When diplomacy aligns with the defunct

In August this year, the EU’s High Representative Office issued a statement noting that the E1 settlement project which envisages 1,200 housing units, “harms the prospect of the two-State solution.” Yesterday, 500 former politicians and diplomats wrote to the EU to state the same rhetoric.

The only difference is that while the EU statement emphasised the illegality of settlements under international law and urged Israel to withdraw the tender, the open letter to the EU cited yesterday urges the EU to take action against Israel. And yet, underpinning both stances, is the two-state paradigm, which both former and current diplomats know is obsolete.

Five hundred former diplomats warning the EU to take action is noteworthy for the wrong reasons. “Despite the far-reaching consequences of the new land annexation, the EU has taken no measures to deter E1,” the open letter partly states.

True, but that also applies to the period when the 500 former politicians and diplomats were still active in their respective roles.

The EU has never taken action on settlement expansion. It has recently penalised individuals through sanctions and required labelling of products from the occupied Palestinian territories, while some individual countries have implemented legislation targeting trade from settlements. However, a unified stance against settlement expansion which directly targets Israel has never happened.

Colonialism requires expansion to sustain itself. The EU limited itself to citing its position in accordance with international law, while allowing Israel both time and impunity to expand its presence in the occupied West Bank.

The EU has taken no measures to stop the E1 settlement plans, just as it took no measures earlier to stop plans that would have reduced the fragmentation of the occupied West Bank.

Therefore, both the EU and the 500 former politicians and diplomats are in agreement about one component – to save the two-state politics for diplomacy rather than implementation.

On 27 September, Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the tender process for the EI settlement to be postponed, citing electoral propaganda concerns and prompting Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to accuse her of attempts to “enable the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger the existence of the State of Israel.” The postponement will not enable the creation of a Palestinian state. It will not even revive any discussion of the two-state paradigm.

Back to the recent letter prompting EU action, which described the two-state as “the only possible outcome that could resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The two sides of the same coin are that Smotrich is fearmongering about the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state, while the former diplomats and the EU know they are merely keeping the two-state discourse alive for political relevance. Both Smotrich and the former European diplomats know the two-state is defunct, and that the E1 settlement will neither revive the possibility, nor make it die another death.

The EU needs to challenge the entire Israeli settler-colonial enterprise instead of making each colonial expansion plan look like the final blow to the two-state politics.

Had the 500 former diplomats opted for decolonisation instead of reverence to the two-state to put themselves on a par with the EU, they would have dealt a constructive blow to the two-state paradigm. Instead, diplomacy aligned with the defunct, granting Israel more impunity in the process.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.