Friday, September 20, 2013

Europe: Anti-Israel or Anti-Semitic?



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Europe: Anti-Israel or Anti-Semitic?

by Soeren Kern
September 20, 2013 at 5:00 am
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"It [EU] has not placed similar criteria on Turkey, Morocco, China or any other nation involved in a territorial dispute... What makes the situation far worse is that that the European Union is abrogating agreements that it signed and witnessed... If Europe thinks Jews will return to the days when we were forced to mark our products, you can forget it. Delegitimization of parts of Israel by Europe is the new anti-Semitism." — Ayelet Shaked, Member of Knesset
A group of former European leaders have called on the European Union not to ease or delay the implementation of new rules that would prohibit the EU from funding Israeli institutions based or operating anywhere beyond the Green Line, including eastern Jerusalem.
In a September 16 letter addressed to the foreign ministers of the 28 EU member states and to EU foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton, 15 members of the so-called European Eminent Persons Group expressed "great concern" at attempts to "delay, modify or even suspend the European Commission guidelines on funding of Israeli entities in the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967."
The letter -- signed by longtime Israel critics including former EU foreign policy chief and NATO secretary-general Javier Solana, former French foreign minister Hubert Védrine, and former Spanish foreign minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos -- argues that the "strict application" of the guidelines "serves to reiterate that the EU does not recognize and will not support settlements and other illegal facts on the ground."
The "guidelines" refer to a new directive -- the long title is "Guidelines on the Eligibility of Israeli Entities and their Activities in the Territories Occupied by Israel since June 1967 for Grants, Prizes and Financial Instruments funded by the EU from 2014 Onwards" -- that forbids EU organizations and institutions from funding or cooperating with any Israeli entities based in Judea and Samaria, eastern Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.
The directive -- which was published on July 19, 2013 and will take effect on January 1, 2014 -- includes a requirement that all future agreements between the EU and Israel include a clause in which Israel accepts the EU position that none of the territory beyond the Green Line belongs to Israel.
Needless to say, Israeli officials have rejected the directive out of hand and are refusing to sign any new agreements with the EU which include such a clause.
The issue came to a head after Israel threatened to cancel its participation in Horizon 2020, an €80 billion ($110 billion) scientific cooperation program sponsored by the European Union.
The EU and Israel both stand to benefit from Israel's involvement in the lucrative program, which begins on January 1, 2014 and will run for a period of seven years.
Israel -- the only non-EU country that has been invited to join Horizon 2020 -- is expected to invest €600 million in the program and receive €900 million in inbound research grants and other investments. For its part, the EU will benefit from Israeli research and technology, which is widely believed to surpass the capabilities of many EU member states.
Officials from the EU and Israel met in Jerusalem on September 10 and in Brussels on September 12 in talks aimed at hashing out an agreement that would modify the EU guidelines in such a way that Israel would be able to participate in the project.
Although the talks in Brussels continued for seven hours and included nearly a dozen participants from each side, EU negotiators refused to budge. Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is now expected to raise the issue directly with Catherine Aston, the EU foreign policy chief.
Any agreement over Israel's participation in Horizon 2020 would have to be signed by the middle of November, and negotiations are expected to continue up until then.
Thus the apparent purpose of the September 16 letter issued by the European Eminent Persons Group is to provide Ashton with political cover for maintaining her hardline stance vis-à-vis Israel.
Indeed, the letter is vehement that the new EU guidelines be enforced with regard to Horizon 2020. The letter states: "We urge you to uphold this commitment by supporting the guidelines and their full application by EU institutions, notably in regard to the ongoing negotiations about Israel's participation in Horizon 2020... If the EU were to delay or suspend the guidelines, or not fully apply them to the agreement with Israel on Horizon 2020, this could further undermine the Palestinians' trust in the negotiation process and their ability to continue the talks. In other words, delaying or suspending the guidelines is likely to undermine negotiations, which we want to see succeed, not help them."
The letter also comes in response to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who has urged the EU to suspend implementation of the ban in order to show the Israeli public the benefit of pursuing a peace agreement with the Palestinians.
On September 7, Kerry asked for the suspension in a closed-door meeting of EU foreign ministers in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he also discussed the current status of the talks, which resumed on July 30 after a nearly three-year hiatus.
A senior US State Department official who was at the talks in Vilnius said, "There was strong support for his efforts and an openness to considering his requests." But Ashton has been characteristically unapologetic, saying only that the EU would send a team to Israel to make sure the implementation of the new guidelines was done sensitively.
