Jul 23 2012
Outrageous move to upgrade relations with Israel
Outrageous move to upgrade relations with Israel
I was outraged to find out that the European Commission intends to upgrade trade and diplomatic relations with Israel in more than 60 areas at a high-level meeting in Brussels…just weeks after European Foreign Ministers warned that Israeli policies in the West Bank threaten to make a two state solution impossible’.
How can this upgrade go on when nothing on the ground has improved? In fact matters have gotten worse. Binyamin Netenyahu has recently announced his decision to go ahead with an additional 800 settlements in Israeli occupied territory.
The Commission proposed protocol to the Euro-Med Agreement with Israel would also give Israel easier access to the EU market for exporting pharmaceutical products. Before the vote in the International Trade Committee (INTA), of which I am a member, the Parliament asked the Commission for guarantees that products from the occupied territories would not benefit from this scheme and Labour MEPs warned the European Commission that any upgrade to trade relations with Israel is unacceptable while Israel continues to flout international law.
While many parliamentary groupings considered this a ‘technical upgrade’ it is not, it is in fact a clear upgrade of trade relations with Israel and incompatible with international law and recent European Parliament declarations denouncing the abuse of human rights in the occupied territories. The EU – Israel Association Agreement requires relations between the EU and Israel to be based on the respect for human rights.
The Commission is proposing to upgrade its relations with Jerusalem on a range of areas including migration, energy and agriculture. It is proposed that the EU will remove obstacles including Israel’s access to European government-controlled markets and enhance Israel’s co-operation with nine EU agencies, including Europol and the European Space Agency.
Relations were frozen after Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip in January 2009.
The EU cannot turn a blind eye to human rights violations when we sign trade deals. It would be especially galling to allow easier access to the EU market for Israeli pharmaceutical products when Palestinians struggle for medical supplies under the Israeli-imposed blockade.
The European Union has a tremendous potential to influence policy in Israel through trade sanctions or calling for a boycott. Europe’s 500 million plus consumers constitute almost 60% of Israel’s trade.
On 14 may the EU’s 27 Foreign Ministers unanimously condemned Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes its continuing settlement of Palestinian lands and the rise of ‘settler’ violence against Palestinians. It is time to put these two elements together and call for an all out boycott like the one so successfully implemented against South Africa.
Should be something that Avaaz would take up ?
M .A. P. . are non political ,I think ,but they might like to be involved.
It is an appallingly cynical move , as you say, in view of current restrictions on the movement of medical supplies to Gaza and something which could perhaps be used to highlight further the plight of familiea in Gaza?
Sadly your anti-Israel sentiment clouds your judgement so much that you have in the post above announced 800 new settlements, as opposed to 800 new houses in settlements. I assume you are aware that this includes Jerusalem, which was annexed, and was, is, and always will be the holiest city to the Jews who gave the city it’s name. The ethnic cleansing of East-Jerusalem of Jews by Jordan post 1948 may have temporarily changed the characteristics of the city, but that travesty has thankfully been undone.