Trying to explain the growing chasm between Israel and Europe, the British journalist and author Anatol Lieven wrote in 2004: "For equally valid and legitimate reasons, Western Europe and parts of the liberal intelligentsia of the United States on one hand and the greater part of the world's Jewish population on the other drew opposing conclusions from the catastrophe of Nazism . . . The Western European elites and many US liberal intellectuals essentially decided that the correct response to Nazism and to the hideous national conflicts which preceded, engendered and accompanied it was to seek to limit, transcend and overcome nationalism." 

Lieven, whose book, America, Right or Wrong (2004) was ferociously critical of US support for Israel and dismissive of Israeli claims, nevertheless sought to explain the reasons for the above seemingly irreconcilable conclusions: "Given the failure of the Western world...to prevent genocide, or even — shamefully — to offer refuge to Jews fleeing the Nazis, it is entirely natural that a great many Jews decided that guarantees from the international community were not remotely sufficient to protect them against further attempts at massacre."

There is sympathy, then, even on the Left for Jewish concerns about Israel's survival. But there is also an impatience that frequently turns into contempt at what most European leaders see as the Israelis' refusal to bring the conflict with the Palestinians to an end, due to their nationalistic claims and militaristic culture.

Despite Israel's loneliness in the world, Europe blames Israel for lack of progress on the tortuous road to peace — although — the Palestinians turned down three comprehensive peace offers in less than ten years and have refused to return to negotiations since March 2009. Europe condemns Israel's periodic announcements of new apartment units in already existing settlements as if they were the ultimate threat to peace, but cannot bring itself to support Israel's demand that its adversaries finally recognise Israel's right to exist in peace and security as a Jewish state.

Instead, it trivialises Palestinian terrorism as a "weapon of the weak" which barely scratches Israel's armoured surface. It downplays the genocidal and anti-Semitic rhetoric of Hamas, in effect condoning its ideology or the devastating impact of its terrorist attacks. And it cannot even agree to define Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, despite its continuous calls for Israel's destruction, its stockpiling of deadly missiles, its openly stated role as Iran's lieutenant in Lebanon, and its alleged complicity in carrying out the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri.