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Monday, May 26, 2003

Problems of the Euro-Global-Union



The point behind the last post had already been picked up by David Weman over at Europunditry. Nice to no someone out there is listening.

Henry Farrell blogged two days ago about Israel
becoming an EU member, an idea some Israelipoliticians sometimes like to flout. The Head Heebwrote about this back in December. He explains thepolitical context and discusses the ramifications and the arguments for and against; from the Israeli perspective, where he does a good job, and the
European perspective, where I think both he and Henry misses what it comes down to:

Do you like or dislike the prospect of the European Union turning into the Global Union, maybe even morphing into a future One World Government? Israel does not lie in Europe. If you discard the geographic criteria, and make it all about values or whatever, what legitimate arguments do you have against excluding a future democratic Iran? And then why not Pakistan? And then why not India?

Now, you may say: that's never gonna happen, be serious David. I don't think you should be so certain; it's just too far into the future. But okay, Indian membership is very far off. However, it's quite likely various Arab states, and very possibly Iran will, in the distant but not too distant future, become democracies and then ask for membership. (Sadly, it's not necessarily more distant than an end to the Palestinian issue, that must be resolved before an Israeli membership.) I don't think we will let Israel in unless we'll also accept the possibility of lots of Muslim nations joining. Edward Hugh would approve, but I don't think neither our leaders nor the electorate are prepared to do that, and don't know if they ever will.
Source: Europunditry
LINK

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