Throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, European nations have largely shifted from unconditional solidarity with Israel to expressing concern over its conduct. But in the Balkans, the picture is fragmented, according to experts.
“The Balkan countries have almost no common positions at all, and so it’s not surprising their positions towards Israel and Gaza are all over the map,” Marko Prelec, an analyst at the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera. “Each country goes its own way.”
Florian Bieber, a professor of Southeast European history and politics at the University of Graz, said regional consensus is nearly impossible. “The position towards Israel is strongly shaped by domestic politics and also national narratives, which makes a regional or even a country-specific position unlikely.”
Nowhere is this fragmentation more evident than in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the war in Gaza has deepened existing ethno-national divisions. Bosniak political representatives and much of the public in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have expressed strong solidarity with Palestinians. Leaders in the Serb-majority entity, Republika Srpska, have been openly pro-Israel, and some Croat political figures have adopted a more sympathetic tone towards Israel.
“Bosniak solidarity with Palestinians is often seen not just through an ideological lens, but also from the perspective of war and being a victim of Serb nationalist aggression, comparing the Palestinian experience with the Bosniak experience in the 1990s,” Bieber explained.
Foreign policy analyst and journalist Bosko Jaksic told Al Jazeera that for former Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend – Jews and Orthodox Serbs against Muslims.”
Prelec noted that while there is genuine revulsion towards Israeli policy in Gaza and sympathy for Palestinians – particularly among Bosnian Muslims – most countries in the region take their positions based on unrelated interests.