EU Threatens Israel With Sanctions Over Sovereignty Plan For Judea, Samaria
BBC: France-led push “calling for a tougher line on the issue, including possible sanctions.”
The European Union is launching a diplomatic campaign to stop Israel from applying sovereignty over parts of the Judea and Samaria region, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell declared on Friday. “We must work to discourage any possible initiative toward annexation,” he said.
The EU is threatening the Jewish State with economic sanctions, if the country’s new government goes ahead with applying sovereignty over the region. Some EU member states, led by France, are “calling for a tougher line on the issue, including possible sanctions,” BBC reported. These measures include blocking Israel from reaching new trade agreements with the 27-member bloc and ending economic, academic, and technological cooperation.
The threat from Brussels comes as the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led unity government is expected to be sworn in on Sunday. Netanyahu’s main coalition partner, leader of the center-left Blue and White Party, Benny Gant, has decided to “not stand in the way of the bill” allowing Israeli sovereignty over the region, media reports suggested.
Israel’s application of sovereignty over Judea and Samaria is in keeping with U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Middle East unveiled in January. The plan advocates for extending Israel’s sovereignty to over 30 percent of Judea and Samaria. Israel gained control over the region from Jordan in the defensive war of 1967. Judea and Samaria are part of the historic Jewish heartland.
The Times of Israel reported the latest EU threats to Israel:
The EU will make a diplomatic push to try to stop Israel going ahead with a plan to annex parts of the West Bank, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said Friday.
Josep Borrell said the bloc would use “all our diplomatic capacities” to try to dissuade Israel’s incoming government from going ahead with the move, approved under US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.
While EU countries are alarmed at the prospect of annexation, which they say would violate international law and harm the chances of peace, they are divided about what action to take against Israel.
“What everybody agreed is we have to increase our efforts and reach out to all relevant actors in the Middle East,” Borrell said after talks Friday between EU foreign ministers.
“We are ready to do that and we will do that in the next days using all our diplomatic capacities in order to prevent any kind of unilateral action,” Borrell said.
The push will involve talking to Washington and Arab countries as well as Israel and the Palestinians, Borrell said. (…)
Ahead of the [Friday’s] meeting, there were reports that several European nations led by France, and including Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Spain and Luxembourg, expressed support for threats of punitive action in a bid to deter the new Israeli government.
Borrell, who succeeded Federica Mogherini as the EU foreign policy czar late last year, is known for his anti-Israel stance. The 73-year old Spanish socialist has a track record of supporting the ‘Palestinian Cause’ and the Iran nuclear deal. The problem is not limited to Borrell alone. A report released by Israeli government on Wednesday showed how the EU was funneling millions on euros to Palestinian charities and activists groups linked to terrorist groups. Some of these outfits are run by convicted murders and ‘former’ terrorist masterminds. The EU even wrote a letter to these charities recently, assuring that “membership in or affinity to a terrorist organization does not automatically prevent a person from being eligible to participate in EU-funded programs or receive funds,” the Israeli report found.
Unlike the EU, the United States administration seems to be supportive of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s planned move. On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Prime Minister Netanyahu, his coalition partner Gantz and other senior members of the incoming Israeli government. According to news reports, he discussed the issue of sovereignty over the region as well.
The Trump administration was willing to recognize the Israeli decision, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said. “Washington is preparing to acknowledge an Israeli move to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria and in the Jordan Valley as of July 1,” newspaper Israel Hayom reported on May 15 citing an interview with the U.S. envoy. The “US is ready to recognize” the Israel move, the Israeli daily confirmed. In a similar move, the Trump administration recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights in March 2019. Israel took control of the area in the 1967 war when Syria used the strategic heights to stage an attack on the Jewish state.
Foreign policy czar Borrell: EU to ‘discourage’ Israel’s annexation steps (May 15)
[Cover image via YouTube]
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Comments
Sanctions from a claque of clowns who will all soon be speaking Arabic? How terrifying.
Hear Hear!
The conquered nation of France can go stuff itself.
