EU REITERATES PROMISE OF OFFERING ISRAEL SPECIAL PRIVILAGE
Tel Aviv, 17 Jumadil Awwal 1435/18 March 2014 (MINA) – The EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen exhibit the compromise accompanying the mainstream dialogue of the current negotiations.
Published in the Times of Israel, Faaborg-Andersen attempts to illustrate the EU as an entity critical of Israel while being careful to apportion blame to Palestinians for not having agreed to the conditions outlined in the British Mandate.
Faaborg-Andersen also reiterated the EU promise of offering Israel a Special Privileged Partnership, entailing collaboration with the Zionist state upon a spectrum of areas. The statement is uttered prior to a detailed discussion regarding the EU’s funding of the Palestinian Authority (PA) as having proven necessary to stem “discontent and violence”.
What Faaborg-Andersen terms “relative economic prosperity” could also be interpreted as a euphemism for the constant security coordination which the PA carries out with Israel, as talk shifts towards providing the financial means to suppress a “third intifada”, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
The only direct criticism against Israel centred on the decision to release Palestinian political prisoners from Israeli jails rather than terminate settlement construction. Faaborg-Andersen stated that the EU “had basically only one quarrel with Israel as far as the peace process is concerned, and that is the settlements.”
The negotiations; deemed “serious” by Faaborg-Andersen, have been strained by Israel’s decision to expand its settler-colonial project. However, the EU ambassador failed to discuss settlement expansion within the historical context, thus advocating for the maintenance of Zionist settler-colonialism in Palestine.
However, the declaration is absolutely detached from Israel’s settler-colonial history. Rather than condemning settler-colonialism in its entirety, the EU ambassador urged Israel “to give Palestinians a reasonable deal that will stick and will not immediately create dissatisfaction and frustration.” The apparent concern is swiftly explained as a profound concern for Israel’s perpetual rhetoric of security concerns, which the EU upholds as priority exceeding even a discussion of a hypothetical Palestinian state.
Faaborg-Andersen manipulates Palestinian legitimacy by selectively invoking international law and recognition at the indigenous population’s expense. Following the brief mention of Palestinian refusal to accept the terms dictated by the British Mandate, the lack of autonomy becomes secondary to the discussion regarding Israel’s security concerns and the attempt by the EU to restrict economic cooperation beyond the 1967 borders.
“The settlements are not part of Israel’s internationally recognised borders. Therefore they are excluded from our cooperation programme.” The EU justifies its leniency towards Israel by relying upon what is “internationally recognised”, despite the recognition being derived from an imperialist interpretation that views massacre and plunder a right to be endorsed with impunity by allied oppressors. The 1967 borders discourse has become an acceptable mainstream narrative that does not enforce accountability and complicity in recognising the illegal settler-colonial state.
What the EU expects is further complicity on behalf of Abbas, which will then be distorted into a compromise allegedly reciprocated by Israel. Implications of Abbas’s accountability as negotiator are reminiscent of the onslaught of comments elicited in the last few days.
Various leaders hailed the PA leader’s approach towards “peace” as a precondition that even surpasses freedom, disrupting the logical sequence which should promote resistance against colonial and imperialist oppression as non-negotiable in the wake of negotiations leading to further deterioration of the Palestinian identity and self-determination. (T/P04/E01)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
