Europe may have to play a bigger role in Palestine

As the US shifts its focus eastwards, Europe will play a greater role in the Middle East and particularly the Israel-Palestinian dispute.

As you look around the Middle East, it seems clear that American power is collapsing.

With its light touch in Egypt, Washington gets the blame for everything that happens, but seems to wield little influence. In Syria, where the end of the Assad dynasty seemed a certainty 18 months ago, the First Couple can be seen on their Instagram page without a care in the world - with Bashar looking like a commander- in-chief and Asmaa feeding the hungry.

Meanwhile, the future of the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan is openly discussed in Washington. Sinai and Yemen seem to be turning into Al Qaeda fiefdoms, forcing the temporary closure of 21 US embassies and consulates in the region. In Iraq, politicians seem to be leading the country back to civil war, even though it's hard to find any ordinary Iraqis who want to go down that path again.

The one spot of light is the agreement to resume final status talks between Israelis and Palestinians. But there are several mysteries here: why this conflict, and why now? Could it be that the levers that Washington pulled so confidently in the past no longer work except in this small patch of land?

We can surmise that there is one thing on which the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, agree: neither wants to take the blame for the failure of a project to which Mr Kerry has devoted so much effort. This is enough to get them round the table, but hardly a sufficient basis for cutting the Gordian knot.

Given the apocalyptic rhetoric from Washington - that this is the last chance for the two-state solution - it can be assumed that failure would have serious consequences. The last such attempt, under Bill Clinton in 2000, ended with the finger of blame pointed at Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader, leading to the Second Intifada.

The consequences of Mr Kerry's gamble are now being urgently considered in Europe. If he succeeds, it will be easy for the 28 members of the European Union to rebuild relations with Israel, which overreacted ludicrously to a Brussels decision that institutions based in illegal Jewish settlements would not be eligible for EU funding or scientific prizes. One of the key roles would be for the Europeans to find ways to bring the two wings of the Palestinian movement - Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip - to an accommodation.

But what if the talks fail? The consequences are alarming. The US, which props up the Palestinian Authority to the tune of $440 million (Dh2.1bn) a year on condition that it shuns the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, could well stop writing cheques. The PA might in any case collapse. The Israelis would no doubt freeze tax receipts they collect on behalf of the Palestinian government, leaving the EU to pay the whole tab.

The EU pays €500 million (Dh2.45bn) a year to keep the Palestinian Authority afloat. It is unlikely that the Europeans would be happy to more than double their expenditure, without the pretence that they were supporting a "peace process".

In June, Gunilla Carlsson, minister of development cooperation in the centre-right government of Sweden, suggested that aid to the Palestinians should be cut if there was no prospect of a peace deal. She spoke before the announcement of the Kerry peace talks, and Sweden is something of an outlier in Europe on this issue, but still it was widely noted as an indication that things will have to change.

Behind the issue of who will support the Palestinians lies a more serious issue. For all the effort that Mr Kerry has made, it is clear that the Obama administration's long-term goal is to reduce its commitments in the "greater Middle East", as Washington calls the region where it has fought two wars since 2001. If it is possible to resolve the Israel-Palestine problem, then Mr Obama will try to defuse the Iranian nuclear issue. His successor can have his or her hands free to focus on the Asia Pacific region where money - and probably history - is to be made in decades to come.

But the Europeans have to be prepared for the possibility that the great Middle East triumph will not take place. In that case, Mr Kerry's dash for peace begins to look like a scheme to disengage from the 20-year-old Oslo process - with a peace deal or without it - and leave the EU to take charge of the neighbourhood, or at least pay the Palestinians to keep quiet.

Washington would never leave its Israeli ally in the lurch. But from a US-Israeli perspective, the situation in the Middle East is not as dire as it seems. If the Egyptian generals can restore their rule in Sinai, the Israelis would feel more secure, and with the Suez Canal protected, world trade would not face any serious threat.

The US journalist and commentator Robert D Kaplan wrote this week that chaos in Syria undermines Lebanon and Iraq but is not threatening any core American interest. It might even serve to weaken Iran and so help to defuse the nuclear issue. So long as Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula remain calm, he wrote, there is no crisis for Washington, just a long-term security challenge.

Such sanguine assessments - even as embassies are being evacuated - remind us that US ideas of power projection are rapidly evolving. While the US is not going to leave a vacuum in the Middle East, its footprint is likely to get smaller, and more will be expected of the Europeans.

They may find themselves expected to pick up the bills that Washington no longer cares to pay. They will certainly have to clarify what exactly they want for the Euro-Mediterranean region.

On Twitter @aphilps