EU Slams Israel over Latest Settlement Expansion in Palestine

[seafan]

Telesur, 18 March 2016

The European Union has issued a statement heavily criticizing Israel's latest land seizure, which the bloc says hinders the process toward a two-state solution and the prospect of peace with Palestinians.

The statement comes a week after Israel seized 579 acres, or 234 hectares, of Palestinian land near the Dead Sea and the Palestinian city of Jericho. It represents the biggest land seizure in recent years.

“Israel’s decision to declare 234 hectares near Jericho in Area C of the West Bank as state land is a further step that risks undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state and therefore calls into question Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution,” the EU said in a statement.

.....

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories explained the March 10 seizure as having been made in accordance with “the decision of the political level and the examining of the professional authorities,” who have declared the territory to be “state lands.” The land is eventually supposed to be used to build tourism and other commercial facilities.

The EU reminds Israel that further settlement expansion is illegal under international law and “represent an obstacle to peace, [which] will only drive the parties to the conflict even further apart,” the EU said.

[6chars]

1. Is this the same EU that doesn't give a crap about the rising anti-Semitism in Europe?

Thought so.

[shira]

4. Same EU. n/t

[Little Tich]

2. One small step for Netanyahu - one giant leap for the bi-national state... n/t

[Israeli]

3. .....the illusion is unraveling — and fast..........

http://972mag.com/the-unravelling-illusion-of-palestinian-autonomy/117964/

Palestinians have been told for decades, in the Oslo Accords and countless other documents, that limited autonomy is just a step along the road to actual sovereignty and statehood. Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, has always stated openly that he would never even consider relinquishing security control (read: sovereignty) of the West Bank. Everything else is just an increasingly precarious charade.

[6chars]

5. serious question

do you worry at all that instead of or in tandem with a binational state there will be an all out civil war that has greater humanitarian cost - most likely for both sides - than what we are seeing today?

[Little Tich]

6. The IDF doesn't do genocide... n/t

[Little Tich]

8. I think it's possible to choose the scenario rather than just having things deteriorate to the point

of no return.

Now when the two-state solution seems implausible, it's perhaps better to start planning ahead and try to lay the groundwork for a South Africa style solution rather than civil war. It would perhaps have been better with a two-state solution - but thanks to Netanyahu's intrepid efforts it seems to be no longer an option.