‘Give Israel EU membership in return for Palestinian state’, Muscat proposes

Malta’s former prime minister Joseph Muscat has suggested that Israel be rewarded with member-state status at the European Union, in a bid to recognise Palestine as a sovereign state.

The former Labour leader penned an opinion column for The Times in which he suggested a “new variable” once proposed by Italy 20 years back, for Israel to be allowed EU membership to seal independence and sovereignty for the occupied Palestinian people.

“All those who have visited Israel will probably concur that it is essentially a Western country with a liberal economy and vibrant democracy. It would fit in the European Union with next to no modifications and is small enough to be assimilated with minimal effort, much less than most candidate countries,” Muscat said.

Muscat has now presented himself as a co-sponsor of sorts of the proposal. “Propose to Israel to become a member of the European Union, where it would surely provide a political, economic and social value added. This would be done with the precondition of the recognition of the State of Palestine with full rights.”

He said that while he could not predict the reaction from any Israeli policymaker, he was sure that young Israelis would welcome this kind of integration as “historic justice to the persecution inflicted upon their forefathers”. 

“Also, it would enhance their families’ security much more than any Iron Dome. Call it the European Dome, if you will,” he said, a word-play based on Israel’s mobile missile defence system, financed by the United States.

Muscat said that while European policymakers “might frown at the idea… surely, giving Ukraine a candidate country status is politically much riskier.”

Muscat said that Israel, which is so far responsible for the deaths of over 30,000 Palestinians in its war in Gaza, “would need only to make cosmetic and easy changes to align itself to European rules.”

In 2013, Italy’s foreign minister Emma Bonino had lobbied for Israel to be admitted into the European Union. As far back as 2001, Bonino and fellow members of the Radical Party had launched a campaign in favour of Israel’s immediate membership of the bloc. But as the call was made during the second intifada, it was interpreted as a gesture of support for the Israeli military attacks against Palestinians.

Muscat referenced criticism from European Parliament president Roberta Metsola, who has tried to distance herself from her Israeli endorsement in October 2023 by accusing the former PM of once meeting Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I am proud to have been the first and, to date, only Maltese prime minister to visit Israel and meet with my counterpart as well as meeting the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah during the same visit. Those who try to extrapolate this as some kind of endorsement of current actions are out on a limb as much as those saying that Eddie Fenech Adami or Lawrence Gonzi meeting Muammar Gaddafi years (and months) before the revolution did in any way endorse his behaviour in the events that followed.”

Muscat was clear in his reference to Metsola: “Had I visited Israel in the first hours of the conflict and met only one side to endorse it, then that would have indeed been an ill-thought-out decision.”