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Abstract
This article focuses on the role the EU has played in the normalization of the 50-year long Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territory. Has it resisted the occupation, challenging its normalization, or has it been complicit in it, thus contributing to it? To answer this question, the article proceeds in two steps. Firstly, it describes the ‘occupation’ through an inductive approach that reconstructs its structure through how it is experienced and described by key Israeli, Palestinian, and European human rights organizations active in the field, namely as a continuously expanding legal and territorial structure of domination. Secondly, it then juxtaposes the occupation so conceptualized with EU discursive and policy practices on the multilateral, bilateral, and unilateral levels. It reveals that, besides the widely noted discourse–practice gap related to the territorial structure of control, there is also a practice–discourse gap related to the legal structure of control, but which is silenced in EU discourse although partially addressed in its practice. The EU has been both complicit in and resistant to the occupation and therefore its role in the normalization of the occupation has been ambiguous.
Acknowledgments
This article has been written in the framework of a Gerda Henkel Research Fellowship. It has benefitted substantially from cooperation with the EuroMed Rights Group. The author wishes to thank all participants in the workshop organized by Anders Persson and Ian Manners, as well as Andrea Dessi, Rayan Jalal, Lorenzo Kamel, Stephan Keukeleire, and Nathalie Tocci for their feedback. The views expressed in this article are those of the author only.
Notes
1 Middle East Quartet (2016) Report of the Middle East Quartet. Available at: http://www.un.org/News/dh/infocus/middle_east/Report-of-the-Middle-East-Quartet.pdf, accessed September 22, 2017.
2 Cited in Walid Salem (2005) The Anti-Normalization Discourse in the Context of Israeli-Palestinian Peace-Building, Palestine – Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture, 12(1), p. 100.
3 David Kretzmer argues that the Israeli High Court has played a key role in the normalization of the occupation as it has legitimized ‘government actions in the Territories. By clothing acts of military authorities in a cloak of legality, the Court justifies and rationalizes these acts’; see D. Kretzmer (2002) The Occupation of Justice: The Supreme Court of Israel and the Occupied Territories (City, New York: SUNY Press), p. 2.
4 Ariella Azoulay & Adi Ophir (2012) The One-State Condition: Occupation and Democracy in Israel/Palestine (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press), p. 12.
5 Guy Harpaz (2007) Normative Power Europe and the Problem of a Legitimacy Deficit: An Israeli Perspective, European Foreign Affairs Review, 12(1), pp. 89–109; and G. Harpaz & Asaf Shamis (2010) Normative Power Europe and the State of Israel: An Illegitimate EUtopia?, Journal of Common Market Studies, 48(3), pp. 579–616.
6 See article by Alaa Tartir in this issue; see also Sandra Pogodda (2012) Inconsistent Interventionism in Palestine: Objectives, Narratives, and Domestic Policy-Making, Democratization, 19(3), pp. 535–552; Joel Peters (2010) Europe and the Israel–Palestinian Peace Process: The Urgency of Now, European Security, 19(3), pp. 511–529.
7 Michelle Pace (2007) The Construction of EU Normative Power, Journal of Common Market Studies, 45(5), pp. 1041–1064; Nathalie Tocci (2009) Firm in Rhetoric, Compromising in Reality: The EU in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict, Ethnopolitics, 8(3–4), pp. 387–401; Neve Gordon & Sharon Pardo (2015) Normative Power Europe and the Power of the Local, Journal of Common Market Studies, 53(2), pp. 416–427; and Federica Bicchi & Benedetta Voltolini (2017) Europe, the Green Line and the Issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Border: Closing the Gap between Discourse and Practice?, Geopolitics, pp. 1–23.
8 Raffaella del Sarto (2015) Borders, Power and Interdependence: A Borderlands Approach to Israel-Palestine and the European Union, in Sarto (ed.) Fragmented Borders, Interdependence and External Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), p. 15.
