Irish senators build EU momentum on Palestine recognition

BRUSSELS - Irish senators have adopted a non-binding motion on recognising Palestine, as the EU prepares to set out new red lines on Israel relations.

The motion, tabled by Averil Power, a senator from the opposition Fianna Fail party, passed without a vote on Wednesday (22 October) after winning cross-party support.

It urges the Irish “government to formally recognise the state of Palestine and do everything it can to help secure a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict so that citizens of both states can live in peace and security".

Power told the Senate that in the past 20 years “while pretending to talk peace, Israel has intensified its illegal occupation of Palestine and its illegal settlements in the West Bank have trebled in size”.

She spoke of Israel's “apartheid regime” and its “deeply cynical, long game which is aimed at destroying any prospect of a Palestinian state”.

She also said Israeli actions are “facilitated by the passivity of the international community”.

For its part, the Israeli embassy in Dublin published a statement ahead of the senators’ meeting which criticised “theatrical but empty gestures that bring the Palestinian people no closer to genuine statehood”.

It said EU recognitions “will not end the conflict with Israel; they will set the stage for its continuation and escalation”.

The Irish motion is part of a new momentum in Europe.

Last week, British MPs also agreed a non-binding resolution urging the UK to recognise Palestine, while the new Swedish government has pledged to “shortly” take the formal step.

The Irish foreign minister, Charles Flanagan, at a meeting in Brussels on Monday, did not comment on the upcoming senate decision. But he criticised Israel for a “cycle of … destruction” in Gaza.

The Polish foreign minister, Grzegeorz Schetyna, whose country, along with seven other now-EU states, recognised Palestine in the 1980s, said ministers discussed the possibility of wider EU recognition “because such voices appeared from the Swedish side”.

EU statements on this summer’s Israel-Gaza war criticised Israel’s killing of civilians, while endorsing its right to self-defence.

But Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank is a thorn in the side of relations.

The Israeli daily Haaretz on Wednesday published a leaked EU paper instructing the European Union's ambassador in Tel Aviv, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, to complain about settlement construction to Israeli authorities.

The “demarche”, to be delivered in the next few days, says the EU and Israel should launch a new “regular and structured dialogue” on settlement issues.

It says the talks should be “informal and not public”, but warns that settlement expansion is “receiving wide media coverage in Europe” and is causing “increasing concern [in] … public opinion”.

It lists five EU red lines which it says would “seriously jeopardise the possibility of a … viable Palestinian state”, while “increasing tensions on the ground” and, in some cases would “amount to a serious breach of international humanitarian law”.

The red lines are: construction in the Givat Hamatos and Har Homa zones in East Jerusalem; construction in the E1 area which connects Jerusalem to the West Bank; plans to forcefully relocate 12,000 Bedouin in the West Bank; and “challenges to the status quo on the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif” - a holy site for Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem.

EU institutions last year imposed mini-sanctions by halting grants and loans to Israeli entities which operate on Palestinian land.

This year they halted imports of settler milk and poultry products.

They are currently drawing up an EU code for retail labels on settler goods and a potential blacklist of violent Jewish settlers.

They are also in talks to review the EU-Israel association agreement, with a view to imposing furhter trade restrictions.