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She is Ignorant Indeed



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. 

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