EU diplomats said on Monday in Brussels that a two-state solution is the only credible path to peace between Israel and the Palestinians, after earlier threatening “consequences” if Israel continued to oppose the plan.
This from newsmax.com.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, told press at a meeting of the Council of the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council:
We have to stop talking about the peace process and start talking about the two-state solution process.
A document circulating in European capitals ahead of Monday’s meeting called for EU members to “set out the consequences they envisage to attach to engagement or non-engagement” with their proposed plan—the two-state solution.
Europe is Israel’s biggest trading partner with total trade in goods in 2022 equaling €46.8 billion (~$50 billion). An unnamed senior EU official in Brussels suggested to the Financial Times that Europe could use this as leverage, having said:
There are incentives and disincentives.
Foreign ministers at the meeting voiced frustration specifically with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom they see as the main obstacle to the two-state vision.
French Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Sejourne told reporters in Brussels:
The declarations of Benjamin Netanyahu are worrying. There will be a need for a Palestinian state with security guarantees for all.
In a public address on Sunday, Netanyahu said:
Gaza must be demilitarized, under Israel’s full security control.
Further:
I will not compromise on full Israeli security control of all territory west of the Jordan River.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz, who attended the meeting, focused on the return of Israeli captives held by Hamas and European backing for Israel’s chief war aim of destroying the terror group.
Katz met with Borrell and other ministers. According to ABC News, he showed them two videos, one about building an artificial island off Gaza’s coast and the other a rail project linking the Middle East and India.
Borrell said:
I think the minister could have made better use of his time and focused on the deaths in Gaza.
Borrell, known for his anti-Israel sentiment, criticized Jerusalem’s conduct of the war to the media on Sunday, having said:
Israel is seeding the hate for generations.
Earlier this month, he called for forcing Israel to accept a solution.
He said:
What we have learned over the last 30 years, and what we are learning now with the tragedy experienced in Gaza, is that the solution must be imposed from outside.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would push on with fighting in Gaza until “absolute victory” despite suffering one of its toughest days of the military offensive.
He said:
Yesterday we experienced one of the most difficult days since the war erupted.
In the name of our heroes, for the sake of our lives, we will not stop fighting until absolute victory.
He said the military was “investigating the tragedy” in which 21 soldiers were killed when buildings exploded in central Gaza, bringing the single-day Israeli death toll to 24.
God speed to the IDF.