Eric Zemmour Calls For France’s No-Go Zones to be “Re-Conquered by Force”
Police viewed by migrants as “foreign forces.”
https://summit.news/2020/05/11/eric-zemmour-calls-for-frances-no-go-zones-to-be-re-conquered-by-force/
if the pissants in the EU are against it; I’m all for it.
“Sure, we’ll play. The Arabs now living in Palestine are now officially French, and will be landing on your shores soon. To avoid any possible discrimination, we’re’ supplying them with geotagged IEDs and firearms, which only work within the EU. Welcome your new citizens! “
Refresh my memory. I don’t remember the EU being so dead set against Russia annexing the Crimea. But they MUST have been, right? I mean, if annexation is the issue, then it’s always an issue, not just when the Jews try it, right?
Nor was France concerned about Germany annexing Austria, Poland, Denmark, Holland, Yugoslavia…
Well no, they declared war on Germany after the Germans invaded Poland. Not that it did much good…
Without Russian natural gas, they freeze to death.
So much of what they do is because Tovarich Putin has them by the stove burners.
Perhaps Americans should boycott those French businesses that participate in the sanctions against Israel.
Leftists’ useful-idiot, dhimmi adoption of Muslim jihadists’ propaganda talking points must be condemned as manifestly stupid and evil.
Why should the jihadists be rewarded for their ceaseless belligerence against Israel and Israeli Jews, by granting them rights to land which they lost as a direct result of their unprovoked, belligerent acts of war against Israel?
Never in human history has a nation which gained territory in a defensive response to a war initiated by another party, been pressured to cede that territory back to the aggressor party.
The dhimmis’ attitude isn’t just stupid; it’s evil and morally indefensible, because it is predicated upon rewarding Muslim aggression and jihad, while punishing Jews for having the temerity to defend themselves against perpetual Islamic jihad.
How about something like for each Palestinian rocket launched toward Israel, Israel takes 1 hectare of Samaria or Judea. Ten Hectares if someone is injured, 100 if someone is killed.
Paraphrasing Hedley LaMar in Blazing Saddles, “Too German!”
UN doesn’t seem to concerned when Muslims occupy Christian or Jewish lands.
Maybe the EU getting ready to restore Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen?
They’ve outsourced it this time to the Iranians.
Israeli should quietly let the EU know, through deniable back channels, that if Israel is nuked, European cities will be destroyed by its nukes.
Let those Nazi scum chew on that.
“Who’s the Master Race now, mein folk?”
What makes you think that they haven’t already?
So the EU, which has no diplomatic standing, wishes to impose their policy preferences upon a sovereign state? Good luck with that.
Maybe, if the EU member States, cede all foreign policy to the EU which would of course mean that these member States would no longer be individual Nations the ok I might be willing to listen. Until, they do transfer that authority to the EU, close their no longer required Embassy and Consulates, recall all their now non accredited diplomatic personnel, give up their seats in the UN to include any permanent Security council seat they can just talk among themselves.
Perhaps they might have more credibility by stopping the flow of money and arms to terrorist organizations and perhaps align with the U.S. in isolating Iran? Again, until they can do so they are welcome to talk among themselves but keep their unworkable policy preferences to themselves.
You mean annexing. Use the proper terms.
Why is that a better term?
I wonder what the people in Judea and Samaria think about it? Does Israel really need more hostile land and citizens within its borders? Maybe they are helping people who want to be a part of the most vibrant and successful country in the region. Or maybe Israel are just trying to match its borders to some biblical era recognition of its borders. The first makes sense to me. The second? Not so much.
These are areas where significant numbers of Israeli citizens choose to live, and there is no conceivable scenario in which Israel will ever be willing to give them away, even for a peace treaty. So there’s no reason why Israeli law should not apply there.
And there’s no need to offer citizenship to the hostile residents of those areas, but even if the offer is made most of them are likely to refuse it.
Tell they unelected azzbiscuits at the EU to find a baseball or cricket bat, wrap it in barbed wire, and have personal sex with it. But.. dip it in the sand first.