It was announced earlier this week that the European Union would officially not fund any projects in Israel involving input from over the green line (1949 armistice lines). The Israeli government, predictably, denounced this as evidence of European anti-semitism reminiscent of the Holocaust era. In reality instead of discriminating against Israel, it treats Israel like any other country by making clear that the EU recognized UN Security Council Resolution 242 and international law as well as decades of American government policy towards the border. Labor MK Yitzhak Hertzog said that it was a de facto boycott. In reality it is like the limited boycott that American Orthodox Jew and liberal Zionist Peter Beinart has promised as a means of pressure towards implementing a two-state solution. Here for an argument that the new guidelines are anti-semitic.
Some Israeli commentators have said that this will imperil the present American attempt to restart negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. But aren't these negotiations already endangered by the composition of the Israeli composition? Or by the failure of Prime Minister Netanyahu to expel Deputy Defense Minister Danny Danon for stating that the two-state solution was not government policy and that the coalition would vote against it if it came to a vote? Or by statements by Housing Minister Naftali Bennett that the Palestinians are like a piece of shrapnel in the ass? Here diplomatic correspondent Chemi Shalev of Ha'Aretz makes the case that it will actually strengthen Kerry's mission. And here is a Jerusalem Post editorial arguing that it is out of touch with reality. While here is 972's take on it. And here is the Lebanese Daily Star's take on it. And a rather revisionist take it is, by stating that we are back where we were 46 years ago this overlooks the Khartoum summit resolutions--the three no's--and the subsequent Arab rejectionism that continued until after the time of Sadat.
