The European Union has delegated too much of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process to the United States and must now be more involved in a two-state resolution to the conflict, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Brussels on Monday.
“We have been far too absent,” Borrell said ahead of his anticipated trip to Israel and the Palestinian territory in the West Bank this week. He will also visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Jordan.
“We have delegated the solution of this problem to the United States but now Europe must become more involved,” Borrell said.
“We must commit ourselves to this process because if we don’t find a solution, we will experience a perpetual cycle of violence moving from generation to generation from funeral to funeral.”
He spoke in the aftermath of a meeting of the foreign ministers and as the Israel-Hamas war entered its second month with no end date in sight.
"There has to be a two-state future"
Israeli soldiers were poised to attack Hamas bunkers under hospitals in Gaza city. Hamas has asserted that over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in war-related violence.
The IDF’s campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza was sparked by the terror group's killing of over 1,200 people and its seizure of over 239 people hostage.
“There is a failure politically and morally of the international community” when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said.
“A solution is indispensable. There has to be a two-state future,” Borrell stressed. “It's not just about reconstructing Gaza” once the war is over. “We have to construct a state for the Palestinians, that means that we have to look at the day after,” he said.
Borrell said he supported a framework to the foreign ministers for movement forward that involves a number of yeses and nos to the situation.
'no forced displacement outside of Gaza'
There can be no forced displacement of Palestinians to territory outside of Gaza, no reduction in the territorial scope of Gaza for Palestinians and no reoccupation by the Israeli Defense Forces, Borrell said.
He clarified, however, that Hamas can not return to Gaza.
There has to be a “yes” to the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza, “yes” to the involvement of the Arab states and greater involvement of the EU in the region, particularly in the construction of a Palestinian state.
The 27-member bloc issued a joint statement expressing its concern about the “deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as it called for “immediate pauses in hostilities” so that aid can reach the civilians.
The document emphasized Israel’s “right to defend itself in line with international law and international humanitarian law.”
The EU called on Hamas to release its hostages and for the International Committee of the Red Cross to be granted access to them.
It also condemned Hamas’s use of hospitals and civilians as human shields even as it “urged Israel to exercise maximum restraint to ensure the protection of civilians.”