9 Barney Glaser & Anselm Strauss (1999) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (Chicago, IL: Aldine Transaction), p. 2.
10 Jennifer Milliken (1999) The Study of Discourse in International Relations: A Critique of Research and Methods, European Journal of International Relations, 5(2), pp. 225–254.
11 The extension of Israeli civil law to the settlements increasingly is formalized by the current government with the regularization law and the formalization bill.
12 Israel has used extensively the practices of arbitrary arrests and administrative detention without charge or trial and without a time limit; see B’Tselem (2017) List of Topics, available at: http://www.btselem.org/list_of_topics, accessed October 30, 2017.
13 Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2003) Disputed Territories – Forgotten Facts About the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Available at: http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFA-Archive/2003/Pages/DISPUTED%20TERRITORIES-%20Forgotten%20Facts%20About%20the%20We.aspx, accessed November 10, 2017.
14 Sam Bahour & Tony Klug (2014) Palestinian Game-Changer: The Ultimate Act of Resistance, OpenDemocracy, August 13, 2014. Available at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/north-africa-west-asia/sam-bahour-tony-klug/palestinian-gamechanger-ultimate-act-of-resistance, accessed October 30, 2017.
15 Inter alia, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has stated in its advisory opinion that ‘all these territories (including East Jerusalem) remain occupied territories and that Israel has continued to have the status of occupying Power.’ International Court of Justice (2004) Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Available at: http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1677.pdf, accessed September 26, 2017.
16 Shawan Jabarin (2015) The Occupied Palestinian Territory and International Humanitarian Law: A Response to Peter Maurer, International Review of the Red Cross, 95(890), pp. 415–428. Available at: https://www.icrc.org/en/international-review/article/occupied-palestinian-territory-and-international-humanitarian-law, accessed October 30, 2017.
17 Since 1967, Israel has revoked the residency rights of more than 14,000 Palestinians in East Jerusalem and 85,000 residents in East Jerusalem who live behind the wall are at risk of losing residency rights, see B’Tselem, List of Topics.
18 Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) (2015) East Jerusalem 2015 – Facts and Figures. Available at: http://www.acri.org.il/en/2015/05/12/ej2015/, accessed March 24, 2017.
19 Gisha (2015) Separating Land, Separating People. Available at: http://gisha.org/UserFiles/File/publications/separating-land-separating-people/separating-land-separating-people-web-en.pdf, accessed March 24, 2017.
20 United Nations Security Council (2009) Resolution 1860. Available at: http://www.unsco.org/Documents/Resolutions/SCR_1860(2009).pdf, accessed September 26, 2017.
21 International Criminal Court (2016) Report on Preliminary Examination Activities. Available at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/otp/161114-otp-rep-pe_eng.pdf, accessed September 26, 2017.
22 Gisha, ‘Separating Land, Separating People.’
23 It also retains the final word over the border crossing in Rafah. On the latest developments, see Adnan Abu Amer (2017) Hamas rejects return to Israeli involvement in border crossings, Al Monitor, November 8, 2017. Available at: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/11/palestine-agreement-movement-access-factions-refuse-israel.html#ixzz4ygL9Hysk, accessed November 10, 2017.
24 Gisha, ‘Separating Land, Separating People.’
25 B’Tselem, List of Topics.
26 Ibid.
27 European Parliament (2016) Answer to a Written Question - VP/HR - Israeli Demolition and Confiscation of EU-Funded Palestinian Structures in the West Bank – E-002290/2016. Available at: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getAllAnswers.do?reference=E-2016-002290&language=CS, accessed March 24, 2017.
28 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) (2016) At Risk of Forcible Transfer, Available at https://www.ochaopt.org/content/risk-forcible-transfer, accessed March 24, 2017.
29 Nir Hasson (2015) Only 7% of Jerusalem Building Permits Go to Palestinian Neighborhoods, Haaretz. December 7, 2015. Available at: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.690403, accessed March 24, 2017.
