(Times of Israel) A dramatic new directive published by the European Union bars its 28 members from all cooperation with Israeli entities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The directive, sent out on June 30 and set to take effect on Friday, extends to “all funding, cooperation, and the granting of scholarships, research grants and prizes” to Israeli entities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.
It also requires that any contracts between EU member countries and Israel henceforth include a clause stating that East Jerusalem and the West Bank are not part of the State of Israel.
A senior Israeli official told Haaretz that the ruling was an “earthquake” which unprecedentedly turns “understandings and quiet agreements that the Union does not work beyond the Green Line” into “formal, binding policy.”
The Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry were reported to be in “great tension and anxiety” over how to respond to the territorial clause, which is likely to be a stumbling block in Israel-EU relations.
Army Radio reported that the directive would also apply to the Golan Heights, captured by Israel from Syria in 1967, potentially drastically impacting exports to Europe from the Golan.
The new directive, initiated in December by the EU foreign ministers, is “in conformity with the EU’s longstanding position that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and with the non-recognition by the EU of Israel’s sovereignty over the occupied territories, irrespective of their legal status under domestic Israeli law,” the EU said in a statement.
In an Army Radio interview, Deputy Foreign Minister Zeev Elkin called the decision worrying, and said it would strengthen the Palestinians’ stance — reducing their motivation to compromise with Israel in peace efforts.
Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom said the directive underlined “how disconnected” Europe has become from the realities of the Middle East and that its policies proved Europe could not play a sensitive, effective role in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.
Ayelet Shaked, from the religious-nationalist Jewish Home, said Israel needed to be strong and determined, and “will not take directives from Europe.”
In contrast, Labor’s Nachman Shai blamed misguided “forces in our government” for turning the international community against Israel through their settlement policies. These forces were gradually “costing us our independence,” said Shai. “The world is putting us under siege.”
Jerusalem was urgently trying to ascertain whether the new directive would prove more dramatic on paper than in practice, the Army Radio report said. For example, officials were seeking to determine, would the EU henceforth halt all cooperation with the Hebrew University, for instance, since it employs staff who live beyond the 1967 lines, at the draconian limit of the directive? Or, at the other extreme, would implementation prove near-impossible, and ultimately have little effect on the ground?
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Reblogged this on NoWorksSalvationApocalypseNow and commented:
Satan’s EU minions are really working hard to apply pressure to Israel and control it through the pocket book. Of Course the Israeli’s should show all EU Contractors the door so that they won’t be confused. If the contractors lose business then they should take it up with the EU who put them out of business. God will provide for the Jewish state without the EU!
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