Ashton has support from other quarters as well. On September 11, a group of nearly 500 European academics sent a letter to Ashton urging her not to water down the new guidelines. The letter states: "Reports in the media that you are thinking of softening or postponing the implementation of the EU Guidelines on Israeli Settlements have shocked academic opinion across Europe and beyond. We, and the nearly five hundred European academics who have signed the attached petition in the last 48 hours, applaud your Guidelines, and urge you not to weaken or abandon them at the first sign that Israel, or the United States, takes objection to them. Principles are principles. Please stick to yours."
Not to be outdone, a group of far-left Israeli intellectuals, academics and artists also sent a petition to Ashton in support of the EU guidelines on funding of Israeli entities. The document states: "Our government has threatened to end its participation in the EU's research program -- a move that would be, in the first place, to Israel's own great detriment. We urge the EU not to be misled by this tactical maneuver, and to insist on full application of the guidelines when negotiating Israel's participation in that program."
Meanwhile, the European Jewish Congress (EJC), a Paris-based umbrella group for Jewish communities in Europe, criticized the former EU officials for sending the letter, calling it a "danger to peace as it hands one side a political victory without having to compromise and deepens the Palestinian feeling that they can gain more outside of negotiations than in them."
In a full-page advertisement published by the London-based Financial Times on September 16, EJC President Moshe Kantor described the EU guidelines as "discriminatory" and a reflection of "the desire for the EU to score political points." Kantor continued:
From the well over one hundred territorial disputes in the world, the European Union has mandated the creation of a clause in every agreement denying European funding to, and cooperation with, institutions from only one nation involved in a territorial dispute: Israel. It has not placed similar criteria on Turkey, Morocco, China, or any other nation involved in a territorial dispute.
...
What makes the situation far worse is that the European Union is abrogating agreements that it signed and witnessed. The Oslo Accords, the basis for the peace negotiations, specifically stipulated that the current status of the territories, and its residents, will not be changed or harmed ahead of final status negotiations, to which the parties have recently returned.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, the Greek ambassador to Israel, Spiros Lampridis, said he understood Israel's objections to signing the territorial clause because it is so "explicit."
"If I put myself in the Israeli shoes I can see why they are not able to sign it," he said. "Therefore our task as European states is to find alternatives to make this thing workable for both sides. We are not here to fight, we are here to cooperate, and if Israel cannot cooperate with the EU, and vice versa, then that means that the EU is not really understanding the importance of Israel in the framework of the Western family."
Other Europeans have also shown themselves sympathetic to the Israeli position. On September 17, the Vice Chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Italian politician Fiorello Provera, organized what has been described as an "historic" conference to help MEPs better understand the harmful impact of EU policies in Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank).
The conference -- entitled "EU-Israel Relations: Impact of the New EU Guidelines on Israel and Their Effects on the EU, Israeli and Palestinian Economies" -- was held at the Foreign Affairs Committee hall inside the European Parliament.
The event was attended by 20 MEPs, representatives of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the Israeli ambassador to the EU, David Walzer, and a wide array of journalists.
Member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home Party, Ayelet Shaked, told the European politicians attending the conference that she feared the evacuation of West Bank settlements and the creation of a Palestinian state would only lead to increased missile attacks against Israel:
Europe's forcing us to cede land, in order to achieve the type of agreement it sees fit for the Middle East, will only mean that these missiles will continue to rain down on Israel not only from Gaza, but from Qalqilya and Ramallah [Palestinian cities in the West Bank] as well.
If Europe thinks Jews will return to the days where we were forced to mark our products, you can forget it. Delegitimization of parts of Israel by Europe is the new anti-Semitism. The old anti-Semitism led to the destruction of our people in gas chambers. We will not allow the new anti-Semitism to hurt us.
Such conduct creates a sense among Israelis that Europe is lost, that it is occupied by the forces of radical Islam. If that is the message you have been trying to send, you are doing a good job in getting it across. I want you to understand that you are important to us. We hold your support in high regard, but you cannot push us to commit suicide.
Shaked also called for a change in the terminology employed within the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict. "It is time to say the truth: Judea and Samaria are not occupied territory, but disputed territory. That is the truth as far as international law is concerned."
Provera summed up the conference, saying that "MEPs in this house [the European Parliament] are not familiar with the facts. Did you know that Jews and Arabs work side by side in the factories of Samaria? The idea of putting pressure on Israel and slapping sanctions on it is unacceptable. It will not bring peace, but may only bring unemployment to the Palestinians, as a result of which they might turn to terror."
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Soeren Kern

