HJS Friends of Israel Report FINAL_HJS Friends of Israel Report FINAL.qxd 06/02/2014 09:55 Page 8 ADDED VALUE: ISRAEL’S STRATEGIC WORTH TO THE EU AND ITS MEMBER STATES The Security ‘Arab Spring’ is another.14 Nowhere is this now more ael’s neighbour, Syria, which, since evident than in Isr the outbreak of civil war in 2011, has become ground Dimension zero for violent extremists from around the world. The extremists’ ranks comprise at least 1,000 hard-core Islamists from Europe, including an estimated 300 Overview from the UK alone – extremists whom British For the past seven decades, most EU states have been intelligence fear will try to launch terror attacks upon their return to Britain.15 16 blessedly free of the political conflicts that brought the carnage of the World Wars. More recently, with the “The Israelis keep a close eye on what’s happening in Cold War over; the US funding three-quarters of Syria, including all the European fighters there,” said NATO spending; and their own economies in crisis, Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the EU states have let their military budgets shrink further Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute and former still. Today, only the UK and Greece meet NATO’s editorial editor at the Wall Street Journal Europe. “It’s tes contributing 2% of their one area in which there are, no doubt, deep shared guideline of member sta GDP to defence.11 interests and concerns.”17 Israel, by contrast, has been in conflict since the day Intelligence sharing of its birth, and has accumulated vast operational and counterterrorism experience, which the EU Israeli intelligence is, by necessity, world class, boasting lacks. Through intelligence sharing; arms sales; and capabilities that former US Air Force intelligence joint training exercises, EU members benefit from chief Maj. Gen. George Keegan likened to that of Israeli expertise, making their borders more secure; “five CIAs.”18 Less well-documented is the scope of their military operations more effective; and their Israeli-European intelligence sharing – links that were itiz redoubled after the major terror attacks that hit c ens safer. “Defence budgets all over Europe are dropping, and Europe over the last decade. military R&D budgets as well,” said Brig. Gen. (ret.) The EU – with its porous interstate borders and Uzi Eilam, who was formerly the Europe director and often-inadequate immigrant screening – has become Head of Science and Research and Development with an attractive target for terrorists. One-hundred-and- the Israeli Defence Ministry, and is now with the ninety-one people were killed in the 2004 Madrid Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel train bombings, and 52 more the following year (in Aviv. “Yet, if the threats Europe is facing – particularly attacks on London’s public transport). The thwarted are steeply on the rise, it needs, 2006 “Liquid Bomb Plot” could have dwarfed even in the war on terror – not only technology, but counterterrorism knowhow; the 9/11 attacks, with as many as 10,000 people killed, that’s where Israeli companies come in,” he said.12 had its perpetrators succeeded in exploding 10 planes Cyberwarfare, the Iranian nuclear threat, and the rising use of the Mediterranean Basin as a launch pad 14 Tsilla Hershco, “Israel – EU Security and Defence Relations – Divergences and Convergences,” Diplomacy & Foreign Affairs, available at: for terrorism in Europe are all areas of mutual http://diplomacyandforeignaffairs.com/israel-eu-security-and-defense- relations-divergen 13 ces-and-convergences/ (accessed 4 November 2013). concern; geopolitical instability wrought by the 15 Siobhan Gorman, Cassell Bryan-Low, and Maria Abi-Habib, “Jihadists Returning Home to Europe From Syria Pose New Terror Threat,” The Wall Street Journal, 4 December 2013, available at: 11 Steven Erlanger, “Shrinking Europe Military Spending Stirs Concern,” The http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303722104 New York Times, 22 April 2013, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/ 579238542737904868 (accessed 8 December 2013). 04/23/world/europe/europes-shrinking-military-spending-under- 16 Con Coughlin, “The Syrian civil war is breeding a new gener ation of terrorist,” scrutiny.html?_r=0; see also: John Vandiver, “NATO chief urges Europe e Telegraph, 3 December 2013, available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ Th to spend more on defense,” Stars and Stripes, 19 September 2013, available at: news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10491523/The-Syrian-civil-war-is- http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/nato-chief-urges-europe-to-spend- breeding-a-new-generation-of-terrorist.html (accessed 8 December 2013). more-on-defence-1.242159 (both accessed 19 November 2013). 17 Author interview, 6 December 2013. 12 Author ew, 19 November 2013. intervi 18 Cited in Michael Oren, “The Ultimate Ally,” Foreign Policy, 25 April 2011, 13 Author interviews with Oded Eran, Israel’s former ambassador to the EU, and available at: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04 /25/ Ben-Gurion University’s Zaki Shalom, security expert, 19 November 2013. the_ultimate_ally (accessed 8 November 2013). 6