Netanyahu says he expects Europe to follow US on Jerusalem
BRUSSELS - Agence France-Presse
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Dec. 11 he expected Europe to follow the U.S. in recognizing Jerusalem as the Jewish state’s capital, but the EU’s diplomatic chief said there was no change to its stance on the holy city.
Netanyahu said the controversial announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump -- which prompted diplomatic alarm and street protests across the Islamic world -- had “put facts squarely on the table.”
As he arrived for talks in Brussels, Netanyahu said he expected “all or most” European countries would follow the US -- but the 28-nation bloc’s foreign policy head Federica Mogherini said its position remained that Jerusalem should be a capital for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The EU expressed alarm last week at the US decision, but Netanyahu said Trump had simply stated facts by acknowledging that Jerusalem had been the capital of the Israeli state for 70 years and of the Jewish people for 3,000 years.
“It doesn’t obviate peace, it makes peace possible, because recognizing reality is the substance of peace, it’s the foundation of peace,” he said in a statement alongside Mogherini ahead of a breakfast meeting with EU foreign ministers.
“I believe that all or most of the European countries will move their embassies to Jerusalem, recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and engage robustly with us for security, prosperity and peace,” Netanyahu said.
The Jerusalem decision upended decades of U.S. diplomacy and broke with international consensus. Mogherini last week warned it could take the situation “backwards to even darker times.”
Mogherini said the EU -- the Palestinians’ largest donor -- would stick to the “international consensus” on Jerusalem.
She reiterated the EU’s stance that “the only realistic solution” for peace is two states -- Israel and Palestine -- with Jerusalem as the capital of both and the borders returned to their status before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
And she pledged to step up efforts with the two sides and regional partners including Jordan and Egypt to relaunch the peace process.
Mogherini also condemned attacks on Israel -- after Netanyahu took aim over the weekend at what he called Europe’s “hypocrisy” for condemning Trump’s statement, but not “the rockets fired at Israel or the terrible incitement against it.”
“Let me condemn in the strongest possible way all attacks on Jews everywhere in the world, including in Europe, and on Israel and on Israeli citizens,” Mogherini said.
Mogherini’s statements came after French President Emmanuel Macron met Netanyahu in Paris on Dec. 10 and called on him to freeze settlement building and to re-engage with Palestinians following widespread protests over the U.S. move.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu on Dec. 10, Macron condemned the decision as “contrary to international law and dangerous for the peace process.”
“I urged the prime minister to show courage in his dealings with the Palestinians to get us out of the current dead end,” Macron said after talks in Paris with the Israeli leader.
“Peace does not depend on the United States alone... it depends on the capacity of the two Israeli and Palestinian leaders to do so,” the French leader said.
