EU to push Israel to ditch West Bank annexation plans
- European nations, while condemning the annexation of territory, are at odds about what action to take against Israel
The EU will make a diplomatic push to try to stop Israel going ahead with a plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, the bloc’s foreign policy chief said Friday.
Josep Borrell said the bloc would use “all our diplomatic capacities” to try to dissuade Israel’s incoming government from going ahead with the move, approved under US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan.
While EU countries are alarmed at the prospect of annexations, which they say would violate international law and harm the chances of peace, they are divided about what action to take against Israel.
“What everybody agreed is we have to increase our efforts and our reach-out to all relevant actors in the Middle East …,” Borrell said after the talks.
“We are ready to do that and we will do that in the next days using all our diplomatic capacities in order to prevent any kind of unilateral action.”