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EU consuls recommend imposing sanctions on Israeli settlements
Nonbinding Heads of Mission report for 2012 focuses on Israeli construction in E-1, policy in East Jerusalem and endangering of two-state solution; call to actively encourage European divestment from settlements is particularly severe.
Among the recommendations made in the nonbinding Heads of Mission report for 2012, which has been obtained by Haaretz, is to “prevent, discourage and raise awareness about problematic implications of financial transactions including foreign direct investments, from within the EU in support of settlement activities, infrastructure and services.”
Seven of the report’s 10 recommendations deal with imposing direct or indirect sanctions by the European Union on bodies and organizations involved in construction in the settlements. The recommendation to actively encourage European divestment from the settlements is particularly severe, compared with previous internal EU reports.
The consuls recommend that the EU ensure strict application of the free trade agreement between the EU and Israel so that products manufactured in settlements do not benefit from preferential treatment. Another clause recommends encouraging efforts to enforce existing legislation requiring products made in the settlements to be labeled as such at sales points.
Efforts must be made to “ensure that imports of settlement products do not benefit from preferential tariffs and guarantee the consumers’ right to an informed choice” with regard to the origin and labeling of products, the report states. The annual mission report, which is written by all the heads of diplomatic missions of EU member states in the Palestinian Authority, does not compel practical steps, but serves as a basis for internal discussions of the Israel-Palestinian situation.
The 2012 report, which was handed in early January to the EU institutions in Brussels and to the foreign ministries of the 27 member states, also advocates closer supervision of cooperative programs between the EU and Israel with regard to technological research and development to ensure that no research grants, scholarships or other technological investments assist settlements, either directly or indirectly.
The diplomats gave the example of Israel’s participation in a cooperative program called Horizon 2020, through which the EU invests hundreds of millions of euros in Israeli high-tech firms. They noted that some of this funding goes to firms like the research laboratories of the cosmetics company Ahava, which are located in the Jordan Valley kibbutz Mitzpeh Shalem, near the Dead Sea. If the EU consuls’ recommendations are accepted, such investments will stop, since the kibbutz is seen as a settlement.
The report takes Israel to task over the decision to move ahead on construction plans in Area E-1, the corridor meant to link Jerusalem to the nearby West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim. The decision was made in late November, after the Palestinians’ statehood bid in the United Nations. The implementation of the E-1 project “threatens 2,300 Bedouin with forcible transfer” and “would effectively divide the West Bank into separate northern and southern parts,” the report states, adding that it would also “prevent Palestinians in East Jerusalem from further urban development and cut off East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.”
The consuls recommend to the EU member states to “coordinate EU monitoring and a strong EU response in order to prevent settlement construction in E1, including opposing forced transfer of the Bedouin communities in E1.”
The consuls state that the continuation of Israel’s policy in East Jerusalem could thwart the possibility of the city serving as the Israeli and Palestinian capital and therefore put the entire two-state solution at risk.
According to the report, Israel is “systematically undermining the Palestinian presence” in Jerusalem, through policies including “restrictive zoning and planning, demolitions and evacuations, discriminatory access to religious sites, an inequitable education policy, difficult access to health care, the inadequate provision of resources.”
A large portion of the report deals with Israeli restrictions on Muslim and Christian religious practice in Jerusalem and accuses Israel of attempting to change the character of Jerusalem as a city sacred to the three faiths. The Israeli government “selectively enforces legal and policy restrictions on religious freedoms and on access in particular for Christian and Muslim worshippers to their holy sites in Jerusalem/Old City,” the report states.
The consuls direct special attention to the cooperation between the right-wing group Elad and the Israel Antiquities Authority, determining that the purpose of this collaboration is to promote “a partisan historical narrative, placing emphasis on the biblical and Jewish connotations of the area while neglecting the Christian/Muslim claims of historic-archaeological ties to the same place.”
The authors said it seems that an attempt is being made to use archaeology to erase Muslim and Christian connections to the city, and that the “overreaching purpose of such a pre-programmed approach to the presence of archaeological evidence in the area seems to be a concerted effort by pro-settler groups to use archaeology to enhance an exclusively Jewish narrative on Jerusalem.”
The consuls say 2012 saw a rise in the number of violent incidents on the Temple Mount and a sharp increase in “the frequency and visibility of visits by Jewish radical political and religious groups, often in a provocative manner.” According to the report, the Palestinians fear that Israel is trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount and create “Hebronization” there by arrangements similar to those in force at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.
In the report the consuls say that construction of Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem is “systematic, deliberate and provocative” and presents as an example Israel’s announcement that 3,000 new housing units were approved by the government, a statement that came shortly after the Palestinians had their UN status upgraded to non-member observer state.
The consuls noted in particular three construction plans they view as problematic: the eastward expansion of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa, the southward and westward expansion of Gilo and housing construction in the Givat Hamatos neighborhood in between.
“The construction of these three settlements is part of a political strategy aiming at making it impossible for Jerusalem to become the capital of two states,” the report states.
