The confinement
of officials to their realms of specialisation dictated by their assumed
position in government serves a valid purpose: avoiding conflicting, damaging,
and embarrassing incidents. Iran’s Foreign
Minister recently complained about the intervention of the Revolutionary Guards in
foreign affairs, which led to damaging what has taken years to rebuild: trust
in Iran as a rational and sensible actor in international affairs. In Saudi
Arabia, Adel bin Jubair was sacked from his post as Foreign Minister following the works on Saudi
intelligence that led to international recriminations an accusations of
liquidating opponents in broad daylight. What Saudi Arabia had successfuly been
able to mask in the past decades through top-notch diplomacy was also ruined by
ruthless, abiding tools.
Whilst stepping
out of your jurisdiction and assuming the role of a true authoritarian with
limitless and reign-less powers is usually observed in the Middle East, Romania
gave the world a fresh surprise.
Romanian Prime
Minister Viorica Dăncilă told the AIPAC policy conference that was held in
Washington, DC, that her country would seek to relocate its embassy to Israel’s
alleged capital. “I am pleased to
announce that I, as prime minister of Romania, and the government that I run
will move our embassy to Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel” were
her exact words. Clearly, this came as a surprise to the entire Romanian
government, whereby Romanian President Klaus Iohannis did not shy away from apologetically
explaining that “The prime minister shows complete ignorance regarding foreign
affairs”.
Last year, the
Romanian government, supported by the speaker of its Parliament, adopted a
draft proposal to move the country’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The
proposal was opposed by the President who insisted on an Israeli-Palestinian
peace deal as a preliminary step. Naturally, he and called for Dăncilă’s
resignation. Naturally, she stayed put.
Now, the Prime
Minister did not stop there, but also pledged to work to improve Israel-European
Union ties, and setting up the embassy in Jerusalem was the first step, completely
ignoring the EU’s opposition to the presence of diplomatic missions in the
city. Perhaps the Prime Minister failed to see how such a move would impact
Romania’s relations with the Arab and the Muslim worlds, and how it would
distance neutral countries in its own neighbourhood, which chose a pacific, fair,
and bilateral solution to the crisis, rather than the barbaric self-serving strategy
followed by the US...and Guatemala. The first sign of Arab discontent was the cancellation of the state visit of King Abdullah of Jordan to Romania that was scheduled this week - the least to expect following such thoughtless statements.
It is also
interesting to see how the history of a nation’s suffering can be easily
forgotten in the heat of the moment. For an impoverished country that has lived
under Communist control for long years, and finally breaking out of the shackles
in an inspiring demonstration that demanded freedom, it is hard to imagine how acceptable
it is to deny other nations this freedom.
Most
importantly, a political system takes its form based on the power structures
and their accorded division amongst players. Over stepping one's bounds will
only justify their labelling as ignorant – very much rightfully so in this case.
