Settlers, beware! The European Union is taking another radical step: new directives will make it harder to import products produced in the settlements and the Golan Heights.
Essentially, it intends to enforce its 2004 decision that these products will not be exempt from customs. In other words, not much has really changed. Bezalel Smotrich is surely packing up his bags and Itamar Ben-Gvir is heading back to his makeshift office in Sheikh Jarrah.
Europeans, wake up. Tax directives are very nice and all, but don’t go thinking that a pleasant chat over afternoon tea and biscuits will be enough to knock some common sense into the folks you’re dealing with.
These are people for whom a mass rampage makes for a good morning stretch, and wiping out villages falls under the category of leisure and entertainment.
If the Europeans wish to elicit something besides a shrug or a denial of reality (Israeli Foreign Ministry: “There is no change in policy concerning the export of products from Israel”), they need to strike a real blow, and say: We will not bring in immoral products that come from illegitimate places. We will not import wine and cheeses and tahini and medjool dates that were grown at the expense of other people’s suffering. We will cancel the free trade agreements with Israel. We will halt our massive funding for science and culture. We will cancel the open skies agreement that brought you low-cost flights.
The same goes for the Americans. In January, the U.S. Embassy issued a statement that Ben-Gvir’s Temple Mount visit was “unacceptable.” In February, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “very concerned” over the cabinet’s decision to retroactively legalize outposts in the West Bank and advance the construction of thousands of new homes in the settlements.
A month ago, the Biden administration went ballistic and rebuked the government’s approval of an Israeli presence in Homesh – State Department Spokesman Matthew Miller went so far as to say that the U.S. was “concerned about the inflammatory rhetoric.” The other day, the U.S., Europe and the UN all denounced Israel’s decision to streamline the settlement construction process, with Miller really losing it and saying that the administration was “deeply troubled.”
Friends, cut the nonsense.
Condemn, Concerned and Deeply Troubled would all be very nice if there were politicians on the other side who gave a damn. But after five months of this Israeli government, it’s time to acknowledge the reality. Scolding and condemnations and failures to extend an invitation to the Oval Office are not going to do the job.
It’s time for a real slap in the face. It’s time to say: You must stop building in the settlements right now. You have two weeks to take the judicial coup off the table. And within a few months, we want to see you sitting at the negotiating table with representatives of the Palestinians. Not interested? No problem – you can kiss our $3.8 billion in annual aid goodbye. Maybe we’ll put this pittance to better use solving the opioid crisis.
Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Almog Cohen, Nissim Vaturi, Tally Gotliv, Amichai Eliahu and brigade commander Bibi Netanyahu – the people who’ve come to power in Israel are childish thugs who only understand force. Or violence. Or both. Save the condemnations for countries that haven’t fallen apart yet.