{"id":9167,"date":"2013-11-23T18:19:42","date_gmt":"2013-11-23T18:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohelet.org.il\/article\/the-eu-is-right-about-western-sahara-which-means-it-is-wrong-about-israel\/"},"modified":"2013-11-23T18:19:42","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T18:19:42","slug":"the-eu-is-right-about-western-sahara-which-means-it-is-wrong-about-israel","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/the-eu-is-right-about-western-sahara-which-means-it-is-wrong-about-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"The EU is right about Western Sahara \u2014 which means it is wrong about Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"In Western Sahara, the EU has licensed the exploitation of scarce natural resources. In the West Bank, the EU seeks to punish pure academic and business activity that do not exhaust resources but only create jobs and opportunities for Arabs and Jews.\n\nThe European Union recently affirmed that there is no international legal problem in signing a deal with an occupying power that extends to the territory it occupies, or from foreign companies doing business in occupied territory.\n\nIt did so when it provisionally approved a fisheries agreement earlier this month with Morocco that extends into the territory of occupied Western Sahara, which is beyond Morocco\u2019s recognized sovereign territory.\n\nMoreover, the EU actually pays Morocco for European access to Western Saharan resources. On all these points, the agreement directly contradicts what the EU, in negotiations with Israel, calls fundamental principles of international law.\n\nIn recent years, Europe has contested Israel\u2019s insistence that its EU agreements do not apply to Israel\u2019s activities in the West Bank. The EU stance has been celebrated by some as an example of European commitment to international law. The EU\u2019s new deal with Morocco appears to be contradicting those principles.\n\nMoreover, the European Parliament\u2019s legal advisor issued a formal opinion earlier this month making it clear that it is the EU\u2019s treatment of Morocco, not Israel, that accords with international law.\n\nBy inventing rules of international law, the EU actually sends the message that Israel might never \u201ccomply\u201d with international law, because where Israel is concerned, this \u201claw\u201d is a moving target, that can be concocted from thin air.\nMorocco invaded Western Sahara in 1975 and has occupied it since, claiming it as its own territory. The Security Council has condemned Morocco\u2019s presence and demanded a complete withdrawal.\n\nIn the face of this demand, Morocco has initiated an aggressive settlement policy. As a result, Moroccan settlers may now be the majority in the territory.\nThe EU, like the rest of the world, does not recognize Western Sahara as part of Morocco, but this has not stopped EU from extending its agreements with Morocco to cover Western Sahara. The Polisario Front is the generally recognized representative of the indigenous people of Western Sahara, and it vigorously opposes the EU deal.\n\nThe Moroccan agreement contradicts two central elements of the EU\u2019s legal approach to Israel. The EU says that any application of agreements to the occupied territories would violate international law by \u201crecognizing\u201d Israel\u2019s control. Yet while the EU also refuses to recognize Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, it sees no tension between this and extending its agreements with Morocco to that territory.\n\nThe EU says it cannot spend a cent on Israeli-sponsored activities in the occupied territories, while in Western Sahara, Europe will actually pay Morocco for its exploitation of natural resources there.\n\nThe controversy over EU deals with Morocco led to a ruling from the European Parliament\u2019s legal advisor. In brief, the official opinion says international law does not prevent Morocco from exploiting the natural resources of the occupied territory, or for the EU to pay Morocco to exploit the resources of occupied territory.\n\nThe EU position regarding Western Sahara is consistent with prior international law, including a 2002 opinion by the Security Council\u2019s legal advisor, and a ruling of the French Court of Appeals this summer, as well as the general practice of nations.\nThe EU is right about Western Sahara \u2014 which means it is wrong about Israel.\nTo be sure, there are differences between the EU\u2019s policies toward Western Sahara and the West Bank; the former is much worse.\n\nIn Western Sahara, the EU has licensed the exploitation of scarce natural resources. In the West Bank, the EU seeks to punish pure academic and business activity that do not exhaust resources but only create jobs and opportunities for Arabs and Jews.\n\nMoreover, Israel\u2019s economic activity in the West Bank is confined to areas under Israeli jurisdiction by agreement with Palestinian authorities under the Oslo Accords. Morocco\u2019s activities have no limitations, because unlike Israel, it has not turned over most of the territory to Polisario rule.\nIronically, the inconsistency in European policies sends exactly the opposite message from that intended by Europe. In its dealings with Israel, the EU wants to make clear that it opposes settlements.\n\nFair enough. But implicitly, Europe is telling Israel that the problem is not its presence in the disputed territories, but rather that it does not have enough presence; in particular, not enough economic enterprises.\nSpanish and French businesses, interested in opportunities in the Western Sahara, are pressing the EU to sign the deal with Morocco.\n\nThe Moroccan precedent suggests that if significant Israeli defense, high-tech or biotech enterprises were located in the West Bank, the EU would reduce diplomatic pressures on Israel.\n\nThe message Europe wants to send Israel through its tough diplomatic line is that the occupation of the West Bank and settlements are the source of its diplomatic problems. But by not holding any other occupation to the same standard, Europe sends another message: it is not the settlements that bother Brussels \u2014 rather, it is Israel itself.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Western Sahara, the EU has licensed the exploitation of scarce natural resources. In the West Bank, the EU seeks to punish pure academic and business activity that do not exhaust resources but only create jobs and opportunities for Arabs and Jews. The European Union recently affirmed that there is no international legal problem in [&hellip;]","protected":false},"featured_media":9137,"template":"","article-category":[525],"custom-tags":[],"ppma_author":[60],"class_list":["post-9167","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","article-category-publications"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The EU is right about Western Sahara \u2014 which means it is wrong about Israel - kohelet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kohelet.org.il\/en\/article\/the-eu-is-right-about-western-sahara-which-means-it-is-wrong-about-israel\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The EU is right about Western Sahara \u2014 which means it is wrong about Israel - kohelet\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In Western Sahara, the EU has licensed the exploitation of scarce natural resources. 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