30 See article by Anders Persson in this issue.
31 Milliken, ‘The Study of Discourse in International Relations,’ pp. 240–242.
32 Bicchi & Voltolini (2107) Europe, the Green Line and the Issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Border.
33 Tocci, Firm in Rhetoric, Compromising in Reality; Gordon & Pardo, Normative Power Europe and the Power of the Local; and Bicchi & Voltolini, Europe, the Green Line and the Issue of the Israeli-Palestinian Border.
34 European Commission (2017) EU Research Cooperation with Israel. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/iscp/index.cfm?pg=israel, accessed June 19, 2017.
35 European Commission (2016) European Union Trade in Goods with Israel. Available at: http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113402.pdf, accessed November 2, 2017.
36 The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) (2012) Trading Away Peace: How Europe Helps Sustain Illegal Israeli Settlements. Available at: https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/trading_away_peace_-embargoed_copy_of_designed_report.pdf, accessed September 27, 2017.
37 The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD (2015) The 2013 World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade Facilitation Israel’s Obligations. Available at: http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/gdsapp2015d2_en.pdf, accessed September 27, 2017.
38 Alessandro Tonutti (2013) Feasting on the Occupation: Illegality of Settlement Produce and the Responsibility of EU Member States under International Law (Al Haq), Available at http://www.alhaq.org/publications/publications-index/item/feasting-on-the-occupation-illegality-of-settlement-produce-and-the-responsibility-of-eu-members-states-under-international-law, accessed March 24, 2017; FIDH, ‘Trading Away Peace: How Europe Helps Sustain Illegal Israeli Settlements’.
39 Gordon & Pardo, ‘Normative Power Europe and the Power of the Local,’ p. 417.
40 European External Action Service (EEAS) (2017) Local EU Statement on Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Detention, EEAS. Available at: https://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/palestine-occupied-palestinian-territory-west-bank-and-gaza-strip_en/25681/Local EU Statement on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention; accessed November 2, 2017.
41 Barak Ravid (2017) In Unprecedented Move, Eight European Countries to Demand Compensation From Israel for West Bank Demolitions, Haaretz, October 19, 2017. Available at: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.818017; accessed November 2, 2017.
42 European Commission (2014) Implementation of the European Neighbourhood Policy in Israel Progress in 2014 and Recommendations for Actions. Available at: http://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/enp/pdf/2015/israel-enp-report-2015_en.pdf; accessed November 2, 2017.
43 United Nations (2017) Report of the Human Rights Council. Available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G17/246/51/PDF/G1724651.pdf?OpenElement; accessed November 2, 2017.
44 Delegation of the European Union to Israel (2016) Israel and the EU. Available at: https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en/1337/Israel and the EU; accessed March 24, 2017.
45 I owe this point to Alice Panepinto, who made it in an email exchange following a seminar at the Istituto Affari Internazionali on ‘EU Aid and Development Planning in Area C: Linking Humanitarian and Development Assistance in the Occupied West Bank’, 04 October 2017, in Rome.
46 Michael Lynk (2017) Situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Available at www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/PS/A_72_43106.docx, accessed November 10, 2017.
47 Valentina Azarova (2017) Israel’s unlawfully prolonged occupation: consequences under an integrated legal framework. Available at: http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/israels_unlawfully_prolonged_occupation_7294, accessed September 29, 2017.
48 Patrick Müller & Peter Slominski (2017) The Role of Law in EU Foreign Policy-Making: Legal Integrity, Legal Spillover, and the EU Policy of Differentiation towards Israel, Journal of Common Market Studies, 55(4), pp. 871–888.
49 Helene Sjursen (2006) The EU as a ‘normative power’: how can this be?, Journal of European Public Policy, 13(2), pp. 235–251.50 European Commission (2016) European Union Trade in Goods with Occupied Palestinian Territory. Available at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113382.pdf, accessed November 2, 2017; European Commission, European Union Trade in Goods with Israel.