In a show of national pride, Turkey is angry at its stalled EU membership bid as well as flexing its newfound regional muscles, but according to La Stampa, the real cause of this dispute is more material. The huge Leviathan gas field, recently discovered in the waters between Cyprus and Israel, which the two countries are preparing to exploit, has prompted the Turkish navy and airoforce to conduct manouevres in the area.

“Ten months are long, and Erdogan will have plenty of opportunities to change his mind” La Stampa writes. But “Europe cannot afford to lose Turkey, not right now” because its future relations with new governments emerging from the Arab Spring depend heavily on Ankara's mediation and the model of a secular, western-friendly Islamic state it represents.

In her letter, drafted in co-ordination with France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain, she also rejected the Palestinian initiative, writing – “This is no time for unilateral moves on either side, since this could lead to escalation.” Uppermost in Lady Ashton’s mind are the democratic uprisings in the Middle East which make a deal more urgent “because we need to contribute to a calming of a volatile situation that promises to be even more so as the year progresses." According to Ha’aretz, “Secretary of State Clinton and the U.S. administration are not enamored of Ashton's initiative at this point”, as they “prefer to secure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's support for renewed negotiations with the Palestinians.”

Until now, points out El País, in its approach to countries like Egypt and Tunisia "the EU strategy has been based on the principle of ‘security in exchange for millions of euros.’” The parameters that have now been announced -- free elections, freedom of speech in the press, an independent judiciary, the fight against corruption, and democratic control of security and armed forces -- will enable Europe to measure the level of democracy in these countries. The Madrid daily notes that the plan unveiled by the European diplomacy chief also includes measures for the control of migration flows. However, it points out that "Ashton has denied that the plan offers money to prevent immigration."

It is incomprehensible that "President Obama is keeping the EU away from the negotiations", declares Yossi Beilin in La Vanguardia. The former Israeli justice minister, president of the Geneva Initiative and former negotiator in the 2001 talks held at Taba, recalls that the principal steps in the peace process over the last 20 years have been made in Europe: the Madrid conference of 1991, as well as the agreements signed in Oslo (1993), Paris (1995) and Geneva (2003).

Beilin also observes that Obama is "aware of Europe's vast experience" and "knows that Europe will be called in over the three principal international problems" facing the establishment of a Palestinian state: finance, the question of who will participate in the multinational force for the protection of the Palestinian state, as well as the issue of who will help in the relocation of Palestinian refugees.

In light of these conditions, the former Israeli negotiator considers that Europe must not "beg" for a role in the renewed peace process, but must be "constantly implicated in the talks". This is what worked so well during the Madrid conference, where the "Europeans played a decisive and key part" in advancing the negotiations. Beilin believes that it is now up to "the United States and the other implicated parties" to ask that Europe also assume "a decisive role" in the talks.

In Europe, the assault on the Mavi Marmara prompted an exceptional – in as much as it was united – response from the European Union, whose High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton has demanded an international inquiry. Within the European Union, countries that were marked by war for much of their history have experienced such an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity that most of their citizens are unable to imagine an armed conflict with a neighbouring state. Now that the economic crisis has resulted in a discreet resurgence of nationalist sentiment, the time may be right for a daring initiative that could mark a turning point in the history of the EU, the Middle East and the world: we should propose that both Turkey and Israel become full members of the European Union within the next five years. The material details can be worked out later.

Gian Paolo Accardo

The Belgian daily notes that on 8 December 2009 "the 27-member EU government again restated its recognition of the 1949 cease-fire lines as the Jewish state's borders," which excludes the territories occupied by Israel since 1967. Some 276 Israeli companies, "from SMEs to multinationals" are located in the occupied territories, Le Soir reports.

The regime in Tripoli has closed its borders to Schengen area passport holders in reprisal for Switzerland's decision to blacklist Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage – the latest episode in a conflict that began in 2008, with the arrest in Geneva of the volatile colonel's son for mistreatment of his servants. In Europe, no questions are being asked about the Libyan leader's extreme response to the Swiss arrests – which included slapping jail sentences on two Swiss businessmen and urging the UN to abolish Switzerland. On the contrary, EU heads of state continue to fall over each other in their attempts to call on or host visits from Gaddafi. Now that the conflict has resulted in a ban on visas for Europeans, instead of taking the opportunity to put an end to Libyan coercion, they are more than prepared to let Berne sort out its troubles alone.

This is all the more regrettable in view of Europe's aspiration to act as a standard bearer for human rights, equality, and the rule of law. For the moment at least, it seems the EU is unlikely to make a fuss when such universal values are threatened. In another incident, the Israeli secret service has been accused of stealing the identities of 11 EU passport holders to allow its agents to assassinate a Hamas leader in Dubai. Demands by the states concerned – the United Kingdom, Ireland, France and Germany – for an explanation from Israeli authorities have simply been ignored. Israel's discourteous attitude is all the more surprising when you consider that, unlike Libya, it is supposed to be an ally – and for some, a future member – of the European Union. But do not expect Catherine Ashton, Europe's High Representative for Foreign Affairs, to pick up the phone and call Tripoli or Tel Aviv, if only to express the European Union's "astonishment" at such hostile behaviour. She is still too busy searching for Haiti in her largely unused copy of the world atlas. Gian Paolo Accardo

The bone of contention: Franz Kafka’s correspondence and manuscripts, kept in a safe in Zurich. Kafka had left them to his friend, the poet Max Brod, who, after bringing them to Israel, passed them on to his assistant, Esther Hoffe. Hoffe, in turn, auctioned some of the papers, before her demise, to the German Literary Archives, and her daughter Chava now wants to sell the rest.

The state of Israel now lays claim to the documents as national cultural property and has denied Chava Hoffe access to her inheritance. In a Tel Aviv court, the Jerusalem National Library is now demanding that the manuscripts be repatriated from Switzerland to Israel, and that the German Literary Archives return the manuscript of The Trial. It was Max Brod who started the whole imbroglio when Kafka died in 1924, observes Die Zeit, “by not burning the manuscripts in accordance with Kafka’s last wishes”.

The eight page draft legal complaint also urges the estimated 300,000 EU citizens living in Israel to join. The document further accuses the EU of allowing aid to the occupied Palestinian territories to get "into the hands of persons and organisations who actually finance and perpetrate terrorism." The $408 million of EU aid to the Palestian territories has long attracted criticism from Jewish rights groups. The EU, however, insists that the vast majority of the money is paid via a financial mechanism designed to ensure that the funds are used strictly for humanitarian purposes.