On Monday 22 July, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, deplored the fact that the discrepancy between “international law and reality” on the ground in the Middle East keeps widening.
“The difference between what the law says, according [to] the ICJ, and what is happening on the ground, has never been as big as today. The Courts are coming to [fill] the vacuum of politics. Politics has been unable to look for a solution. But the court is not there to implement the Opinion. The Opinion has to be implemented by the political powers”, warned Mr Borrell.
Following its ruling on 26 January calling on Israel to prevent any act of ‘genocide’ and to allow the provision of basic services and humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza (see EUROPE 13337/15), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an Opinion on Friday 19 July stating that the occupation of the Palestinian territories on the West Bank is illegal and must end.
Asked by Agence Europe what the EU could do to reduce the gap between the law and reality on the ground, Mr Borrell acknowledged that there were different positions among the Member States. “This does not help us to be an influential player. We will continue to do what we do, which is no small thing. Continue humanitarian aid and political pressure, including on the Israeli government, and sanctions” against violent settlers, he said, stressing that more could be done.
For Germany’s Annalena Baerbock, “it is clear (from the Opinion) that we have a responsibility as an international community not only with regard to the situation in the West Bank, but also with regard to the two-state solution”. In her view, even if the Opinion is not binding, “the Israeli government would do well to take it seriously and, above all, to finally pave the way for a two-state solution”. Last week, the Knesset voted against the creation of a Palestinian state.
The situation could be discussed in September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The High Representative announced that the Member States supported the efforts underway to organise, during the week of the General Assembly, a new meeting of a group of countries to relaunch the peace process in the Middle East (see EUROPE 13253/30). “The international community needs to wake up and do more to support a peace process”, stressed Mr Borrell.
He said that he was also concerned about the rise in regional tensions, whether on the Lebanese border or with the Houthis. On 19 July, the spokesperson for the European External Action Service strongly condemned the indiscriminate drone attack on Tel Aviv claimed by the Houthis earlier that day. “International humanitarian law strictly prohibits indiscriminate bombardment of civilian population centres and applies to all actors, at all times, without exception”, the spokesperson warned in a press release. In retaliation, the Israeli army struck military targets in Hodeida.
Humanitarian aid. The High Representative of the Union also deplored the current situation in Gaza, 10 months and 290 days after the Hamas attack. “We witnessed new forced evacuations of exhausted civilians. There are more than 17,000 orphans in Gaza. Humanitarian access was always difficult, now it has imploded. Daily truck crossings into Gaza dropped from an average of 993 in April to less than 76 in June and 84 in the first 2 weeks of July”, said Mr Borrell.
“This doesn’t happen by accident”, added Mr Borrell, who on Monday presented the ministers with a report drawn up by the EU’s special representative for human rights, Olof Skoog, compiling documentation from UN agencies on the circumstances of the conflict.
“This will be a good basis to prepare the Association Council with Israel”, said Mr Borrell on Monday morning (see EUROPE 13435/19). “This cannot be an Association Council business as usual, because business is not as usual. As [long] as the war continues, it is risking to spill over in the region. We are facing a catastrophic situation”, he stressed. For him, while there needs to be talks on bilateral relations, there also needs to be discussions on what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, the economic restrictions imposed on the Palestinian Authority, the expansion of settlements and the fact that humanitarian aid is not reaching Gaza. He acknowledged that an agreement by all the Member States on the agenda would not be reached “tomorrow”. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant and Bernard Denuit)