Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon expressed disappointment on Friday with European nations not stepping up more to help the US regain control of international shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Danon told The Post that US allies had banded together to stop pirates from Somalia when global commerce was threatened in the past, but Iran’s control of the strait hadn’t triggered the same response.
“I”m disappointed to see, you know, the lack of leadership,” he said. “In the past, we had a similar issue, this thing in Somalia, the international community coming together, putting on a show of force and fighting piracy.”
“Today, basically, they are waiting for the US,” added Danon, with the exceptions of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, which “are willing to pay a price, but I would expect more … from other countries, many of the European ones, they forget the way the US is supporting them today,” he said.
“I think they should be more involved in that.”
Traffic through the critical trade chokepoint has slowed to a fraction of its pre-war levels, with just 19 crossings in the past 24 hours as opposed to roughly 130 per day on average beforehand.
Around 20% of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
Since the conflict began on Feb. 28, the US has also been secretly escorting commercial oil tankers with their transponders turned off to evade attacks from Iran. The so-called “dark” missions aren’t tracked as easily in public reports.
More recently, some passages have been conducted during the daytime with Gulf allies.
A coalition of 40 countries including the UK and France convened in early April to consider other avenues for reopening the strait but haven’t been involved in operations to escort vessels in and out of the channel.
That’s been due to a shaky cease-fire between the US and Iran that’s been punctuated by Tehran’s attacks on commercial shipping vessels.
The International Maritime Organization has determined that Iran conducted at least 80 attacks on merchant ships in the strait this year. At least 22 crew members have been killed as a result.
