Israel freezes EU ties in retaliation for cash cut

Israel has “frozen” relations with the European Union and is blocking EU humanitarian workers from entering Israeli controlled districts of the Palestinian territories in retaliation for the EU’s ban on funding Israeli organisations based in the territories, reports The Guardian.

“No permits have been issued to EU humanitarian aid workers to enter Gaza for several days,” reports the daily, before quoting an Israeli official who said the Jewish state was “freezing the relationship [with the EU] on everything.”

Israel was furious at last week’s EU announcement and the boycott by two Dutch grocery stores of Israeli products that come from the Palestinian territories.

In Le Soir’s editorial, the Belgian daily condemns Israel’s reaction –

Israel is sending Europe a very simple message: “Pay up and shut up.” Naturally, this is unacceptable. We should pay homage instead to the European Union and its executive in Brussels, so often criticised for their diplomatic spinelessness, now that they’ve finally matched their actions to their words. Israel, for its part, is playing a very dangerous game. Through such reactions, the Jewish State is furnishing new proof of the contempt in which it holds any laws which do not help it. In so doing, it is stubbornly entrenching itself in its own isolation. This isolation is, regrettably, exalted in Israel by the most extremist elements, who systematically draw the anti-Semitism card on anyone who, in the name of the law or compassion, will no longer contribute to a reprehensible occupation.