The European Union's Decision on the Occupied Territories

BEIRUT -- The most significant development on the Arab-Israeli scene last week was not John Kerry’s announcement of a vague agreement by Palestinian and Israeli leaders to resume negotiations for a final status peace agreement. It was the European Union’s formal decision to have its 28 member states differentiate between Israel and the 1967 occupied territories, and to refrain from any official dealings with Israeli institutions in the occupied areas.

The EU directive by foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton prohibits funding, investing in or awarding grants and prizes to any organizations that are active in the settlements in the occupied territories. Ashton also said that any new agreements with Israel should include a provision excluding Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which are not part of Israel. The implications of this decision can only contribute constructively to the quest for a comprehensive negotiated resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, for several reasons.

First, any negotiated peace accord must reflect the only universally accepted international guidelines and enablers of a peace deal that enshrine the legitimate rights of all parties, which are UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. Those resolutions have been universally interpreted – other than among right-wing Zionist militants – as requiring Israel to return to the Arabs the lands it occupied in 1967, in return for a full peace agreement, the end of conflict, secure and recognized borders, formal Arab acceptance of Israel, and normal state-to-state relations.

They also affirm the provisions of Geneva Conventions and other prevailing international norms that deem illegal the movement of civilian settlers into militarily occupied lands. The EU member states are saying that these global norms apply unambiguously in the occupied Arab lands, and they collectively want to add teeth to their rhetoric about the unacceptability of long-term Israeli occupation and colonization of these lands.

Second, formalizing in political terms the distinction between Israel within its pre-1967 borders and those Israeli-colonized and annexed Arab lands makes clear to the world what the EU will support or reject in terms of legitimate claims and rights by both sides. This is significant because in the absence of clear and firm positions by parties like the EU or the United States, Israeli zealots can run wild with their colonization dreams without fear of any pushback by major global powers. The Palestinians also should read the EU position as hard support for a secure, legitimate Israel inside its pre-1967 borders. This is how big powers can “pressure” both sides to move towards a negotiated permanent peace, without being accused of caving in to or selling out either side.

Third, the EU move indicates to all concerned that the legal, ethical, economic and political issues related to the quest for Arab-Israeli peace are not the eternal monopoly of the chronically failed American approach to mediation. The EU move suggests how other actors can play a substantive role in complementing and broadening American diplomatic initiatives, while also helping to shape the contours of a permanent peace that honors the dictates of international rule of law. Significantly, Washington does not seem to have criticized the European move, which will drive Zionist hysteria on this to new highs.

Fourth, this clear political affirmation of a legitimate Israel within the pre-1967 lines and the criminal, colonizing Israel in the occupied territories will quickly translate into commercial, cultural and other moves by global parties who will want to be seen to side with the international rule of law. Ashton has already asked EU member states to draft comprehensive guidelines to label commercial products that are manufactured in Israeli settlements.

Several European states have already put in force regulations requiring labels on products from the occupied territories, so consumers can decide whether or not they want to be complicit in commercial deals with colonizers and criminals, in effect. European legislation will soon require mandatory labeling of all agricultural and non-food products. Some British and Dutch supermarket chains have already stopped buying products that originate in Israeli settlements. This trend will now accelerate, and probably include wider boycotts, divestments and sanctions of other sectors in the occupied territories, like cultural and academic institutions or sales of technology.

Fifth, such moves frighten Israel perhaps more than any other action that could be taken by Arab or international parties, because they make the loudest and clearest possible statement equating Western political reactions to Israeli behavior with similar global punitive reactions decades ago to South African Apartheid. That criminal Apartheid regime was finally changed into a pluralistic South African democracy for all. Something similar probably must occur in Israel-Palestine to reach a peaceful end to this conflict also, allowing all the people there to live in peace and equal dignity. The EU move may hasten that day. How refreshing it is to see a world power wake up and strike a blow for the rule of law and human decency.