Slovenia’s new government softened the European Union’s reaction Sunday to Israel’s plans to build houses near Ma’ale Adumim in Judea, according to a report published Wednesday.
E.U. officials intended to issue a condemnation “on behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states” on Aug. 23, according to the EUobserver news site, which quoted from a draft of the intended condemnation.
Following Slovenia’s refusal to go along with the condemnation, the E.U. published a condemnation by Kaja Kallas, the E.U. high representative for foreign affairs, according to the report, which cited unnamed diplomatic sources.
“The E.U. position is clear: Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, including in the E1 area, are illegal under international law,” she said in the statement. Implementation of the plan in the so-called E1 corridor would divide Judea and Samaria in two, “isolating East Jerusalem, and further eroding the viability of a two-state solution,” she added. Kallas also wrote that, “These developments take place as the West Bank experiences further instability and record levels of settler violence.”
She also wrote: “We urge the Government of Israel to withdraw the tender, halt its E1 plans as well as all other settlement expansion projects, and ensure accountability for settler violence.”
Groups that support Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria have challenged reports of a major increase in violence by Jews toward Arabs in the area, with the Regavim movement calling this narrative part of an orchestrated campaign.
Kalas’s condemnation was over the Israel Lands Authority’s announcement last week that it would market to contractors and entrepreneurs the first 1,400 housing units of E1 (“East 1”), a strategically significant area east of Jerusalem.
In June, Slovenia’s new government, under Prime Minister Janez Janša, scrapped the previous administration’s sanctions against Israel, including on the import of arms, products from Judea and Samaria, and on visits by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Slovenia’s former prime minister, Robert Golob of the left-wing Freedom Movement, was among the most hostile leaders to Israel in the European Union. His government imposed a ban on importing goods made by Israelis from Judea and Samaria, said it would endorse South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice, and said it would comply with the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu.
In the May 10 election, Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) obtained the second-highest number of votes, trailing the Freedom Movement by a narrow margin. Janša became prime minister on June 4 thanks to a coalition of right-wing movements.
Neither Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor Slovenia’s embassy in Israel replied to requests by JNS for a comment on the EUobserver report.
