EU Foreign Affairs and Security Representative Federica Moghereini has declared that the Israeli Nationalist Law, passed on the 19th, acts as a hinderance to a viable long term peace arrangement in the region.
Al-Monitor reports:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — The European Union expressed concern over the national law that was approved by the Israeli Knesset July 19. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini clarified that the law grants Jews alone the right to self-determination in the country and will hinder a two-state solution.
“We’ve been very clear when it comes to the two-state solution, we believe it is the only way forward and any step that would further complicate or prevent this solution of becoming a reality should be avoided,” stated Mogherini July 19.
The Jewish nation-state law reads: “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it.” It demotes Arabic from an official language to a secondary language. There are 1.8 million Arabs in Israel, 20% of the total Israeli population of 9 million people.
Maja Kocijancic, Mogherini’s spokesperson, asserted in a July 13 press conference that the EU does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the areas it occupied in 1967 and does not consider them Israeli territories. The conference came against the background of a diplomatic dispute between Ireland (an EU member) and Israel over a bill banning the importation of products from Israeli settlements to Ireland.
On July 11, the Irish Senate voted 25 to 20 in favor of a bill banning Ireland’s importation of products from Israeli settlements. The bill will be presented to parliament for approval, though the ruling party in Ireland opposes it. The Israeli Foreign Ministry summoned the Irish ambassador to Israel July 12 to protest the bill and threatened to close the Irish Embassy in Tel Aviv.
America has already essentially admitted that it perceives whatever territory the Jews occupy in the Levant to be a rightful and legitimate part of the Jewish State, AKA Israel. A couple of other states, hoping that it would cause the Americans to look upon them a little more favourably, have followed America’s lead on the matter, and also moved their embassies to Jerusalem in a symbolic act to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish State. But this business of implicit racism involved the Israeli nationality law is something that just doesn’t mesh too well with the values of the Europeans, so they could have a hard time professing loyalty to both, since the Israeli nationality law all but states that the Jews alone hold rights to the area as their ancestral heritage and right, which excludes the same sort of benefits to Arabs living in the same area.
From there it gets a bit more sticky, add in the business of Israel’s lethal protest control methods at the Gaza Strip, and Israel is not looking as much like the cuddly teddy bears that Washington makes them out as, and this new piece of Israeli legislation certainly doesn’t help preserve that image or help the cause of peace in the area, so it’s not something that Europe can wholeheartedly support. What that means is that this is just another area where the EU and Donald Trump, and AIPAC, and Nikki Haley don’t see eye to eye.
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