Josep Borrel, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, warned Israel on April 23 that proclaiming sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and other West Bank areas would have “implications.”
“The European Union,” said Borrel, “reiterates that any annexation would constitute a serious violation of international law. The European Union will continue to closely monitor the situation and its broader implications and will act accordingly.”
This explicit threat comes from the unchanged “European Union position on the status of the territories occupied by Israel in 1967.” According to the EU, Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank (biblical Judea and Samaria) is a violation of international law, in particular UN Security Council resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973). For this reason the “European Union does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank.”
But such an interpretation of resolutions 242 and 338 is particular to the Europeans, and is not shared by the Israelis or the Americans. Borrel’s threat was issued a day after the announcement of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “as for the annexation of the West Bank … it is an...
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