Israel has crossed a line the world once swore must never be crossed, with maps being drawn up by Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, to annex the West Bank and bring the occupied Palestinian territory under Israeli sovereignty.
For decades, Washington and Brussels both thundered that such a move would be the death knell for Palestinian statehood, the unravelling of international law, and a point of no return.
Yet as Israel openly dismantles the possibility of a Palestinian future, Europe is silent, the United States is complicit, and the international community is a passive witness to the erasure of Palestinians.
The EU’s most incriminating moment
For decades, two of the most prominent red lines the international community has made clear to Israel have been an uncompromising rejection of de jure West Bank annexation or settlement expansion into the E-1 corridor between East Jerusalem and the illegal settlement Ma’ale Adumim. ……more
