Crisis And Opportunity: The “Deal Of the Century” Challenge For The Liberal Order

President Trump’s tenure has made the EU much more vulnerable to American unilateralism. Europe’s historic relationship with the USA is undergoing its most trying test yet. Policies pertaining to the region of the Middle East and especially to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been a continuous thorn in the transatlantic relationship for decades. President Trump’s “Deal of the Century” has revealed EU’s vulnerabilities as an organization and a global actor to effect positive change in the European neighborhood and reclaim an international order hijacked by American unpredictability with the uncertainty it creates for the viability of international institutions and for the promotion of international peace and cooperation. The Plan for the resolution of the protracted conflict goes against the traditional stance of the transatlantic partners on this issue: the commitment to the two-state solution; the negotiations for the status of Jerusalem; the funding of the Palestinian institutions and relevant international bodies; and the legitimacy of the settlements and annexations under International Law. Furthermore, the neutralization of the Quartet, transatlantic partners’ discord and EU’s internal divisions on the issue reveal two “systemic” weaknesses of the Liberal Order that threaten its very survival: a) the inability of the EU to act as a meaningful global actor out of the shadows of the USA; and b) the inability of the transatlantic partnership to work in practice in order to enhance the meaningful role for international institutions and to share responsibility for the success or failure of policies that aim at fostering international and regional cooperation, multilateralism, conflict resolution and International Law. With Jerusalem casting a shadow over EU-USA relations more than ever before, the “Deal of the Century” can become an excellent methodological tool in order to examine and reveal the malignancies of the Liberal Order today, the crises it creates in the global order due to the systemic malfunctions of the transatlantic partnership, the parameters of these systemic malfunctions including the systemic weaknesses of the EU and the existential threats to the survival of the West. In this paper, thus, the Deal is treated as a decisive variable that reveals more about the crises of the Liberal Order, the role of the EU in global security and the potential opportunities for a more meaningful transatlantic partnership, than a policy tool for the examination of the success or failure of the peace process in the Middle East. The paper concludes that conflicts in the European periphery act as substantial “regulators” of the degree of transatlantic cooperation in matters of international security every time the American leadership becomes unpredictable and with a unilateral stance that threatens international peace and cooperation and this is exactly what the EU must “exploit” and invest in in order to enhance its role as a global security and conflict resolution actor in a complex, chaotic world. It is the only way to “save” the Liberal Order and make it relevant and meaningful again.