EU, Israel to strengthen ties despite objections

Date: 09 / 12 / 2008  Time:  10:11
Bethlehem - Ma'an/Agencies -

Israel and the European Union (EU) voted to upgrade relations on Monday, despite Arab countries' attempts to shut down the agreement, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) and Egypt had fought the improvement in relations, according to Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.

Regardless, the motion to improve relations was approved by a unanimous vote of all 27 EU foreign ministers at a meeting in Brussels on Monday. Israel's new prime minister will greet the body at its headquarters in April, its foreign ministry announced.

In a show of Israel's new standing in the international body, EU ministers also voted to drop a proposed action plan for the Middle East peace process in 2009--at Israel's request.

One week earlier, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni insisted that Israel still seeks a final-status settlement with the Palestinians, according to comments made at an EU-sponsored summit in Brussels.

Speaking to the EU's Foreign Affairs Committee last Tuesday, Livni said that it is no longer official Israeli policy to expand settlements in the West Bank, insisting, "I can assure you that we are not going to build new settlements; we are not going to confiscate land or extend settlements."

"These were policies of the past that don't represent the opinions of the vast majority of Israelis today," Livni added.

She also said that continuing negotiations that began in Annapolis is essential to achieving peace, but claimed that too much international intervention "can only lead to failure, a failure that nobody can afford--Israel, Palestine or the international community."

Last Wednesday, the European Parliament (EP) suspended its vote on whether or not to upgrade EU-Israel relations in the wake of increasing unrest around Israeli settlement-building policies and the continued Gaza siege.

Vice President of the European Parliament Luisa Morgantini issued a statement about the decision, saying, "It's time for the Israeli government to stop considering itself above the law and start respecting it."

The suspended proposal was submitted by the EU Commission and Council and recommended the completion of a set of guidelines by which Israel would participate in programs set up by the European community. The vote was scheduled to take place Thursday.

According to Morgantini, the vote would be an important step in the process of upgrading EU-Israel relations. The move itself was requested by Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni.

Initial reservations

Last Wednesday, however, the majority of European parliamentarians called for a postponement of the vote. Several parties within the EP requested that no date for the vote be set.

Responding to that incident, Morgantini had sharp words for the Israeli government concerning changes would have to occur before the EP would improve ties.

"Today's vote is an important political message directed not against Israel, but at pushing the Israeli leadership to respect their obligations in order to achieve tangible results from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, so that they can reach a peaceful solution and the security of the two peoples," Morgantini said.

"It is also a signal to the EU Council and Commission that they must put pressure on Israel to stop its colonization of the 1967 occupied Palestinian territory."

Morgantini noted that the then-hypothetical vote was a "sign of hope for the Palestinians, telling them that the European Parliament is not deaf to the suffering of people in Gaza and the West Bank."

She added that the EP "is not only determined to verbally criticize the situation but to take concrete action for the respect of human rights and international law."

Following the proposal's passage, Program Director Sergio Yahni of the Jerusalem-based Alternative Information Center (AIC) called Monday’s vote "a failure of the international legal system."

In a telephone interview with Ma’an, Yahni said the agreement is "the first time since World War II that the European community has actually regressed in its protection of human rights."

"But the most shameful thing is that Arab states could have threatened to stop the proceedings, could have intervened," Yahni noted. "Instead, they did nothing."

Several European countries, however, had previously raised objections after the issue was raised by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. Five EU members, Belgium, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta and the United Kingdom, had expressed initial reservations.

Restricting their signing of the upgrade agreement with a demand that Israel’s relations with the EU be conditional on progress in the Israel-Palestine final-status negotiations, the five member states could have ended the vote before it started.

However, Livni’s trip to Brussels and subsequent promises on halting settlement expansion apparently convinced the five objectors to agree to the proposal.

According to the agreement, Israel’s foreign minister will now meet with each of the EU countries’ ministers at least once every year. Israel will be included in the EU’s "strategic dialogue" on Middle Eastern affairs, as well as enjoy improved standing in United Nations (UN) agencies.


