Israel should never tolerate such threats. No doubt the EU told the PA to drop its demand for a freeze on settlement construction and that the EU would use economic pressure to create the freeze. The EU also encourages and finances Palestinians encroachment into Area C in violation of Oslo.How dare they insist that negotiations end in a deal. The EU also finances activities of subversive NGO’s.
A party to negotiations always has the right to reject any offers made. The EU and the US are trying to ram ’67 lines plus swaps down our throats. Some negotiations! They are forcing us to walk the plank. We should never have got on the plank, otherwise known as agreed to negotiate, in the first place. The outcome has largely been predetermined without out consent. Israel must announce settlement construction and follow through with it. We can’t allow ourselves to be dictated to. Its time to bite the bullet. Ted Belman
The European Union yesterday said it had asked Israel not to announce any new West Bank settlement construction following an expected Palestinian prisoner release, warning it would be blamed for any resulting failure in the Mideast peace talks.
In further pressure on Israel, a European delegation told Israeli officials there could be dire consequences if the current round of peace talks collapsed, including economic sanctions against the settlements, an EU official said.
The warnings were the latest sign of international disapproval of Israeli settlement construction and its effect on negotiations, which have yielded no tangible results since last summer.
Under a U.S.-brokered formula to restart talks, the Palestinians dropped their demand for a construction freeze while Israel agreed to release 104 of its longest-serving Palestinian prisoners. The releases have taken place in four stages, with the third expected later this month.
The Palestinian prisoners have been convicted in dozens of deadly attacks on Israelis. In order to appease a public uproar over the releases, Israel has announced plans to build hundreds of additional settler homes in the coming months. The announcements have prompted international condemnation and Palestinian threats to withdraw from talks. Officials involved in the U.S.-brokered negotiations hope to reach a peace deal by April.
“If these talks fail because of a new settlement announcement, Israel risks having a finger pointed at it,” Eyal Inbar, the EU’s acting spokesman in Israel, said yesterday.
Inbar said the EU message was delivered to the director of the Foreign Ministry on Monday. Details of the meeting were first reported by Haaretz. Another EU official said yesterday that a separate delegation of officials from the EU’s five largest countries had threatened to take economic action over the settlements should peace talks fail.
The official warned of “unprecedented steps,” including explicit labeling of settlement products exported to Europe and even a possible ban on such items. The official also said that Europe threatened to halt its aid to the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian self-rule government in the West Bank.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, offered no details as to when such measures might take effect. Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment.
The European official said the threat to cut off aid was also made to Palestinian officials yesterday.
A halt in aid would be painful to both sides. For the Palestinians, it would likely bring about the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. But for Israel, it could be even more painful by forcing it to assume responsibility for the 2.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank.
The threats are part of the carrot and stick approach of tough talk and incentives, which is being promoted by European officials. On Monday, EU foreign ministers pledged “unprecedented” political, financial and security support for Israel and the Palestinians if they reached a peace agreement. This would translate to increased access to European markets, closer cultural and scientific ties and promotion of business-to-business relations. The EU official said yesterday the package could include a “nonmember state” status for the Palestinians, giving them special access to European markets and resources.
The EU representative to the Palestinians, John Gatt-Rutter, yesterday met with the Palestinian president and prime minister to discuss the EU offer. He said the EU had urged Israel and the Palestinians “to seize the unique opportunity provided by the peace negotiations. By doing so and by providing a substantial offer of practical support, the EU has indicated its readiness, once more, to accompany both parties toward a just and lasting peace.”
Still, Europe has grown increasingly impatient with the stalemate.
Last week, EU auditors recommended that the bloc stop paying the salaries of Palestinian civil servants in Gaza who haven’t worked since Hamas seized the territory from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007. Abbas has continued to pay the idle workers to maintain political support in Gaza. But Israel’s settlement construction has rankled Europe in particular.
The 28-member EU already blocks goods produced in Israeli settlements from receiving customs exemptions other Israeli goods receive. Bloc officials are also considering measures to clearly label settlement products. The EU has already forced Israel to accept regulations barring EU funds from supporting Israeli projects in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and other territories won by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.
This article and the above comments loudly point to the obvious direction for the GOI. They must seize the high ground and forcefully
lead the country toward self-determination with respect to the TSS. As previously noted this means building up J & S and annexation.
Initially area C but eventually the entire territory. Of course all Arabs would be given Israeli citizenship but with a very clear
commitment of loyalty to the state. The kleptocracy known as the PA should be totally marginalized. Of course for any Arabs not
willing to live under Israeli sovereignty there will be financial incentives to relocate. Only when Israel takes these steps and
declares “ZO ARTZEINU” will the “nations” retreat from their policy delegitimization.
This is totally great.
Let them stop buying the “settlement products” and at the same time stop supporting the Palestinian gangsters.
What a bunch of B*U*L*L*S*H*I*T
Israel should not assume any responsibility for the squatters squatting on the Jewish land.
In any case, so far not a single Pal died from hunger, on the other hand 100s of thousands are dying from obesity. 35% of Pals are clinically obese.
Anyway, if they don’t like it, they can always move to Sweden where they can join the other musloids in raping the native women while living on Swedish generous welfare.
On a scale of values, I would rank a State of Israel in full control of all Eretz-Yisrael at approximately 6 million and the good will of mostly hostile goyim toward the eternal Jewish nation, the State of Israel and Zionism as the liberation movement of the Jewish nation, along with vague promises of increased trade with Western Europe, at about one percent of that 6 million.
As for Eyal Inbar, described as the EU spokesman in Israel, who, in the name of these collected West European hypocrites, threatens angry finger-pointing at Israel, I would use a Jewish nationalist hatchet to chop off all their threatening fingers, starting with Jewish traitors who play the part of their vile lackeys in Israel or elsewhere.
Israel’s policy should be to utilize the appropriate clauses of the Oslo Accords to fill Area C from the Jordan River westward to the ridgelines of Shomron and Yehuda, then annex the whole of those districts as an inseparable part of the State of Israel.
Then, with that move accomplished, as I have written here and elsewhere in many comments, Israel should cease recognition of the so-called Palestine Authority and offer separate negotiable autonomy agreements with the leaders of the main hamoulas (urban Arab blood-relation clans) of the Arab cities of Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem, Kalkilya, Ramallah, Jericho and Hevron.
Once local power is so transferred, it is all but certain the mukhtars (or whatever other title they would deem appropriate) would never willingly give up their local authority in favor of some gang such as the Fatah, which is all that the Palestine “Authority” has ever been right from the get-go.
Which means the Jew-haters of Western Europe would never be able to incite those Arabs and their local communities for purposes of satisfying the antisemitism that is all but bred into the social psychology of most of the European peoples, put there, as it was both by the Christian Orthodox Church of Constantinople and by the Roman Catholic Church from their earliest times.
The overall good will of all those people, even if it could be depended on, would be negligible relation to the present and future needs of the Jewish nation, the Jewish state, the Zionist movement and the ancient, unchanged and unchangeable faith in HaShem of the Jewish nation, which will last even if our numbers were to be reduced to 10 men for purposes of serving as a Shabat minyan. We serve the interests of the Jewish nation, and these shall never be subsumed by any hostile or competing national interests.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI