EU seeks talks with Israel over ‘red lines’ in West Bank

[Time for Israel to bite the bullet. Let the EU do their worst.]

Israeli officials fear that proposed negotiations are prelude to further European sanctions.

By Barak Ravid, HAARETZ

In this December 5, 2012 file photo, a general view of Givat Hamatos area is seen in East Jerusalem.

The European Union is interested in opening negotiations with Israel with the aim of preventing a series of Israeli moves in the West Bank deemed “red lines” which may jeopardize the possibility of a future Palestinian state alongside Israel, an internal EU document obtained by Haaretz reveals. Officials in the Israeli Foreign Ministry are concerned the negotiations are a prelude to further European sanctions against Israel.

In recent weeks, since the Israeli appropriation of 4,000 dunams in Gush Etzion in the West Bank and even more since the push forward in planning for additional construction in Givat Hamatos, a neighborhood beyond the Green Line, a series of discussions have been taking place in the EU’s headquarters in Brussels between the ambassadors of the 28 members states over the European response.

During these discussions, which ended last weekend, it was decided to relay a sharp message to Israel in the name of all EU members, focusing on the Israeli moves which create a “focused and increasing threat to the possibility of the two-state solution.”

The EU’s ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, is set to relay the message to Israel. He is expected to meet in the coming days with Foreign Ministry Director Nissim Ben Sheetrit and with national security advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office Yossi Cohen to propose negotiations over the issues which raised the EU’s concerns.

Haaretz obtained an internal EU document with instructions as to the content of the message Ambassador Faaborg-Andersen is supposed to relay to the ministry’s officials and to the Prime Minister’s Office.

“The EU considers the preservation of the two state solution a priority,” the document reads. “The only way to resolve the conflict is through an agreement that ends the occupation which began in 1967, that ends all claims and fulfills the aspirations of both parties. A one state reality would not be compatible with these aspirations.”

The two-page document defines several of the EU’s “red lines” regarding Israeli actions in the West Bank:

1. Construction in the Givat Hamatos neighborhood, beyond the Green Line in Jerusalem: The document said that construction in that area would jeopardize the possibility of a contiguous Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states. The EU “cautions the Israeli government not to move ahead with tenders and construction. Such a development would constitute one more grave “fact on the ground” which would be liable to crucially prejudge the outcome of peace negotiations,” the document reads.

2. Construction in the E1 area between Ma’aleh Adumim and Jerusalem: The document said construction in that area would also jeopardize the possibility of contiguous Palestinian state, and added that it has already publicly and strongly opposed plans for E1’s development.

3. Further construction in the Har Homa neighborhood in Jerusalem, beyond the Green Line.

4. Israeli plans to relocate 12,000 Bedouin without their consent in a new town in the Jordan Valley, expelling them from lands in the West Bank, including E1: “The EU strongly urges Israel to put these plans on hold and search for other solutions together with the concerned populations and the Palestinian Authority. The EU underlines that implementing those plans may amount to a serious breach of International Humanitarian Law (IV Geneva Convention),” the document reads.

5. Harming the status-quo at the Temple Mount: The document said that attempts to challenge the status-quo have led to instability in East Jerusalem and increased tensions. A top European diplomat noted that EU states consuls in East Jerusalem and in Ramallah planned to hold a joint tour of Temple Mount, but aborted their plans following instructions from Brussels, fearing Israel would consider such a visit a provocation.

According to the document, the EU ambassador in Israel was instructed to clarify to the Foreign Ministry director and to the national security advisor that the EU is interested in holding “thorough discussion” on these and other issues related to the occupied Palestinian territories. “…there is a legitimate expectation to have a constructive dialogue with the Israeli authorities on measures from their side which may impact on our assistance and its ultimate objectives of creating a sound enabling environment for economic and social development in the occupied Palestinian territories and contributing to create the conditions for a viable Palestinian state,” the documents reads.

Red lines still vague

Senior European diplomats noted that in the discussions in Brussels the European “red lines” in the West Bank to be posed to the Israelis during negotiations have yet to be fully defined, if at all, and what would the repercussions for crossing them would be.

“Some countries, first of which is France, believe Israel must be presented with specific sanctions to be leveled if Israel takes specific actions so that there won’t be any surprises and the price is clear,” a senior European diplomat said.

“However, this issue is still under discussion and no final decision has been made.”

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has followed the EU preparations to up the tone against Israel for several weeks. In discussions held over the issue in the ministry on Tuesday the expectation was floated that the message relayed by the EU ambassador would be the opening shot ahead of new European sanctions against the Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

“The negotiations the EU is offering are really the hearing before the sentence,” a senior official in the ministry said.

“We have a feeling they’re expecting us to reject the offer for negotiations and give them an excuse to push the sanctions against us, or that we’ll agree in any case to negotiations in which we’ll discuss which sanctions will be leveled,” he added.

EU ambassador Lars Faaborg-Andersen refused to comment.

October 22, 2014 | 50 Comments »
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50 Comments / 50 Comments

  2. yamit82 Said:

    No but I can be If I choose to.

    Well then remember crickets and grasshopper are kosher. Huge wash and must ruuuuuuuuuuuunnnn to the store. >>>

  5. honeybee Said:

    Did you take those photos? They are fantastic , Israel is beautiful.

    No they are fire photos from Google images….. 2/3 of Israel is the Negev and you could say that where I live is the center of the country. I love the mountains as well but there is something about the desert that makes me feel calm and small you can almost touch the sun and the moon sometimes. You get a feeling of space time and silence when they are not spoiling it with rave concerts. 🙂

  7. yamit82 Said:

    First of all, tumbleweed

    I keep a patch of ” tumbleweed” growing to atrack butterflies. Certain species of butterflies feed of milkweeds. The milkweed makes then bitter to taste and birds leave them alone. This year I saw a Monarch butterfly feeding on my tumbleweed.

  12. @ honeybee:

    That exhaust me just watch, much prefer the silence of the desert:

    Me too.

    Tumbleweeds & Terrorists
    Look, I don’t know what to do about terrorists called “Palestinian Militants” any more than a distant “expert” would understand what to do with my pile of Russian Thistles called “tumbleweed.” But I will trust that those who deal with the problem on an every-day basis, those closest to it, understand best what must be done.

    Sunday, I was blessed. I had the opportunity, for the first time this season, to get outside and eradicate the tumbleweed on my acre. The reason I was so blessed is that I almost missed out completely. This season has been so dry and so windy that the fire department was reluctant to allow open burning at all. Now, I know most of you are not from the rural western United States, so you may not understand why I would want to openly burn my tumbleweed. So, before you start screaming about air quality and environment, please give me some time to explain the context of my situation.

    First of all, tumbleweed, even though it has been present in every movie about the Old West for the last 50 years, is a non-native species. It’s real name is “Russian Thistle,” and it doesn’t belong here. Tumbleweed is opportunistic and aggressive, and, once established, will crowd out the native species ? destroying both plant and animal habitat. It is especially prolific. Tumbleweeds can grow to giant size, topping five or six feet in height and sometimes as much as eight feet across. They grow in communities, protecting one another from the elements. When they are mature, they turn from a bright and vibrant green to woody beige, break off at the root, and go tumbling across acres of land, blown by the wind, dropping seeds everywhere.

    Read More!!!

    Michelle Nevada has a facinating personal story I’ll tell you tomorrow. I love her writing….

  15. @ honeybee:
    honeybee Said:

    Who Me

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IChJ6eO3k48

    Big Beso from me !

    Kids having fun.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSBml7O3Nyo

    An all-nighter 424 meters below sea level
    13,000 party-goers gather at Minus 424, Masada’s annual Dead Sea rave

    Read more: An all-nighter 424 meters below sea level | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/an-all-nighter-424-meters-below-sea-level/#ixzz3HOBkIPZX
    Follow us: @timesofisrael on Twitter | timesofisrael on Facebook

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSBml7O3Nyo

  24. yamit82 Said:

    , Paul urges believers to think on “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable

    According to the consensus of all interviewed on the subject, that’s my backside”.

  26. @ honeybee:

    “The EU considers the preservation of the two state solution a priority…”

    “Message to EU: What’s it to YOU how (or whether) the conflict gets ‘solved’? MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB.”

    “Profanity????? Sweetie”

    “YBYSA, Twinkie.”

    “That bet is beyond your ability, Sweetie.”

    ‘Ability’ not pertinent.

    My ass, my bet.

    Your ass, YOURS.

  27. @ yamit82:

    “In his letter to the Philippians, Paul urges believers to think on ‘whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable . . excellent or praiseworthy’ (Philippians 4:8). I’m not sure expletives related to human waste are what Paul had in mind as pure and lovely.”

    If telling you that you’re full of shit (which is, after all, the reality) were capable of taking my mind off of “whatever is admirable . . excellent or praiseworthy,” then I’d certainly HAVE to lay off expletives relating to human (let alone, animal) waste. As it IS, however, calling a spade a “spade” is all in a day’s work; doesn’t move me off my stride for a nanosecond.

    But thanks for your concern.

    “In the Sermon on the Mount, geeezuz admonished his listeners not to say ‘raca’ to each other (Matthew 5:22). Some scholars are convinced that ‘raca’ was a cuss word.”

    Anything that takes you out of your center takes you away from God. If calling somebody a fool is CAPABLE of taking you out of your center, you’re already in trouble.

    “Paul tells the Ephesians that obscenities and ‘coarse joking’ are ‘improper for god’s holy people’… (Ephesians 5:4)”

    He was talking to (and about) recent believers not yet capable of standing alone without being swept up in the pressures of the world and their own old habits of mind — much like the first generation[s] to enter the Land after the Exodus & the 40-yr trek thru the wilderness. People like that tend to need a moral straitjacket of sorts, at first.

    It’s the ones that still need one twenty years later that are troublesome.

    Coarse joking (specifically) has little appeal for me, and I don’t gravitate toward it.

    “Lake of fire for you.”

    Need company, do you? (Can’t imagine why; you have so MUCH company there already.)

  28. dweller Said:

    “Hypocrite !!!!!”

    Not I.

    In his letter to the Philippians, Paul urges believers to think on “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable . . excellent or praiseworthy” (Philippians 4:8). I’m not sure expletives related to human waste are what Paul had in mind as pure and lovely.
    In the Sermon on the Mount, geeezuz admonished his listeners not to say “raca” to each other (Matthew 5:22). Some scholars are convinced that “raca” was a cuss word. Paul tells the Ephesians that obscenities and “coarse joking” are “improper for god’s holy people” (Ephesians 5:4)

    Lake of fire for you. Hypocrite!!!

  29. @ yamit82:

    “Since when are acronyms not swearing? “

    Since when have I EVER claimed to have anything against swearing? — Show me the post.

    “Hypocrite !!!!!”

    Not I.

    You very obviously have me confused with somebody who says s/he doesn’t use profanity

    — something I’ve never said.

  30. @ bernard ross:

    The Gold is Gone http://lemonlimemoon.blogspot.co.il/

    Officially the United States has 8,000 tons of gold.

    In all probability we don’t have much at all anymore and the small amount we did have we were hard pressed to scrape up when Germany got only half of what they stored with us.

    I have warned for years that the government will recall and confiscate your gold as Roosevelt did with Executive Order 6102.
    The official story is that they needed it to back up the dollar, which, back then was worth 23.22 grains of gold. They took the gold to take it from the people and gain more central power for the government.

    “The abandonment of the gold standard made it possible for the welfare statists to use the banking system as a means to an unlimited expansion of credit…The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves. This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”—Alan Greenspan

    Remember, the borrower is slave to the lender, always.
    I have long suspected gold grabs will happen again just as in 1933. Wait for it, because I believe you will see it.

    If you want a reason for world war, you have it in money. Always follow the money, another of my favorite sayings.
    The Federal Reserve has been manipulating gold for a long time.
    Our bankers and the Federal Reserve are making the nation an international stench and it is a huge disgrace

  33. the phoenix Said:

    Netanyahu blames incredible pressures from us, eu, and even some outer galaxies,

    you are getting funnier,
    didn’t we hear this one before at E1?
    Announce, get the credit, and then withhold.
    Con artists repeat their con until the sucker wakes up.

  34. Report: Netanyahu Unfreezes Judea & Samaria Construction

    http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/186623

    …in other words everything’s cool (till the next “freeze” which is about to happen in…. 5,4,3 2,1,
    “… In other news, PM benjamin Netanyahu blames incredible pressures from us, eu, and even some outer galaxies, for the latest freeze in construction in j&s…..”
    Same old same old…
    🙁

  38. @ honeybee:

    “Message to EU: What’s it to YOU how (or whether) the conflict gets ‘solved’? MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB.”

    “Profanity????? Sweetie”

    YBYSA, Twinkie.

  42. “The EU considers the preservation of the two state solution a priority. The only way to resolve the conflict is through an agreement that ends the occupation which began in 1967, that ends all claims and fulfills the aspirations of both parties. A one state reality would not be compatible with these aspirations.”

    Message to EU:

    What’s it to YOU how (or whether) the conflict gets ‘solved’?

    MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB. MYOFB.

    End of discussion.

  43. Israel should negotiate with the EU. It should, inter alia,

    1) demand that Europe stop funding Palestinian effort to create a state.

    2) the EU halt immigration of Muslims to their countries to prevent a later putsch in their countries and, thus, the further weakening of Western values

    3) that they state their goals of “reducing Israel to its proper size” publicly so that they can become part of the historical record

    4) that they pay compensation to Israel for the pain and suffering they have caused the Jews, both while they lived among them and now that the Jews have their own state

    5) that their leaders participate in a re-education program to review and renew Judeo-Christian values, practices and even beliefs.

    6) that they openly recognize Islam as the source of many problem in the international community

    7) that they compensate Israel for human, monetary, political, and geographical loses they suffer should their program be implemented, even partially, starting now with the establishment of an escrow fund that is not less than the funds they have lavished on the Palestinian Arabs for the last 20 years.

    8) that they take into their governments new elements that support the continued existence of the State of Israel before demanding concessions from Israel.

    9) that any concession made now by Israel be reversible without penalty should the borders be breached or the population of Jews be threatened

    10) that they remove the threat of Iran and ISIS before expecting material concessions from Israel.

    11) that they announce publicly that any concessions are characterized as compromises on disputed land.

    The EU should shoulder the burden of the consequences of their “suggestions.”

  45. Israel needs to communicate clearly in an effective way that such EU meddling in Israel’s affairs of state have red lines too and will not be tolerated. It would be a shame if Big Ben forgot how to keep accurate time for ‘a time’. There is no reasoning with Europe, they’re wicked;try covert actions; annoy them like fleas.

  48. Where is the government leader who will clearly state to the EU:
    1- that there can be no limitation on Jewish settlement in the former Palestine mandate territory
    2- That the same Europeans signed agreements and declared that it was obligatory to “facilitate Jewish immigration and encourage settlement in the Palestine mandate territory.
    3- that Israel and the Jewish people demand the honoring of prior agreements with the Jewish people and that the EU is by its actions breaching and reneging on all those prior agreements.
    4- that it is unacceptable to negotiate or discuss with a party who reneges and breaches their former agreements.
    5- that the EU canard of illegal Jewish settlement is an unacceptable libel on the Jewish people.

    Why are these simple, accurate words so difficult for Israeli PM’s and foreign Ministers to speak? Why cant Israel point the finger at the filthy despicable swindlers? The only reason that the euroswindlers can speak of red lines is that the fool Jews gave them the rope to hang the Jews. There can be no red lines wrt Jewish settlement. PM’s and Foreign Ministers who cannot even speak these words are fakes.

  49. I would have thought that the Israelis would have told the Euronazis – discreetly, and with deniability – that their measures to destroy Israel would result in Europe’s destruction in a “Samson Option.” Or is Europe so blind with Jew-hatred that it does not care?

    Stupid question, I know. Europe would rather exterminate the Jews than continue its existence.

  50. Europe is seeking to treat Israel like a colony.

    I personally would send the EU ambassador packing and tell him Europe can take its anti-Semitic policies and stuff them where the sun don’t shine.

    Let Europe do its worst.