Brussels, 19/11/2015 (Agence Europe) - During a debate in Brussels on Wednesday 18 November, former French foreign minister Hubert Vedrine said that Israeli settlers had made the two-state solution impossible.
In Vedrine's view, the settlers have won because the two-state solution has been killed off by the Israeli right and far right. Some day, he said, Palestinians will turn round and say that they are in a single big state and will demand equal rights because they are in the majority. He added that this is what former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin wanted to avoid.
Vedrine was speaking at a debate as part of the Obs Brussels Days. He said there were 500,000 settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories. He criticised the settlers' stranglehold on the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, and the Knesset's stranglehold on the US Congress because he said this paralysed the situation.
Earlier in the day, Maja Kocijancic, the spokeswoman for High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, criticised the announcement of possible further expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem with the sale of 436 housing units at Ramat Shlomo and 18 at Ramot. She said: “The announcements related to possible further settlement expansion in East Jerusalem risk inflaming the situation on the ground and further undermining trust between the parties, which is a basic condition for restarting a meaningful political process”. As is standard practice for each announcement of new settlements, she said: “We expect the Israeli government to demonstrate its commitment to the two-state solution not only in words but also in actions”, and added: “The EU reiterates its strong opposition to Israel's settlement policy and actions taken in this context”.
In a debate at the Brussels Days, former Spanish foreign minister and former EU envoy to the Middle East Miguel Moratinos was more optimistic, stating that a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was possible next year and the time had come for Europe to take a peace initiative, which would give the EU incredible weight. Mogherini was also taking part in the debate and was at Moratinos' side as he made these comments. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)