Does Jordan Want Palestinians In Control of The Border?

by Khaled Abu Toameh
September 20, 2013 at 4:30 am
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The last thing the Jordanians want to see is hundreds of thousand of Palestinians move from the West Bank or Gaza Strip into the kingdom. Understandably, the Jordanian monarch cannot go public with this stance for fear of being accused by Arabs and Muslims of treason and collaboration with the "Zionist enemy."
Palestinian Authority Pesident Mahmoud Abbas says that the Palestinians will not accept any Israeli presence along the border between a future Palestinian state and Jordan.
But the question is whether Jordan really wants to have Palestinians on its borders.
In private off-the-record meetings, top Jordanian officials make it crystal clear that they prefer to see Israel sitting along their shared border.
Speaking at a university graduation ceremony in Jericho, Abbas stated that the borders of the Palestinian state would stretch from the Dead Sea in the south and through the Jordan Valley all the way up to the town of Bet She'an in the north.
"This is a Palestinian-Jordanian border and that is how it will remain," Abbas said. "The responsibility for security along the border will be in the hands of the Palestinians."
Abbas's remarks came in wake of leaks by Palestinian officials to the effect that at the current US-sponsored secret peace negotiations, Israel is demanding full control over the border with Jordan in any peace settlement with the Palestinians.
Israel, of course, has its own reasons for refusing to cede control over the strategic Jordan Valley.
Israel's main concern is that the border with Jordan will be used by Palestinian terror groups and Islamist fundamentalist organizations to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the West Bank and Israel.
However, there's another reason why Israel remains strongly opposed to surrendering control over its border with Jordan to the Palestinian Authority or a third party.
It is no secret that the Jordanians have long been worried about the repercussions of the presence of Palestinians on their border.
In a recent closed briefing with a high-ranking Jordanian security official, he was asked about the kingdom's position regarding the possibility that Palestinians might one day replace Israel along the border with Jordan.
"May God forbid!" the official retorted. "We have repeatedly made it clear to the Israeli side that we will not agree to the presence of a third party at our border."
The official explained that Jordan's stance was not new. "This has been our position since 1967," he said. "The late King Hussein made this clear to all Israeli governments and now His majesty, King Abdullah, remains committed to this position."
Jordan's opposition to placing the border crossings with the West Bank under Palestinian control is not only based on security concerns.
Of course, Jordan's security concerns are not unjustified, especially in light of what has been happening over the past few years along the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
The Egyptians are now paying a heavy price for neglecting their shared border with the Gaza Strip over the past few decades. This lapse has seen Sinai emerge as a hotbed for Al-Qaeda-linked terror groups that are now posing a serious threat to Egypt's national security.
Besides the security concerns, the Jordanians are also worried about the demographic implications of Palestinian security and civilian presence over the border.
Their worst nightmare, as a veteran Jordanian diplomat once told Israeli colleagues during a private encounter, is that once the Palestinians are given control over the border, thousands of them from the future Palestinian state would pour into Jordan.
The Jordanians already have a "problem" with the fact that their kingdom's population consists of a Palestinian majority, which some say has reached over 80%. The last thing the Jordanians want is to see hundreds of thousands of Palestinians move from the West Bank or Gaza Strip into the kingdom.
Although the Jordanians are not part of the ongoing peace talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, they are hoping that Israel will not rush to abandon security control over its long border with the kingdom. Understandably, the Jordanian monarchy cannot go public with its stance for fear of being accused by Arabs and Muslims of treason and collaboration with the "Zionist enemy."
The Egyptians today know what the Jordanians have been aware of for a long time -- that a shared border with Fatah or Hamas or any other Palestinian group is a recipe for instability and anarchy. The Egyptians surely miss the days when the Israel Defense Forces were sitting along the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.
Even if Abbas's forces initially manage to maintain security and order along the border with Jordan, there is no guarantee as to what would happen in the future.
Between 2005 and 2007, Abbas's security forces were in control of the main border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt -- before they were expelled by Hamas.
It is in Israel's interest to have stability and calm in Jordan. Undermining Jordan's security would create many problems for Israel. To prevent such a scenario, Israel, if and when it reaches a deal with Abbas's Palestinian Authority, needs to take King Abdullah's fears and interests into consideration.
Related Topics:  Israel  |  Khaled Abu Toameh

Limited Funds Only for Places Acting Most Responsibly
Gatestone Weekly Roundup

by Nina Rosenwald
September 20, 2013 at 4:00 am
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In matters the media may have not reported on this week, just in case you missed it, were thoughts from Timon Dias on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency [UNRWA], whose support of the Palestinians not only enables the continuance of an education soaked in violence, but is likely preventing peace: "If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that arrives only because the conflict still exists, "Dias asks, "where is the incentive for ending the conflict?"
In the U.S., in 1968, when the inner cities were on fire - -"Burn, Baby, Burn" -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, then working at the White House, apparently let it be know that as federal funds were limited, they would only go to the cities that acted the most responsibly. All riots stopped that instant. What if the U.S. and other funders adopted the same policy?
The Europeans, says Ali Salim , do not really care about the Palestinians unless intervening can be accompanied by "Jew-bashing. " There almost never is, he says, any mention in reports on the Middle East of the treatment of women and children; discrimination; exploitation; slavery and other crimes against humanity.
More and more, Raymond Ibrahim points out, governments run by radical political Islamists are using threats against persecuted Christians and other minorities to force them to vote for leaders who will only keep on persecuting them. Countries holding these sham elections should probably be downgraded for shamminess, rather than upgraded for providing merely the illusion and false hope of democratic reform.
Related Topics:  Nina Rosenwald

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