Ahead of Monday's EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel described it as "bad and shocking" that the EU continues to watch Israel push ahead with its settlement policy, making a two-state model impossible.
The bloc has been sitting on the sidelines for too long as the Netanyahu government carries on in the Palestinian territories and in Lebanon, Bettel argued, and doing nothing only plays into the hands of the power in Tel Aviv. He was in no mood to mince his words to the international press on Monday morning.
Bettel said: "This is the hundredth time the EU had debated how to put pressure on Israel and how to find a solution." Every time, he said, the first response had been that unanimity was needed and therefore nothing could be done. He is now convinced, however, that majority voting is possible, including on trade matters.
"These are not sanctions", he pointed out, but commercial ties, and something could be worked out on that basis. He counts himself among the pragmatists who, from the outset, had believed diplomatic solutions had to be found, but he has now reached his limit: "I am at my wit's end."
Looking at the situation, he feels things are moving a little, though he also senses that within the Commission there is no unanimity either. It appears unrealistic that trade sanctions against Israel will be decided on Monday.
The Commission has tabled a proposal setting out options for restricting imports from illegally settled areas in the West Bank, but according to Bettel this would amount to another toothless tiger. He said he would try to force a vote alongside other countries, though such a move is thought unlikely to succeed given the ongoing divergences over the unanimity principle.
Since 1967, Israel has occupied the West Bank, home to around three million Palestinians. Under international law, the settlements of the 500,000 Israelis living on the territory are illegal.
