EU Ministers Reject Proposal to Suspend Dialogue With Israel

Algemeiner Staff

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Let us not forget that those who collaborated with Hitler’s Germany were:
– Spain, France, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, and Turkey.
The same ones who today want to fulfill Hitler’s promises to the Muslim Arabs.

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European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell attends a press conference on the day of EU-Ukraine Association Council in Brussels, Belgium, March 20, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman

European Union foreign ministers on Monday did not support a proposal by the bloc’s outgoing foreign policy chief to suspend regular political dialogue with Israel in response to the Jewish state’s ongoing military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell last week had proposed the suspension of dialogue in a letter to the bloc’s foreign ministers ahead of their meeting on Monday in Brussels, citing “serious concerns about possible breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza,” the Palestinian enclave ruled by Hamas. He also wrote, “Thus far, these concerns have not been sufficiently addressed by Israel.”

The proposal was met with widespread resistance, with several ministers either expressing support for Israel’s position or arguing that severing dialogue with the Jewish state would be counterproductive.

“We know that there are tragic events in Gaza, huge civilian casualties, but we do not forget who started the current cycle of violence,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters after Monday’s meeting in Brussels, seemingly referring to the fact that Hamas began the conflict with its invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. “And I can tell you that there was no agreement on the idea of suspending negotiations with Israel.”

The regular dialogues that Borrell sought to break off were enshrined in a broader agreement on relations between the EU and Israel, including extensive trade ties, that was implemented in 2000.

“In light of the above considerations, I will be tabling a proposal that the EU should invoke the human rights clause to suspend the political dialogue with Israel,” Borrell wrote last week.

A suspension needed the approval of all 27 EU countries, an unlikely outcome from the beginning.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock publicly rejected the proposal last Thursday.

“We are always in favor of keeping channels of dialogue open. Of course, this also applies to Israel,” the German Foreign Office said of Borrell’s plans.

The Foreign Office added that, while the political conversations under the EU-Israel Association Council provide a regular opportunity to strengthen relations and, in recent months, discuss the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza, severing that mechanism would make little sense.

“Breaking off dialogue, however, will not help anyone, neither the suffering people in Gaza, nor the hostages who are still being held by Hamas, nor all those in Israel who are committed to dialogue,” the statement continued.

Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp similarly said that he disagreed with the proposal and that the EU needed to continue its diplomatic dialogue with Israel.

“Apparently, the high rep [Borrell] takes a 180-degree turn. I don’t fully grasp that,” Veldkamp told reporters in Brussels. “In the view of the Netherlands, this door should be kept open, and we should start a discussion with the Israeli ministers. There will soon be a new high rep. Let’s use these opportunities to get a dialogue running, because there’s a lot to discuss, including the catastrophic humanitarian situation the Gaza Strip.”

Borrel, whose formal title is the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, is set to leave his position, with his five-year term as the EU’s foreign policy chief coming to an end next month. His successor is former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

The EU has been divided over how to address the war in Gaza. While some member countries, such as Spain and Ireland, have been fiercely critical of Israel since the outbreak of the conflict, calling on the bloc to review and even suspend its free trade agreement with Israel, others have been more supportive. For example, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic have so far largely backed Israel’s military efforts.

“Most of the member states considered that it was much better to continue having a diplomatic and political relationship with Israel,” Borrell told a press conference after the meeting on Monday.

“But at least I put on the table all the information produced by United Nations organizations and every international organization working in Gaza and the West Bank and in Lebanon in order to judge the way the war is being waged,” he added.

Earlier, Borrell said he had “no more words” to describe the situation in the Middle East, before chairing his last planned meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers.

“I exhausted the words to explain what’s happening in the Middle East,” he said, citing the death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. “There [are] no more words.”

Hamas launched the ongoing conflict with its invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. During the onslaught, Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists murdered 1,200 people, wounded thousands more, and kidnapped over 250 hostages while perpetrating mass sexual violence and other atrocities.

Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the Israeli military.

Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations, direct attacks, and store weapons.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said last month that Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation a year ago. He also noted that Hamas terrorists often hijack and steal aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.

The Israeli government has ramped up the supply of humanitarian aid into Gaza in recent weeks under pressure from the United States, which has expressed concern about the plight of civilians in the war-torn enclave.

Nonetheless, Borrell said ahead of the meeting that his proposal was meant to put pressure on the Israeli government after it had, in his view, ignored several pleas to adhere to international law in the Gaza war.

“Many people tried to stop the war in Gaza … this has not happened yet. And I don’t see a hope for this to happen. That’s why we have to put pressure on the Israeli government, and also, obviously on the Hamas side,” Borrell said, without mentioning Hamas’s rejection of recent ceasefire proposals.

Borrell has been one of the EU’s most outspoken critics of Israel over the past year. Just six weeks after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, he drew a moral equivalence between Israel and the terrorist group while speaking to the European Parliament, accusing both of having carried out “massacres” while insisting that it is possible to criticize Israeli actions “without being accused of not liking the Jews.”

Borrell’s speech followed a visit to the Middle East the prior week. While in Israel, he delivered what the Spanish daily El Pais described as the “most critical message heard so far from a representative of the European Union regarding Israel’s response to the Hamas attack of Oct. 7.”

“Not far from here is Gaza. One horror does not justify another,” Borrell said at a joint press conference alongside then-Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. “I understand your rage. But let me ask you not to let yourself be consumed by rage. I think that is what the best friends of Israel can tell you, because what makes the difference between a civilized society and a terrorist group is the respect for human life. All human lives have the same value.”

Months later, in March of this year, Borrell claimed that Israel was imposing a famine on Palestinian civilians in Gaza and using starvation as a weapon of war. His comments came a few months before the United Nations Famine Review Committee (FRC), a panel of experts in international food security and nutrition, rejected the assertion that northern Gaza was experiencing famine, citing a lack of evidence. Borrell’s comments prompted outrage from Israel.

In August, Borrell pushed EU member states to impose sanctions on some Israeli ministers.

On Monday, beyond his push to suspend EU-Israel dialogue, Borrell also sought to introduce a ban on the import of products from Israeli settlements in “occupied Palestinian territories according with the rules of the International Court of Justice.”

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