{Originally posted to the author’s website, Emet m’Tsyion}
We do not agree that Israel is now occupying any territory that does not belong to Israel according to international law. But suppose it were. Suppose for the sake of argument that Israel was occupying Judea and Samaria, the heart of ancient Judea, the ancient Jewish homeland that the Jews have traditionally called the Land of Israel and that Greece and Rome called Judea ( IVDAEA, Ioudaia). The European Union claims this all the time and uses this false claim to deny the human and civil rights of Jews. The EU denies Jewish rights to inhabit any land over the 1949 Israel-Transjordan [now Jordan] armistice line. But the EU seldom complains about Turks settling in the Turkish occupation zone of northern Cyprus. We will get back to the EU and Cyprus below.
The EU does not agree to Jews doing business over the 1949 armistice line or running factories or farms there in what was the Jordanian occupation zone from 1948 to 1967 in Judea-Samaria or doing any productive activity there.
The EU also denies those rights to Jews in those parts of Jerusalem captured by Transjordan in 1948 from which Arab irregular forces and the Transjordanian Arab Legion had driven Jews out starting on 30 November 1947 up to the summer of 1948, although Jerusalem was to be an internationally governed enclave where both Jews and Arabs could reside, according to the UN General Assembly recommended partition plan. These areas were captured by Israel in the June 1967 Six Day War after 19 years of Transjordanian [now Jordanian] occupation. Now the EU gets up on a moralistic high horse of hypocritical outrage when Jews again live in those formerly Arab-occupied parts of Jerusalem, whereas there has been a Jewish majority in Jerusalem going back to 1853, if not before. But the EU says that those areas are occupied.
This is what the EU said about a recent Israeli decision to recognize a tract of unused land without private owners near Jericho as state land, as it was recognized in the days of the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim empire to be sure, which as such was seen by the Arab Muslims in the Land of Israel as representing them:
“Israel’s decision … is a further step that risks undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state and therefore calls into question Israel’s commitment to a two-state solution,” the EU says in a statement. “Any decision that could enable further settlement expansion, which is illegal under international law and an obstacle to peace, will only drive the parties to the conflict even further apart,” the EU continues. “The European Union remains firmly opposed to Israel’s settlement policy and actions taken in this context . . .”[here]
The claim of illegality is based, as we know, on two false claims: One, that Israel is an occupying power in Judea and Samaria and the formerly Jordanian-occupied parts of Jerusalem. Two, that people cannot voluntarily migrate to an occupied territory. This second claim is based on a false interpretation of Geneva Convention IV:49:6 (The point is that people are permitted to voluntarily migrate to such territories, even if “occupied.”). See here for clarifications on these legal issues.
But the question is whether or not the EU is actually against occupation in principle or simply hostile to Jews and Israel. The question is easily answered. The EU is quite comfortable with living with occupying powers and trading with them without demanding, for example, the labeling of goods produced in the supposed occupied territory as settlement goods or products of an occupied territory.
The proof of EU hypocrisy on this issue is very close at hand. The island republic of Cyprus is very close to Israel, a few score kilometers northwest of Israel in the Mediterranean Sea. Cyprus is also a member of the EU. Yet, about 35% of the island is occupied by Turkey. The fact that northern Cyprus is occupied is recognized by just about everybody, although not by Turkey. Do these facts cause or lead to any massive EU denunciation of Turkey as an occupying power abusing the native population of the occupied territory in an illegal and/or inhuman fashion?
The question is itself laughable. The EU is happy to do business with Turkey and is now agreeing to work to bring Turkey into the Union. But the British press agency, Reuters, does not even want to call Turkey an occupying power which it is. See below how Reuters’ wordsmiths get around the O word by using a long euphemism
Addressing a threat by Cyprus to block parts of the deal unless Turkey stops opposing the reunification of the divided island, the Commission paper will propose that opening five new “chapters” in Turkey’s negotiations to join the EU — another promise made in March — would be “conditional”, the official said. [here]
The French state-owned broadcaster France24 does the same as Reuters:
EU president Donald Tusk warned Tuesday that hard work lay ahead to finalize the deal, after Cyprus threatened to derail it over long-standing disagreements with Turkey. . . . . [here]
How is that for a euphemism for Turkish occupation of part of Cyprus? Long-standing disagreements, no less!!! But further on the same article gets a little closer to the fact of occupation without actually stating it frankly:
The island of Cyprus has been divided since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded its northern sector . . . [here]
The Turkish troops invaded in 1974 and they are still there. But we must not call it “occupation” for that word is reserved for Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria, that the League of Nations recognized as parts of the Jewish National Home in 1922.
Far from calling for Turkey to end its occupation of northern Cyprus,the EU leadership is asking Greece and Cyprus for concessions to Turkey on account of the migrant issue. This is despite the fact that Turkey has actually encouraged the refugee flow across the dangerous waters of the Aegean Sea to Greek islands. After all, people smugglers are putting migrants onto unseaworthy craft and/or without life jackets or otherwise letting people go out to sea to die. The Turkish police do not interfere with this. Turkey is a country with thousands of political prisoners. No doubt the police could stop the people smuggling, if the government of Erdogan and Davutoglu wanted them to. The Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras made this point to EU leaders and they most likely knew of and understood the Turkish encouragement to people smugglers before Tsipras told them. The Greek defense minister had also made this point while on a trip to Israel a few weeks ago:
Mr. Tsipras insisted that the EU must exert pressure on Ankara to put an end to the flow of refugees and migrants to Greece [here]
Is it not obvious to all but fools that the EU is not especially against occupation, even the occupation of part of an EU member state? Is it not clear to all that the EU is really against Israel, against Jews, against Jews having rights and safety, and respect? The EU policy towards Jews in Judea and Samaria could rightly be called apartheid and anti-Jewish racism.