EU: If it's Not a Two-State Solution, It's Not a Solution

Palestinians inspect a destroyed Hamas site after it was targeted by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City March 26, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

"The EU does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over any of the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967, in line with international law and with UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 497," the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Frederica Mogherini said on Wednesday.

"Our position on the Golan Heights has been so clear because we believe that international rules, international law, and international standards must be upheld," continued Mogherini.

In late March the United States recognized Israel's 1981 annexation of the Golan Heights, a territory Israel seized from Syria after the 1967 Middle East war.

"If it is not going to be a two-state solution then it is not going to be a solution," Mogherini emphasized.

European Union declaration comes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised earlier this month that, if reelected prime minister that in his next government he would continue control over the Golan Heights and also annex portions of Area C of the West Bank, the largest region of the West Bank inhabited by some 250,000 illegal Israeli settlers.

The EU support for a two-state solution also comes in advance of the U.S. administration’s publication of a Middle East peace plan that the Trump government has stated does not seek a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines. On Monday, the administration released its own official map recognizing the Golan Heights, which is Syrian territority, as belonging to Israel.

The European Union has systematically affirmed that a peace deal would imply the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel on borders based on the pre-1967 lines with Jerusalem as the capital for both nations.

Earlier this week, former high ranked officials from the European Union wrote an official letter to push Europe to stand by the two-state solution and reject the U.S. Israeli-Palestinian so-called peace plan.

"Borders cannot be changed by military force," Mogherini said. "And this is a principle behind which the EU will continue to firmly stand and in a united manner."

Source URL