On Thursday 6th June, Ma’ariv Israeli newspaper reported that the European Union informed Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau that if settlement construction continued in east Jerusalem, they will support Palestine at the UN agencies and their access to The International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague.
The newspaper added that the EU’s statement came over concerns that Netanyahu would fail the efforts of the US Secretary of State John Kerry to revive negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel, through proceeding with the settlement construction plans especially in Jerusalem, following the recent announcement of building thousands of new housing units in east Jerusalem.
Senior officials in Tel Aviv said that EU have warned Israel that President Mahmoud Abbas would take further steps to obtain full recognition of Palestine at the UN agencies, if settlement doesn’t stop. President Abbas gave deadline for Kerry’s mission until June 20, in order to give a chance for the negotiations before heading to the UN agencies and condemning Israel at the ICC.
Israel defines itself as a Jewish state and will never accept a
non apartheid democracy with a Jewish minority. Continuing illegal
annexations, settlement expansion and ethnic cleansing have also
precluded any negotiated two state solution. The Jewish State must be
forced to recognize an armed Palestine with externally enforced
autonomy, eviction of all settlers, true contiguity encompassing
Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem together, neither pinched nor
parceled, and pay punitive reparations. American foreign policy must
again serve American interests, not the Jewish state’s paranoid
pursuit of invulnerability, territorial conquest and racist empire.