John Moore,

I dont have cite or facts for any of this, but as a european, I thought I should offer a subjective view.

I cant really see the Israeli/Palestinian conflict as anything remotely like a proxy war of EU/US, and I seriously doubt many in europe would, I have never ever heard it suggested before. (Ofcourse, there’s always loonies…)

When I read your post, I immediately thought of it as more of historic reasons. In the late 60s-70s, socialism was really “in fashion” here, the generation that grew up then was very revolutionary in their views; Marx, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, FNL(vietnam) and basically any revolutionary movement they could find, including PLO. They grew up, and are now in many high places, but still remember their “friends”.

And since they’ve backed the PLO as freedom fighters through the years, they still do so.

I really think it’s pretty much that simple, they picked their side over 30 years ago, and it’s too late for them to change now…

The same reason is also the basis of most of the anti-americanism, and the reason they object to anything the US does. They look at their map rather than the real world, and the map they have tells them the US is “imperialistic/bad”.

Of course, I cant really offer anything to back any of this up, other than the subjective views of someone that lived here all my life (more or less).

As for the European military, it’s mostly geared towards defending their own territory. Except possibly for England, and some smaller units (Foreign Legion, etc), I dont think they could offer much offensive capability on foreign soil. But I believe almost all countries still have conscription(?) and can call up every able person for military service, if they were attacked. In Sweden, that is certainly the case, military service is mandatory for men (although not all are actually chosen to do it)

After what I hear, european units do pretty well as peacekeepers where they are used, but doesn’t really have much offensive ability. I think they could handle the Balcans pretty well on their own right now, as long as none of the parties there decide to go on the offensive again.