Saeb Erekat, a senior PLO leader and top negotiator, said “if the EU rewarded Israel with a high-level meeting later this month, it would be helping to bury the two-state solution,” PNN reported.
“The Israeli government shouldn’t be rewarded for its systematic violations of international humanitarian law. Rather, there must be accountability,” he told EUobserver in an interview.
“Lack of accountability, impunity, is what provides the Israeli government with enough confidence to move ahead with its plan to bury the prospects of the two-state solution,” he said.
Saeb Erekat: if EU 'rewards' Israel w/ high-level meeting later this month, it will help 'bury' two-state solution https://t.co/gpaYEvmWnx
— Ben White (@benabyad) February 6, 2017
Asked when the moment will come when that solution is no longer viable, he said: “We may be witnessing it now.”
The EU Foreign Service aims to hold an “association council” with Israeli diplomats on 28 February. The meeting, the first of its kind in five years, is to take place despite the EU’s verbal rebuke of Israel’s plan, announced in January, to build some 6,000 new homes for Jewish settlers on Palestinian land.
Erekat said the reality on the ground was Israel’s creation of one “apartheid” state that denigrated Palestinian rights, however. “It’s about theft of land and natural resources. It’s about dividing our families and preventing our economic development. Overall, it’s about the violation of our basic human and national rights,” he said.
Erekat: EU-Israel meeting risks to bury two-state solution https://t.co/oicpZsJaZh pic.twitter.com/IwpaPdVtGb
— Ramy Jabbar (@Ramdog1980) February 7, 2017
He said the EU should “move towards sanctions against Israel”, such as “banning settlement products” from being exported to Europe.
But he said that, behind closed doors, “a few member states have been putting pressure on the EU not to take any action”.
(PNN, PC, Social Media)
