The EU's hypocritical use of "international law" that only applies to Israel

The EU's High Commissioner Josep Borrell tries very hard to appear even-handed and pro-peace in regard to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But when he pushes fictions in official press releases, the EU's real antipathy towards Israel shines through.

International law is a fundamental pillar of the international rules-based order. In this respect, the EU and its Member States recall that they will not recognize any changes to the 1967 borders unless agreed by Israelis and Palestinians. The two-state solution, with Jerusalem as the future capital for both States, is the only way to ensure sustainable peace and stability in the region.

There are no such things as "1967 borders."  On April 3, 1949, Israel and Jordan signed an armistice agreement and a boundary was drawn between them with a green marker on a map - but it was explicitly not meant to be a border, and Israel maintained the right to claim lands to the east of the Green Line.

It is also recognized that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.

This is the only source for the "1967 borders."

Most diplomats are careful not to call the 1949 armistice lines "borders" because they know this history.  They use the word "lines" or "boundaries". The EU's use of the word "borders" here is a conscious lie - and contrary to the precious "international law" that the EU claims to want to uphold.

Jordan abrogated this 1949 agreement by attacking Israel:

No warlike act or act of hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one of the Parties to this Agreement against the other Party.

UN Security Council Resolution 242 makes clear that any actual borders must be "secure" - and Jordan's attack in 1967 showed that the 1949 armistice lines were not secure for Israel.

The EU and the UN have gone way beyond this already egregious fiction of "1967 borders" with another fiction: that the lands on the east side of the Green Line, including in Jerusalem, somehow belong to a Palestinian entity that never signed this armistice agreement.

Certainly nothing Israel and the PLO signed during Oslo presumed that the 1949 lines were the borders between two states. The only legal way Palestinians can claim ownership of any land whatsoever is by agreement with Israel. This is basic international law, and law that Borrell knows quite well. Yet he has the nerve to invoke "international law" to take away Israel's legal claims, indicated in the 1949 armistice agreement, and to award the Palestinians land that in no way can be said to belong to them.

Borrell's hypocrisy doesn't end there:

We strongly urge Israel to refrain from any unilateral decision that would lead to the annexation of any occupied Palestinian territory and would be, as such, contrary to International Law.

Yet the EU encourages Palestinians to make unilateral decisions to claim land, especially in Area C, by illegally building there. Indeed, the EU directly helps them build villages in Area C from scratch in areas that the EU insist are occupied - which means that according to the EU's own interpretation of international law, Israel alone has the rights to give out building permits in those areas as the belligerent occupier.

I was given a tour of these ramshackle structures, many with EU flags on them, in 2016:

 

 

 

 

Here is a time lapse animation I made a few years ago of illegal Palestinian building in Area C near Jerusalem that the EU encourages - haphazard, dangerous structures with no infrastructure, slapped together on any empty land they can find.

 

 

The EU says anything that Israel does unilaterally is illegal - but it directly supports these unilaterally built illegal structures and blatant land grabs in areas under Israeli control. These structures violate international law under existing, signed agreements.

Borrell's invocation of international law that only applies to Israel, but doesn't apply to the Palestinians nor to the EU itself, is breathtakingly hypocritical.