The killing continues
in Syria. There is genocide being committed in several places in Africa.
There is chaos in Egypt. And still, the foreign ministers of 27 EU
countries convened an emergency meeting in Brussels last week to discuss
Israel's plan to build a few thousand housing units in Jerusalem and
the E1 area, of all things. It is true that the international media,
unlike some of the Israeli media, didn't even cover the meeting. But if
there is anything that accentuates Europe's bias and detachment from
reality (with the exception of a handful of righteous nations, like the
Czech Republic and, in this case, also Germany), it is the persistent
European disregard for the Palestinians' blatant breach of agreements
and the exaggerated outrage over Israel's legitimate responses.
The EU ministers only
halfheartedly condemned Hamas' threats against Israel (made at a Gaza
rally last weekend). On the other hand, they stated that they were
"deeply dismayed" because the E1 construction will "seriously undermine
the prospects of a negotiated resolution of the conflict by jeopardizing
the possibility of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state and of
Jerusalem as the future capital of two states." Factually, this isn't
accurate, as anyone who looks at a map of Israel will testify. A British
reporter working for The Sun wrote that the repeated attacks by some of
his colleagues against Israel are a form of "anti-Semitism by proxy."
It seems that nameless European diplomats who are threatening Israel
with sanctions are motivated by the same type of anti-Semitism.
The significance of the
E1 plan, which calls for construction that would physically link the
Jewish city of Maaleh Adumim with Jerusalem, stems from the fact that is
will prevent, or at least reduce, Jerusalem's exposure to terror
attacks from the east. That is precisely why the Palestinians are crying
out so harshly against it.
Henry Kissinger once
said that it wasn't until he drove from Amman to Jerusalem that he
realized how close the city was to the eastern border. But Israel's
prime ministers, from Rabin to Benjamin Netanyahu, did realize. That is
why they decided that just as the construction around Jerusalem in the
south, north and west would prevent any possibility of the city getting
cut off from the rest of the country, so there should be a strategic,
physical shield in the east as well. We would be wise to remind all who
claim they are aware of Israel's security needs of this fact.
I remember a
conversation between then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and then-U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell in which the latter raised the question
of a contiguous Palestinian territory, Sharon replied that he would not
object to a Palestinian tunnel connecting Ramallah and Bethlehem, but
that Maaleh Adumim would be linked to Jerusalem. The fact that Sharon
and other prime ministers didn't fully implement the E1 plan, but also
never shelved it (only lowering it on the priority list), indicates that
the issue didn't seem urgent enough to them. Now, in the face of
unilateral Palestinian initiatives, the priorities have changed.
The thing that bothers
the Palestinians, and most of the Europeans (and the U.S., too, but the
Americans have opted to remain behind the scenes this time around), is
not so much the issue of physical contiguity but the possibility that
the E1 plan — which would separate east Jerusalem from the rest of the
territory the Palestinians claim for a state — would prevent them from
claiming it as their capital.
For now, Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' unilateral initiative to gain
statehood recognition at the U.N., and his refusal to enter any real
peace negotiations with Israel, have already distanced the Palestinians
from realizing their vision of statehood.
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