EU-Israel Council to take place despite ongoing settlement expansion

Silwan district in East Jerusalem, close to the archaeological site of the "City of David". [EURACTIV/Eleonora Vasques]

The EU-Israel Association Council is preparing to meet for the first time in a decade, just before general elections in Israel in November, with Palestinian rights groups contending that Israel has entrenched its control of the occupied Palestinian territories through continued settlement construction and the activities of its security forces.

In the Palestinian district of Silwan in East Jerusalem, Israeli settlements have expanded in recent years because of the proximity of the site of the temple, which Israelis call the ‘City of David’.

“Roughly 700 demolition orders for Palestinian houses there are in Silwan, that is experiencing the largest demolition plan in Jerusalem,” activists of the association Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Right Centre told journalists.

The organisation said that there were no settlements before the 1993 Oslo accords, which sought a peaceful two-state solution, including mutual recognition of Israel and Palestine.

Now, Israeli settlements are progressively growing in the middle of the area.

Rami Naser Eddin, executive director of Palestinian Vision, a Palestinian youth organisation established in 1998, explained how Israelis persuade or indirectly force Palestinians to live in different areas of Jerusalem.

“They offer you lots of money for a house, or they make your life impossible”.

Eddin said that Palestinians in Jerusalem are treated as immigrants and every year they have to demonstrate with loads of paperwork that the centre of their life is in Jerusalem, otherwise they lose resident rights. “I need a lawyer for everything,” he said, “also to just get health care insurance”.

He also explained his problems in dealing with his house. “I need to renovate a room, but I do not have the permit from Israeli authorities for security reasons”.

According to international law, the settlements are illegal, though the Israeli government disputes this and uses its forces to defend them.

But elections are approaching

Despite the deteriorating situation, the EU wants to reach an agreement with Israel as soon as possible due to the upcoming Israeli elections.

When the Association Council was announced in July, the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, insisted there was no reason to wait after the Israeli elections in November.

“Who knows when the next Israeli government will be formed? Maybe it will be six months or a year,” Borrell said.

EU ready to revive closer ties with Israel after decade of standstill

Joint talks between the EU and Israel could resume for the first time in a decade before November, EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell confirmed on Monday (18 July).

At the moment, EU member states are finalising the EU statement, which will guide the EU’s position in the Association Council with Israel,” an EU official told EURACTIV.

The official added that the meeting would “provide an opportunity to engage on all topics related to EU-Israel relations, including human rights and the Middle East Peace Process”.

However, organisations on the ground say the expansion of settlements and the tightening of Israeli security are reducing the prospects of peace.

During a visit to the settlement near Jericho, a location in the desert at the border with Jordan, the representative of the West Bank Protection Consortium, Christopher Holt, told reporters that they are concerned about a lack of accountability for regular human rights abuses committed by Israeli security forces in the occupied territories.

The camps are in the so-called “area C” of the West Bank, controlled by the Israeli government.

A far solution

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid backed a two-state solution in the UN General Assembly on Thursday (22 September), but stressed that this condition can be reached only if “a future Palestinian state will be a peaceful one, if it will not become another terror base from which to threaten the well-being and the very existence of Israel”.

[Edited by Alexandra Brzozowski/Benjamin Fox] 

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