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Israel ‘turning blind eye’ to West Bank settlers’ attacks on Palestinians
Posted on March 21, 2012 by Marivel Guzman
EU reports say farmers are bearing the brunt of intimidation in systematic and expanding campaign of violence
A Palestinian tries to put out a fire started by settlers on the West Bank, where confidential EU reports say violence against Palestinians is increasing. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images
Jewish settlers in the West Bank are conducting a systematic and expanding campaign of violence against Palestinian farmers, families and children with the Israeli authorities turning a blind eye, according to confidential reports from senior European Union officials.
In two reports to Brussels from EU heads of mission in Jerusalem and Ramallah, obtained by the Guardian, the officials found that settler violence against Palestinians has more than tripled in three years to total hundreds of incidents.
“Acts of settler violence are becoming a serious concern for the Israeli state which has so far failed to effectively protect the Palestinian population,” says the report sent to EU ambassadors in Brussels last month.
The report notes 411 attacks by settlers last year resulting in Palestinian casualties and damage to property, against 132 attacks in 2009.
The campaign of intimidation is especially targeted at Palestinian farmers and their livelihood, the reports found, noting that settlers damaged or destroyed Palestinian olive groves en mass.
Around 10,000 trees were destroyed last year. But last autumn’s olive harvest season was quieter than previous years.
The Israeli authorities are accused of structuring their security operations to minimize the cost to the settlers of the campaign of harassment, intimidation and violence.
“Over 90% of monitored complaints regarding settler violence filed by Palestinians with the Israeli police in recent years have been closed without indictment,” the February report says.
A previous and more detailed analysis from April last year described the increasing settler violence as “an alarming phenomenon”.
“Discriminatory protections and privileges for settlers compound these abuses and create an environment in which settlers can act with apparent impunity.”
The Israeli authorities’ failure to resolve 92% of 600 reported incidents by April last year effectively encouraged the settlers to step up the violence, the report argued, adding that the perception had been created that “settler violence enjoys the tacit support of the state of Israel”.
The manner in which the Israelis organise security operations in the West Bank militates against the Palestinians enjoying protection.
Children are stoned going to school and Palestinian shepherds and farmers are common targets for violence.
For more than 300,000 Jewish settlers in more than 200 locations in the West Bank, the Israeli military is obliged to intervene if there is retaliatory Palestinian violence. The army, though, is relatively powerless to halt violence against Palestinians since this is the remit of the Israeli police.
“Arguably the single most important deficiency in the provision of an impartial rule of law is the difference in the level of protection afforded to settlers and Palestinians,” the report says.
The EU officials say that, according to Israeli security sources, the campaign of violence is being masterminded by around 100 militant settler leaders, and they point to the potential electoral liability for any Israeli government that seeks to get to grips with the violence.
“In Israeli terms, there is a negative political consequence to cracking down on settler violence and no political gain from protecting violence.”
Apart from deploring the violence and demanding explanations from the Israeli authorities, the EU officials propose scant other action to halt the campaign.
They suggest to their superiors in Brussels that settler leaders urging violence against Palestinians be blacklisted by the EU and barred from traveling in the union
Source The Guradian in UK
European Union Supports Palestestine Bid for State Hood, slight division not a problem
Posted on September 01, 2011 by Marivel Guzman
Original Post Published by the Huffington Post
BRUSSELS — The European Union remains undecided whether to support the Palestinian push for recognition at the United Nations later this month, a top official said Thursday. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the question hasn’t been discussed by EU member states, because no such resolution has been tabled yet for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.
The Palestinian statehood bid comes amid stalled peace negotiations with Israel. Israel and the United States oppose it, saying a state must be established through negotiations.
Ashton said the EU’s 28 members were united “over the most critical issue, which is to try to get the talks moving,” and reiterated the bloc’s position that Israeli settlement-building in the occupied territories is illegal under international law. “We need to find a way to create a two-state solution, a secure, stable Israel living side by side with a secure, stable Palestinian state,” she said after meeting Filippo Grandi, head of the U.N. agency aiding 4.7 million Palestinian refugees.
The changes brought about by the Arab Spring make the need to reach agreement more important than ever, she said.
Israel has been lobbying European capitals not to endorse the Palestinian move.
Diplomats expect a split among EU members akin to that over Kosovo’s independence, which five members of the 28-nation bloc refused to recognize. The rift has prevented the EU from officially recognizing Kosovo’s government, although the bloc has deployed a massive police and justice mission to assist Europe’s newest nation. A diplomat said Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Malta, Norway, Portugal, Spain and Sweden are likely to back the resolution. Other nations may join if there is no progress in restarting peace talks over the next 2-3 weeks, said the official who was not authorized to speak publicly to the media.
Although the Palestinian bid may gain approval in the General Assembly, U.N. recognition would require approval by the powerful Security Council, where the U.S. has indicated it would veto any Palestinian move in the absence of a negotiated peace deal.
In the past, the United States has used its veto power to block membership in the world body. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Washington regularly vetoed General Assembly resolutions calling for China to take over the U.N. seat which Taiwan held under the name Republic of China.
Israel faces tougher line from EU after former heads call for Palestinian state – Twenty-six European grandees, have urged the EU to adopt a tougher stance towards Israel including taking “concrete measures” and exacting “consequences” over continued settlement building on occupied land, which they say is illegal under international law.
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