It took five days for the European Union to issue a statement condemning the kidnapping of three Israeli teens, Gilad Shaer, Eyal Yifrach and Naphtali Fraenkel last Thursday.
"We condemn in the strongest terms the abduction of three Israeli students in the West Bank and call for their immediate release and safe return to their families,’’ the statement reads Tuesday.
‘’Such acts can only undermine international efforts to encourage a resumption of peace negotiations. We are following developments closely and remain in constant contact with our Israeli and Palestinian counterparts.’’
The EU encouraged ‘’continued close cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security services to ensure the swift release of the abductees.’’
Also on Tuesday, EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen made a statement while visiting the city of Elad, hometown of kidnapped student Eyal Yifrach.
"The kidnapping of Eyal Yifrach, Gilad Shaer and Naftali Fraenkel has brought condemnation and messages of solidarity from across the world. We stand with the Israeli people during these difficult days and offer our full support to Israel as the search for the three continues," he said.
" The European Union has called for the immediate and unconditional release of these three boys – it is, frankly, despicable that children's lives should be put in danger in this way."
But according to diplomatic sources quoted by The Jerusalem Post the late EU official and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton’s failure to quickly condemn the kidnappings had “not gone unnoticed". ‘’This contrasts with the rapidity in which they regularly condemn announcements of Israeli construction beyond the Green Line,’’ a diplomatic source said.
In a national address on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the entire international community to condemn the attack.
“I expect all responsible elements in the international community – some of whom rush to condemn us for any construction in this place or for enclosing a balcony in Gilo – to strongly condemn this reprehensible and deplorable act of abducting three youths. Whoever opposes terrorism needs to condemn terrorism wherever it is perpetrated. I expect other countries to join in these condemnations and to support the State of Israel’s legitimate and necessary acts of self-defense,” Netanyahu said.
Israel’s foreign ministry’s deputy director-general for Western Europe, Rafi Schutz, has raised the issue in a meeting he had Monday with EU ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen.
The ambassador reportedly explained that it took time for the EU to release a statement because it was the weekend, while Schutz pointed out that over the same weekend the EU released a statement against Israel relating to Palestinian prisoners.
Faaborg-Andersen was summoned to the ministry as a protest from Israel to a 10-page joint statement published after a meeting in Athens last week beween the EU Foreign ministers and their colleagues from Arab League. The meeting was headed by Catherine Ashton on the EU side and Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby.
Schutz protested that the statement was completely ‘’imbalanced,’’ adapting the Arab narrative on everything from calling Israel “the occupying power” in the Gaza Strip, to the Arab’s position on Jerusalem.
He also pointed out an indication of the imbalance, saying that while the document devoted two pages to Israel, it only devoted one page to Syria, a few lines to Ukraine and was completely silent on Iran.
“The declaration was so blatantly one-sided, it basically read as if it was dictated by the Arab League,” a senior Foreign Ministry official told The Times of Israel. “It hails the Fatah-Hamas union and praises the Palestinians’ ‘commitment to democracy and human rights,’ but doesn’t reflect negatively in any way on the rockets fired from Gaza at our citizens, or anything else the Palestinians do wrong.”
The statement does not explicitly mention Hamas, nor does it mention rocket attacks against Israeli civilians or any other form of Palestinian terrorism, merely condemning “all acts of violence against civilians” and calling for “full respect of international humanitarian law.”
In the text, the EU and Arab League ministers expressed concern over the “grave humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip largely caused by the closure imposed by the Occupying Power.”
The ministers also “stressed their common position that Israeli settlements, the separation barrier built anywhere in the occupied Palestinian territory, home demolitions and evictions are illegal under international law and constitute obstacles for peace and they endanger the viability of the two-state solution.”
They reaffirmed their concern regarding “unilateral measures” in violation of international law, such as the “settlement activities in occupied East Jerusale, and in particular affecting the Holy Sites under the Hashemite Custodianship as reconfirmed in the agreement between HM King Abdullah II and Prsident Mahmoud Abbas.” They called for the release of Palestinian prisoners “in accordance with previous agreements” and demanded an end to Israel’s “excessive use of administrative detention in contravention of international law.”
In the joint statement, the Arab ministers also expressed their ''appreciation for the EU's commitment that - in line with international law- all agreements between Israel and the EU must unequivocally and explicitely indicate their inapplicability to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967'' and called on the EU ''to take further steps on settlements in line with its own laws as international obligations.''