***Updated 14:14 Bethlehem time

Morgantini to Livini: Israel is not above the law

Kouchner Reverses Morgantini's Decision in the European Parliament

Tuesday December 09, 2008 15:24 by Justin Theriault - 1 of International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC Editorial Group

BRUSSELS, December 9, 2008  –

Despite the scathing remarks by European Parliament (EP) Vice-President last week, in regards to Israel’s human rights abuses and incessant disregard for International law and Geneva Conventions, today, the EP’s 27 foreign ministers voted unanimously to upgrade EU foreign relations with Israel.

Last week, after being denied a vote altogether by EP Vice-President, Luisa Morgantini, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tzipi Livni, decided to do some more lobbying with the EP’s foreign ministers, but in particular Bernard Kouchner of France, who currently sits as the EU’s rotating president.  

“At one point, she asked everyone else in the room to leave so that she could speak with Kouchner privately. During that conversation, the two agreed that there would be no linkage, but the EU would issue a separate statement stressing the need to continue the final-status talks.”  It seems obvious, although difficult to actually find a formal report on the powers of EU President, that Kouchner overrode Morgantini’s earlier decision to hold Israel accountable to international law before a vote would take place in order to “upgrade” EU-Israeli relations.

“The two also agreed that the EU would not officially adopt the action plan for the peace process, which France had formulated, but would instead leave it as a mere proposal. The plan, first reported in Haaretz last week, stated that the EU would, inter alia, press Israel to reopen Orient House, the PA's former headquarters in East Jerusalem.”  Not only is Israel not accountable for it’s severe breaches of international law, it can now table the earlier peace process, formulated by France, as simply a mere proposal. 

The burning question here is: 

What exactly did Livni and Kouchner discuss in their private meeting?

Last week Morgantini declared, after suspending the vote to upgrade EU-Israeli relations, that:

“Finally this vote is positive for us Europeans, who are showing to ourselves and to the entire world that respect for human rights and the achievement of justice are not an abstract declaration of principles."

In light of Kouchner’s reversal of Morgantini’s decision, and the unanimous vote by all 27 foreign ministers of the EP, the European Union is now sending a slightly different message:  That the rule of law and the application of justice, when applied to Israel, is indeed an “abstract declaration of principles”.  They are sending a clear message that Israel can effectively continue to terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with impunity, while enjoying "upgraded" relations with the EU.

This decision will, most likely, result in outrage across the Arab World.

Morgantini to Livini: Israel is not above the law.

Monday December 08, 2008 16:58 by Justin Theriault - 1 of International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC Editorial Group

Last Wednesday, the European Parliament (EP) postponed a vote that could largely upgrade EU-Israeli relations through a proposal by the European Union Commission and Council for the draft recommendation to conclude a Protocol to the EU-Israel Association Agreement and on the general principles governing the State of Israel's participation in Community programs. 

The vote, originally scheduled for Thursday, December 11, in the EP in Brussels was postponed to another date yet to be determined, the majority of European Parliamentarians ruled on Wednesday, at the request of the GUE/NGL and Greens groups, with agreement from the Socialist Party, some of the Liberals (ALDE) and some MEPs from the Popular Party.

"It's time for the Israeli Government to stop considering itself above the law and start respecting it, beginning by freezing all settlement building activities and ending its siege on the Gaza Strip. Until the Israeli Government signals its willingness to abide by international law, and especially human rights and humanitarian law, the European Parliament is not disposed to vote," the EP’s Vice President, Luisa Morgantini, declared in a scathing Parliamentary statement.      

This is a clear message from the EP that Israel is not considered above the law and that in order for there to be improved foreign relations between the EU and Israel, Israel must abide by international law and the treaties for which she is a signatory.  

This decision comes in the wake of severe human rights violations in the form of settler rioting in Hebron, as well as the continued collective punishment of 1.5 million civilians in the Gaza Strip, who are without food, medical supplies, gasoline, and as of most recently, access to money because of the freezing of fund transfers by Israel; which is a severe breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. 

This vote sends a clear message to the Israeli government that their brutal policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) are not going unnoticed and that the cries of the Palestinians, humanitarian workers and political activists in the OPT are not falling on def ears.

“Finally this vote is positive for us Europeans, who are showing to ourselves and to the entire world that respect for human rights and the achievement of justice are not an abstract declaration of principles," Vice President Luisa Morgantini concluded.

SOURCE: http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4150&Itemid=31