israeli operation Protective Edge. ‘It’s better to try and to drown in the sea than to stay at home and be killed by Israeli bombs’, one Gaza resident said. Photo: UNHCR Photo: EUobserver Syrian president Bashar al-Assad has clung on to power with the support of Iran, Iraq, the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and Russia. Israeli tanks entered Gaza in summer, following a heavy air bombardment. Sixty six Israeli soldiers were killed in the operation. Five Israeli civilians and a Thai national also died in the brief war. Refugees leaving Syria on foot: The three-year old conflict has caused almost 4mn people to flee to neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. Palestinian girls at a UN school in Gaza in 2012, shortly after Israeli air strikes demolished the other half of the school building in the previous Gaza operation, Pillar of Defence. The Mediterranean Sea around Italy. Syria, Iraq, and Gaza aside, 2014 also witnessed: sectarian violence in Lebanon; Egypt ordering mass-scale hangings of opposition prisoners; anarchy and violence in Libya. Photo: Mediterranean 38 ––––– Europe in review 2014 Europe in review 2014 ––––– 39
