Following US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the indivisible capital of Israel (see EUROPE 11920), High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini urged all parties, on Thursday 7 December, to become involved in order to avoid the situation in the Middle East degenerating and sending us backwards.
"President Trump's announcement on Jerusalem has a very worrying potential impact. It is a very fragile context, and the announcement has the potential to send us backwards to even darker times than the ones we are already living in", Mogherini told press in an impromptu statement.
She reiterated the European Union's traditional position on the Palestinian issue, which she said is still shared by the 28 EU member states. "The European Union has a clear and united position: we believe that the only realistic solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is based on two states, and with Jerusalem as the capital of both the state of Israel and the state of Palestine", she said, noting that Trump had nevertheless called for the status quo at the holy sites. This position was repeated to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the beginning of the week (see EUROPE 11919).
Mogherini's calls for restraint could come to naught. The US statement was condemned virtually unanimously in the Arab world. It was deplored in the Western world and welcomed with joy by the Israeli authorities. Friday 8 December, a Muslim day of prayer, has been declared a "day of rage" by Hamas. The United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting in New York the same day.
In October, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, which until then had controlled the Gaza Strip, signed a reconciliation agreement passing control of the crossing points in Gaza from Hamas to the Palestinian Authority (see EUROPE 11896).
Mogherini stated that the meeting between the European foreign ministers and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Brussels on Monday 11 December, would focus on the situation in the Middle East in the light of how the situation develops on the ground. The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, who was in Jordan on Thursday, will be in Brussels in early January. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)