Brussels, December 02: A row broke out between Israel and the European Union Tuesday over a draft EU proposal that Israeli-occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem should become the capital of a future Palestinian state as part of a Middle East peace deal.
At the heart of the diplomatic spat is a suggestion by the Swedish EU president that EU nations should call for an “independent, democratic, contiguous and viable state of Palestine comprising the West Bank and Gaza and with East Jerusalem as its capital.”
However it has already caused a storm in Israel where it was first aired in the Haaretz daily.
“The process being led by Sweden harms the European Union’s ability to take part as a significant mediator in the political process between Israel and the Palestinians,” the Israeli foreign ministry said in a statement.
“After the important steps taken by the government of Israel to enable the resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians, the European Union must now exert pressure on the Palestinians to return to the negotiating table. Steps like those being led by Sweden only contribute to the opposite effect.”
The draft text was prepared for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels next week, and diplomats said there was plenty of opposition to it within member states and it could well change ahead of the meeting.
“Half disagree with this statement so there are three options at the moment; either this text to remain, is it to be completely scrapped or is to be edited in some way, God knows how,” one EU diplomat explained.
The text will be worked on at various diplomatic levels trough the rest of the week but it is quite likely that it will be left for the foreign ministers to thrash out next week, the source added.
“The original text will be changed we believe.”
The European Union has long supported the idea of an independent Palestinian state, as part of an overall peace settlement.
But till now the 27 EU nations have not dealt so directly with the idea of splitting Jerusalem in two.
“The EU position is well known, the way forward should allow Jerusalem to become the shared capital of the two states,” European Commission spokesman Lutz Guellner said.
Israel occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem in 1967.
Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel’s capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel’s capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians.
East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions.
In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides.
Declaring Jerusalem as Israel’s capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions.
—Agencies