Wall Street Journal rips new EU diplomat
The Wall Street Journal rips Baroness Catherine Ashton of Upholland, the European Union's new chief diplomat, in an editorial in Wednesday's editions. It is not surprising, perhaps, that the Baroness cannot summon insights into the Gaza situation. She cannot get the EU's own policy straight, either.Indeed.
"The EU is opposed...," Ms. Ashton claimed, "to the construction of the separation barrier." Just a week earlier, though, her bosses, the 27 foreign ministers of the EU member states, declared that "the separation barrier where built on occupied land...(is) illegal under international law." That's not quite the same as the total opposition the Baroness implied, particularly given the fact that the barrier largely follows the 1949 armistice line.
The EU's new foreign-policy grandee apparently will not look beyond the legalistic objections to the barrier's trajectory to see the immense benefits it has brought to both parties. The barrier helped prevent Palestinian terrorism, thus bringing security to Israelis and Palestinians, which in turn was instrumental in paving the road for the Palestinian territories' recent economic revival. And without this return of calm and security, Israel could never be expected to make further concessions for peace.
Almost as revealing as Lady Ashton's criticism of Israel was her silence about continued Palestinian incitement to violence or Hamas's brutal rule in Gaza. While lambasting Israel's "occupation," she failed to acknowledge that it is the Palestinians' refusal to restart negotiations rather than Israeli intransigence that stands in the way of a Palestinian state.
Lady Ashton plans her first official visit to the region early next year. It's a shame that the good Baroness didn't go on such a fact-finding trip before bashing the Mideast's only true democracy.
Read the whole thing.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:11 PM
3 Comments:
Once again we hear the myth that the "security barrier" stopped terrorism. Nonsense. It was and is the army's presence in the Arab cities. Where there is no IDF presence, like in Gaza, there is no security for Sderot. Where there is an IDF presence, as in Beit Jala, there is security for the neighboring areas, like Gilo, and Gush Etzion. It's all the army, and the wall is an enormous waste of money.
Alan, it is not a myth. After the barrier, the IDF withdrew from city interiors and mostly moved back to checkpoints. In fact, over the last few years, abandoning or opening checkpoints in Yehuda and Shomron became a major opportunity for terrorist infiltration.
Re my comment above about removing checkpoints, witness today's terrorist homicide in the area. :(
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