Never let it be said that the European Union, whose officials self-advertise as staunch defenders of international law, that some bending can take place. Take, for instance, the recent revelations in The Intercept about legal advice sent to the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on July 22 on how to respond to the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on Israel’s illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories. The salient question: What would constitute the rendering of aid or assistance to Israel in maintaining those settlements?

EU policy towards Israel and its settlements has been one of schizophrenic “differentiation”, notably on the subject of trade. A 2015 policy brief from the European Council on Foreign Relations describes it as “a de facto policy of differentiating between Israel and settlement activities in the Occupied Territories within its bilateral relations.” This enables the EU to pursue a non-recognition platform regarding Israeli settlement activity while still formally engaging Israel proper. Like any policy that is neither here nor there, it had not “been sufficiently acknowledged or implemented in a consistent way” on the basis that it might impair the already stuttering and stalled Middle East peace process.

Whatever its merits – hypocritical, convenient, pragmatic, or a mixture of all three – the policy did give the EU some latitude to conduct standard trade and diplomatic relations with Israel while still adopting a different stance on its activities in the West Bank and Gaza. In terms of trade, the issue of accurate labelling on goods from the Occupied Territories became an ongoing source of discussion. While the European Commission issued relevant notices on how Union legislation applied, it was a matter for Member States as to how far they would go to enforce them.

A 2015 interpretative notice from the Commission, for instance, makes the following remark: “Since the Golan Heights, and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), are not part of the Israeli territory according to international law, the indication ‘product from Israel’ is considered to be........

© The AIM Network