Bush in Europe —

LONDON, England (CNN) — George Bush’s trail through Europe is not being strewn with flower petals.

Instead, the U.S. president’s visit — along with the demonstrations it is provoking — serves to emphasise the divergent world visions of the United States and European Union.

After September 11, Europe was united — both in sympathy for the United States and in practical efforts to support Bush’s global war on terror.

NATO invoked Article 5 of its constitution for the first time in 50 years to declare the attacks an assault on all alliance members.

But the United States fought the war in Afghanistan with a coalition of the willing, not with NATO.

European nations balked at Bush’s speech in January linking North Korea, Iran and Iraq in an “axis of evil.”

And Europeans have not hidden their alarm at the U.S. president’s plans for a “regime change” in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Mutual disbelief
Leading Europeans like Chris Patten, the EU’s external affairs commissioner, have accused the United States of being in “unilateralist overdrive,” while U.S. opinion leaders have criticised Europe for “whinging” and being unwilling to spend the money to lift their NATO contributions to realistic levels.

The mutual incomprehension which existed before September 11 — and which has now acquired an added vehemence — spreads across a wide field.

Europeans see the United States as environmentally selfish for refusing to sign up to the Kyoto accords on global warming.

They regard the Bush administration as irresponsible for refusing to ban land mines, frustrating an international convention on chemical and biological warfare and setting its face against the International Criminal Court.

Then there are the trade issues.

The EU is furious that a U.S. administration which preaches free markets to the world has slapped tariffs on steel imports. It’s ready to retaliate next month with a list of duties on U.S. exports to Europe.

And there is equal horror over a complicated new U.S. farm bill which is seen as sharply protectionist.

Middle East issues
The strongest feelings, however, are those aroused by the Middle East, where the United States is traditionally seen as Israel’s biggest supporter and the European Union as the biggest supplier of funds to the Palestinian Authority.

The Middle East conflict and its cycle of violence has divided Europe and the U.S.
Many Europeans, who see “land for security” as the only route to any eventual peace deal, are horrified that the United States does not condemn more strongly Israel’s settlement programme and other tactics.

They believe Israel’s actions are merely radicalising a new generation of Palestinians, helping turn more of them into suicide bombers.

Americans — with the terrorist carnage of September 11 still vivid in their memories — put the emphasis on innocent Israeli civilians being killed by the suicide bombers and cannot comprehend why Europeans seem so ready to fund the Palestinian Authority.

In truth it is becoming a non-dialogue of the would-be deaf. The United States, as the prime target for worldwide terrorism, is not in the mood to compromise and has the power to lead and make pre-emptive strikes — hence the largely pro-Israeli stance and the readiness to target Saddam Hussein.

Europe, which has lived for decades with terrorists such as ETA, the IRA and Italy’s Red Brigades and has seen two world wars fought on its soil, is more eager to disarm with diplomacy than fight shooting wars.

Rise of the right
On the Israel-Palestinian question, the intensity of feeling has grown as many U.S. opinion leaders have seized on the apparent rise of the European far right to suggest, wrongly, that the Continent is in the grips of a new wave of 1930s-style anti-Semitism which is conditioning political leaders’ responses to the Middle East.

Le Pen’s success is among the factors leading some Americans to fear a surge in European anti-Semitism
As evidence, they point to the first-round success of National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen in the French presidential election, the progress made by slain maverick Pim Fortuyn’s party in the Netherlands, and advances by the British National Party in local elections in Britain.

But Le Pen’s success was due to a series of factors: The fragmentation of the French left, Le Pen’s exploitation of the issue of crime, and a protest vote against the “co-habitation” of a conservative president and Socialist prime minister.

It is rising crime and its association in the public mind with immigration which has been responsible for most of the advance of the European far right, not any remaining tinges of anti-Semitism.

Before his assassination, Fortuyn specifically dissociated himself from anti-Jewish rhetoric. And the British National Party, which won no more than a handful of local council seats, has exploited tensions involving local Asian communities.

It is true that there have been some ugly attacks on synagogues across Europe. But almost certainly they have reflected the unrest in the Middle East rather than any outbreak of anti-Semitism against local Jewish communities.

Building bridges
Meanwhile, Bush’s arrival in Europe has not served to illuminate any of the wider background.

Rather, by drawing crowds of protesters, it is putting the focus on divisive, sloganising issues — rather than on recent progress with Russia over nuclear stockpiles and its relationship with NATO.

UK’s Tony Blair: “Don’t pull apart Europe and America”
Those moves at least can be celebrated simultaneously in Washington and in Europe’s capitals.

Perhaps it is a pity the Bush trip this time does not take in London, where Prime Minister Tony Blair has told The Times:

“I regard it as one of my tasks to say to people the whole time: ‘Don’t pull apart Europe and America.’ The only people that rejoice in those circumstances are the bad guys.”

Blair’s role as would-be bridge-builder isn’t getting any easier.

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