As a result, Israel has traditionally tried to exclude the Europeans, or at least to minimize their involvement. In fact, Israel has generally preferred to pursue peace on a bilateral basis rather than encourage any outside mediation. But when the dangers of stalemate made that impossible, it accepted or even sought American involvement, while consistently rejecting any similar role for Europe. One manifestation of this was the appointment of Miguel Moratinos as Special EU Envoy to the Middle East peace process. Ironically, perhaps, it was also during this period that the intensity of American diplomatic mediation reached an unprecedented level, as US officials and diplomats micro-managed negotiations leading to the Hebron Protocol and the Wye River Memorandum.
Several considerations explain the Israeli preference for American auspices.
As a result, European policies, at least at the declaratory level, are often more sympathetic to Arab positions and concerns. Secondly, the different institutional character of the United States makes is easier for Israel to preempt or react when similar, if less pronounced trends emerge in American policy. By contrast, the European Union, for all its progress towards integration, remains an association of sovereign states that have yet to articulate a common foreign and security policy. The problem of policy coherence and authoritativeness does not, of course, apply to individual European states. But from Israel's perspective, that constitutes a different kind of disadvantage.