Europe has handed over an average 300 million euros each
year over the past 17 years to Palestinian projects, helping keep the local
economy afloat and easing social tensions.
Norway’s Jonas Gahr Store told the Jerusalem Post that this
aid was intended to help Palestinians build the infrastructure for a future
state in land Israel captured in a 1967 war.
“If that vision for some reason completely collapses or
reaches a dead end, that argument will be challenged and we will keep hearing
questions like why are we continuing to fund an (Israeli) occupation,” Store
said.
Middle East peace talks broke down in September just weeks
after they were renewed in Washington, with the Palestinians walking out in
protest at Israeli settlement building. There is no sign that the talks may
resume anytime soon.
Store suggested that unless negotiations aimed at
establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel were resumed in a matter of
months, Palestinians may win enough support to declare statehood unilaterally
in the West Bank.
So far seven South American countries have recognized
Palestinian statehood since the negotiations broke down, the latest of them
being Guyana on Thursday.
Europe still preferred a negotiated settlement, Store said.
“But if that process will enter a dead end, then I guess the
climate can change throughout Europe, and we already see tendencies in that
direction,” he added, alluding to growing criticism of Israeli settlement
building.
EU diplomats joined Washington this week in criticizing
Israel’s recent demolition of buildings in East Jerusalem to make way for homes
for Jewish families, as undermining the chances for peacemaking.
In a statement on Friday, Richard Falk, the United Nations
Special Rapporteur on human rights, protested the deaths of four Palestinians
this month in confrontations with Israeli troops, and Israel’s razing of an
historic Jerusalem building to make way for a new settlement.
“Together these events demonstrate a general and
unacceptable Israeli disposition to use excessive force against Palestinians,”
Falk said.
“It is time for the international community to step in and
offer this long vulnerable Palestinian population protection against the
violence perpetrated by Israeli authorities.”
