srael's relations with the EU's new foreign relations chief Catherine Ashton got off to an inauspicious beginning on Saturday, with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon saying the EU will have no more success than ancient Rome did in breaking the connection between Jews and Jerusalem.
EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton.
Photo: AP
Ayalon was responding to criticism Ashton leveled against Israel in her maiden speech to the European parliament in Strasbourg last week.
"East Jerusalem is occupied territory together with the West Bank. The EU is opposed to the destruction of homes, the eviction of Arab residents and the construction of the separation barrier," she said.
Ayalon, speaking in Jerusalem on Saturday, shot back by saying, "Just as the Romans did not succeed in cutting off Jerusalem from Israel, so too will diplomats from the UN and the EU be unsuccessful as well."
Referring to the possibility that the Europeans would recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, Ayalon said such a move would open the door to similar unilateral acts from Israel.
"The acceptance of unilateral decisions will change the rules and Israel will no longer see itself as obligated by agreements and arrangements made since the Oslo agreement," he said. "Israel will then have the legitimacy to take unilateral moves of its own."
Ashton, formerly the EU's trade commissioner, has little foreign policy experience, no record on Israel and is considered a completely unknown quantity in Jerusalem. She said she hoped to travel to the region at the end of January or beginning of February.On December 1 she replaced Javier Solana, who served as the EU's foreign policy chief for the past 10 years.
Under the EU's new Lisbon Treaty, the position Ashton assumed now has a great deal more authority, with the overarching idea being that she will serve as a type of EU foreign minister, expected to do away with the inconsistency in EUforeign policy that resulted from a different country assuming the presidency every six months, and tilting its foreign policy in different directions.
Ashton will be charged with shaping a common EU foreign policy, as well as being in charge of a new EU foreign service.
During her speech in Strasbourg, Ashton said that Israeli-Palestinian talks should have a set time frame, a position advocated by the Palestinians, and also indicated that she wanted to see changes made in the Middle East Quartet, composed of the US, EU, Russia and the UN.
"The Quartet must demonstrate that it is worth the money, that it is capable of being reinvigorated. I have talked about this with both sides inJerusalem, to [Quartet Middle East envoy] Mr. [Tony] Blair and the [US] secretary of state," she said.
The EUobserver, an independent Web site that focuses on the EU institutions, said Ashton's speech was significant as well for what it left out: She did not say Israel was the only democracy in theMiddle East , she did not mention the country's security threats, and she did not say the Palestinians should return immediately to formal talks.
Likewise, she characterized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's settlement moratorium as a "first step," an apparent step down from a statement put out by the EU's foreign ministers earlier in the month when they took "positive note" of the move.
Meanwhile, the EU presidency, held by Sweden for another 11 days, issued a statement on Friday "expressing its disapproval" of the government's recent decision to include some 90 settlements in the country's new national priorities map.
"The decision runs counter to the spirit of the settlement freeze," the statement said. "It also prevents the creation of an atmosphere conducive to resuming negotiations on a two-state solution.The European Union encourages Israel instead to continue along the path set forth by the moratorium. The European Union reiterates that settlements on occupied land are illegal under international law. The European Union urges the government of Israel to immediately end all settlement activities."
One senior government official responded to the criticism by saying that the inclusion of the settlements in the new priorities map, a decision taken based on security considerations, "in no way contradicts the settlement moratorium, does not create new housing in the settlements, and is not an obstacle to negotiations."
Government officials pointed out that the settlements on the new priorities map will not benefit from any incentives for housing or for infrastructure construction.
In another diplomatic development, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is scheduled to arrive on Sunday for talks with Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. They are expected to focus both on a prisoner exchange deal for kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit and the stalled talks with the Palestinians.
Suleiman's meeting with Lieberman is significant, in light of Egypt's overall snub of the foreign minister for his harsh criticism of Egyptian policy over the years.
This will be Suleiman's second meeting with Lieberman. The two met during Suleiman's last visit here some four months ago.
