DutchNews.nl - Foreign minister 'stops EU criticising Israel'

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Foreign minister 'stops EU criticising Israel'

Friday 27 January 2012

Foreign minister Uri Rosenthal pressured European colleagues to amend a statement about Israel earlier this week, the NRC reports, quoting sources in ‘Brussels and other EU cities’.

The paper says the Netherlands did not want the text to refer to ‘an extremely sensitive’ report by the EU’s diplomatic representation in Israel. That report criticizes Israeli policy in part of the Occupied territories and refers to the arrival of Jewish colonists as ‘undermining the Palestinian presence’, the paper said.

Last September, Rosenthal reportedly managed to stop European diplomats at the UN reaching a common position on the status of human rights in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

MPs from the left-wing green party have called for an emergency debate with the minister on the latest claims, saying the minister has not informed parliament properly about his standpoint and way of operating with regard to Israel.

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Readers' comments

Time to sack Uri I think. You've done a good job but your views are outdated Uri, so it's time to go!

By Stefan | January 27, 2012 4:41 PM

Although now an atheist, I was raised Catholic. To this day it has a, sometimes inexplicable, influence on my "weltanschauung". I can imagine that someone who was brought up with the toast "next year in Jerusalem" at Yom Kippur en Pesach is also hard-wired in his view of the world. The major difference between him and me is that I am willing and able to rise above my early programming to condemn the evils perpetrated and/or condoned by the Church of Rome where necessary...

By William | January 27, 2012 8:01 PM