EU to Back Mideast Peace With 'Unprecedented' Support

[Little Tich]

1. Israel blasts Europe’s ‘colonialist’ peace initiative

Source: Times of Israel

EU has ‘no credibility whatsoever’ to deal with the conflict as long as it cannot solve its own problems, official fumes

rope’s approach to Israel appears to be a resurrection of its past colonialism, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday. It was part of an unusually blistering attack on the EU and its Middle East policies, in which the official accused European leaders of cynically employing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to deflect criticism and to distract the public from their inability to solve the continent’s real pressing problems.

“When I look at the sequence of the EU implementing labeling [for settlement products] and now the endorsement of an international conference, I feel that those are the ghosts of a colonial European past coming back to life,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon told The Times of Israel.

The EU’s 28 foreign ministers on Tuesday endorsed France’s plan to hold an international peace conference in Paris to advance the stalled peace process. Israel has repeatedly rejected the French initiative, arguing that it hardens Palestinian negotiating positions and thus distances peace.

Nahshon said the union was unqualified to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as long as it struggled to properly address its own woes.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-blasts-europes-colonial-peace-initiative/