The 27 foreign ministers of the European Union are expected on Sunday to issue a harsh denunciation of Israel’s activities on the West Bank. The EU’s Foreign Affairs Council will criticize violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and will call on Israel to remove restrictions on Palestinian construction and economic development projects in Area C of the West Bank, which under the Oslo Accords was under exclusive Israeli control.

The condemnation, contained in an official council conclusion, is exceptional because of its length – three pages – as well as its detailed accounting of Israeli actions in the West Bank in the past several months. According to a high-ranking European diplomat who has seen a draft of the resolution, the EU foreign ministers will rebuke Israel for the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They will denounce settler violence against Palestinians and call on the Israeli government to prosecute such actions.

Meanwhile, at a meeting in Ramallah on Saturday Netanyahu’s envoy for the peace process, attorney Isaac Molho, gave Abbas a letter from Netanyahu on the impasse in the peace process. It was a response to a letter to Netanyahu from Abbas from a few weeks ago, in which the PA leader blamed Israel for the derailment of the peace process.

A senior Israeli official said that in his response Netanyahu called for the immediate resumption of talks without preconditions, but did not propose any new ideas.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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