[R-G] EU Upgrades Relationship with Israel

[Anthony Fenton]

The EU’s Unanimous Decision to Upgrade its Relationship with Israel  
Reveals Europe’s Selective Adherence to Human Rights Standards  	
Written by Nic Irwin for the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Thursday, 19 June 2008
http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/the-eus-unanimous-decision-to-upgrade-its-relationship-with-israel-reveals-europes-selective-adherence-to-human-rights-standards-20080619.html

Tzipi Livni,Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign  
Affairs, at the meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council.

Last Monday, 16 June, in a meeting of the EU-Israel Association  
Council attended by the Israeli Vice Prime Minister and Minister of  
Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni and European foreign ministers, an upgrade  
in the relations between Israel and the European Union was unanimously  
approved. These enhanced measures of cooperation, not incidentally,  
coincide with Israel’s 60th birthday and demonstrate increasingly  
closer economic, political and social links between the EU and Israel.

The announcement follows months of hard negotiating and bargaining by  
Foreign Minister Livni, but, according to one European diplomat, EU  
opinion prior to the meeting was that the 27 member states of the EU  
had simply not “had enough time” to come to an agreement (Reuters, 11  
June 2008). Monday’s announcement for increased relations concerns  
three areas: diplomatic cooperation; Israel’s participation in  
European plans and agencies; and an examination of possible Israeli  
integration into the European Single Market.

Such advances in political and economic relations between Israel and  
the EU are strongly opposed by the Palestinian Authority. On 27 May  
2008, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad wrote to the European  
Union heads of state, urging them not to upgrade their ties with  
Israel unless construction and expansion of settlements and the  
Separation Wall was immediately halted.

In conjunction with Fayyad, not all Europeans were in favor of the  
upgrading of Israel’s relationship. Luisa Morgantini, Vice President  
of the European Parliament, and member of a 14 MEP ad hoc delegation  
belonging to different political parties that visited the occupied  
Palestinian territories (oPt) from 31 May to 2 June, states that “we  
[the delegation] strongly feel that without serious signs of good  
faith translated into tangible improvements on the ground, the time is  
not yet right to upgrade EU-Israel relations.”

For EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner,  
speaking prior to Monday’s meeting with Foreign Minister Livni, the  
most important issue at hand is to “start the process” of negotiations  
to finalize the upgrade. President of the EU General Affairs and  
External Relations Council, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dr. Dimitrij  
Rupel, noted in a press release that “Dialogue and cooperation must be  
based on common values such as supporting efforts to find a solution  
to the Middle East conflict, to bolster the fight against terrorism  
and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, to promote human  
rights, to improve dialogue between cultures and religions, and to  
cooperate in the fight against anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia.”

EU foreign affairs ministers expressed the political will to intensify  
relations and agreed to develop them gradually, as part of the  
European Union Neighborhood Policy. “There are obvious reasons for  
which strengthened political cooperation between the EU and Israel  
should be understood as a cooperation which contributes to resolution  
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Minister Rupel pointed out.

Significantly, what is lacking from Minister Rupel’s speech are the  
obvious problems that he labels but does not discuss. In 2003, Gideon  
Meir, Israeli deputy director for media and public affairs in the  
Foreign Ministry, stated that “Israel views every state that is  
harboring terrorist organizations and the leaders of those terrorist  
organizations who are attacking innocent citizens of the state of  
Israel as legitimate targets out of self defense.” This definition  
suggests that all Palestinians are a threat to Israeli security and  
should be treated as such. Minister Rupel states that the EU is  
prepared to bolster the fight against terrorism, but what does that  
mean in concrete terms? One of the main criticisms of human rights  
organizations is that nation states do not use clearly defined  
definitions of terrorism. This lack of definition gives states ample  
leeway to do as they see fit against legitimate armed struggle by  
labeling and justifying their actions as the continued fight against  
terrorism. From this issue, it then becomes very difficult to focus on  
what the term “bolster” could mean in the context of EU-Israel  
relations. Does the vagueness of the term imply that the EU is going  
to adopt the theory that all Palestinians are terrorists? If so, it  
would then put the EU’s policy of tolerance and acceptance of all  
peoples severely in question. How can the leading principles of  
democracy that the EU advises the Palestinian Authority to adopt, be  
justified if the EU is toying with the idea of adopting the Israeli  
definition of terrorism?

Furthermore, Minister Rupel mentions that the EU is seeking to  
continue to fight against weapons of mass destruction. According to  
the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Israel is in  
possession and capable of launching weapons of mass destruction.  
Israel has not declared being in possession of WMD, nor has it allowed  
international observers to inspect and reassure the international  
community of Israeli military capacities. This lack of transparency  
demonstrates that Israel is in fact a significant actor in the  
proliferation of WMD in the region, directly conflicting with Minister  
Rupel’s statement for further cooperation and the EU’s fight against  
terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. How  
the EU can possibly justify its statement and conflict of interests is  
yet unknown.

In addition to the problematic nature surrounding the differences in  
EU and Israeli points of view regarding terrorism and weapons of mass  
destruction, there is also the question of increasing cooperation on  
the promotion of human rights. In 2005, the European Union voted  
positively on a UN text clearly stating that the Palestinians have a  
“right to their independent State of Palestine, and urged all States  
and United Nations agencies and organizations to continue to support  
the realization of that goal.” Within this context, how is the EU  
capable of signing an agreement with Israel when Israel is documented  
to be in violation of Palestinian basic human rights on a regular and  
continual basis?

A further issue can be remarked on the question of human rights. How  
is it possible for the EU to continue to promote human rights with  
Israel while silently accepting illegal Israeli house demolitions and  
all of the other numerous infractions that the Israelis perform  
against Palestinians? The EU-Israel Association Agreement is entirely  
based upon the principle of continual observance of human rights and  
democracy. It has clauses stating that the agreement can be revoked if  
human rights are not respected, but there is little oversight or  
mechanism to act on these clauses.

Therefore, by increasing relations with Israel, the EU is silently  
endorsing the Israeli politics of human rights breaches and  
perpetrating crimes against the Palestinian people.

It is interesting to note that Egypt has also been in the process of  
attempting to upgrade its relationship with the EU, but unlike Israel,  
Egypt has been denied on the grounds that it requested a clause be  
written into the agreement that the Middle East be completely free of  
weapons of mass destruction. Why would a democratically, peace seeking  
body such as the EU refuse to accept a proposal that would have the  
potential to lead to a safer world?

Through the upgrade of the EU-Israel relationship and the clear  
contradictions that this upgrade represents, would it be unfair to  
suggest that the EU is closing the gap between the styles of  
international diplomacy of the EU and the USA? It is apparent that the  
EU is violating its own principles and policies by entering into this  
new agreement with Israel.  Only time will give an indication of  
whether the EU has any satisfactory justification to explain it’s  
increased relationship with Israel. At the moment, however, this looks  
doubtful.