World Jewish News
Israel rejects 'one-sided' EU statement on settlements
12.12.2012, Israel and the World Israel said it regrets Monday’s statement by the European Union on the settlements which it described as "one-sided."
"The one-sided position taken by the EU rewards rejectionism and does not contribute to promoting a permanent peace agreement," the foreign ministry in Jerusalem said after the EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels released a statement saying the EU was "deeply dismayed by and strongly opposes Israeli plans to expand settlements in the West Bank, including in east Jerusalem, and in particular plans to develop the E1 area."
E1 is located just outside of Jerusalem, on an unbuilt tract of land within the Maale Adumim settlement, the largest in the West Bank.
Building up E1, the EU warned, would "undermine the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of Jerusalem as the future capital of two states. It could also entail forced transfer of civilian population."
They also stated that all of the EU’s agreements with Israel only applied to the pre-1967 lines.
The statement was part of a larger document on the Middle East Peace Process published at the end of the EU Foreign Affairs Council’s monthly meeting.
The EU said all of its agreements with Israel "must unequivocally and explicitly indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967, namely the Golan Heights, the West Bank, including east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip."
The statement called for full implementation of existing EU legislations and bilateral arrangements applicable to settlement products.
In a reaction to the statement, Israel’s foreign ministry said "facts and history both prove that Jewish settlement never constituted an obstacle to peace." "Thereforce, the EU’s focus on this issue is mistaken, " it said.
For Israel, the root cause of the absence of a peace accord "is the Palestinian refusal to engage in direct negotiations and their unwillingness to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, as rececently exemplified by Mahmoud Abbas’s UN speech and Khaled Mashaal’s Gaza speech."
Israel reminds that for the past 45 years, since the Six-Day War, Israeli governments have built in Jerusalem and in the settlement blocs "which will remain under Israel sovereignty in any future settlement."
"When Israel builds in Jerusalem, the international community is quick to make its voice heard. However, when Hamas, this past weekend publicly called for Israel’s destruction, there was no international condemnation, no United Nations resolution, and no Palestinian diplomat was summoned to clarify why the Palestinian Authority Chairman, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), not only did not condemn the incitement but spoke about the possibilty of unifying with Hamas," one source said in Jerusalem, referring to the speech last Saturday in Gaza City by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal who reiterated his movement’s refusal to "give up one inch of the land of Palestine" and said he will never recognize Israel.
"Palestine from the river to the sea, from the north to the south, is our land and we will never give up one inch or any part of it," Mashaal said at a mass rally.
In its Monday’s Conclusions, the EU slammed Hamas leaders’s "inflammatory statements that deny Israel’s right to exist" as "unacceptable."
The EU, which blacklists Hamas as a terror group, said it "will never stop opposing those who embrace and promote violence as a way to achieve political goals."
Speaking to foreign jorunalists in Jerusalem on Monday as Foreign Ministers met in Brussels, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "building in Maale Adumim and linking it with Jerusalem through a narrow corridor will not harm the two-state solution."
"Unfortunately, if you repeat a falsehood endlessly, it assumes the cache of truth," he said.
He ccriticized the international community for overly focusing its attention on Israel’s actions, rather than pressuring the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table.
“Where was the outrage when Hamas leaders in Gaza openly called for Israel’s destruction?,"he asked.
"Where were the UN resolutions? Where was President Mahmoud Abbas? Why weren’t the Palestinians summoned to European and other capitals to explain why the PA president not only refused to condemn this but declared his intention to unite with Hamas?” Netanyahu added that the only thing he heard was a deafening silence.
“We cannot accept that when Jews build homes in their ancient capital of Jerusalem, the international community has no problem finding its voice,” Netanyahu said.
“But when Palestinian leaders openly call for the destruction of Israel, the one and only Jewish state, the world is silent,” he added.
by: Yossi Lempkowicz
EJP
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