Ex-European officials decry Trump’s Palestine policy

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) - A letter by former European politicians condemned the U.S. President Donald Trump’s one-sided policy in Israel-Palestine conflict.

Signed by two former NATO secretary-generals, six former prime ministers, and 25 former ministers, the letter called on Europe to reject any American peace plan if it is not fair for Palestinians.

“It is time for Europe to stand by our principled parameters for peace in Israel-Palestine,” read the letter -- sent to the EU and European governments as well as British newspaper The Guardian -- calling for a two-state solution in the conflict.

“Europe should reject any plan that does not create a Palestinian state alongside Israel with Jerusalem as the capital for both countries,” the letter said, according to the newspaper, which revealed the letter in an exclusive piece.

“Unfortunately, the current U.S. administration has departed from longstanding U.S. policy,” the letter said and criticized Trump’s recognition of “only one side’s claims to Jerusalem.”

The letter said the U.S. also “demonstrated a disturbing indifference to Israeli settlement expansion” in the occupied West Bank and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Palestinians, “gambling with the security and stability of various countries located at Europe’s doorstep.”

Former prime ministers of France, Sweden, Poland, Italy, Belgium and Romania, Jean Marc Ayrault, Carl Bildt, Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Massimo D’Alema, Guy Verhofstadt, and Dacian Ciolos, respectively, are among the signatories of the letter.

Former NATO secretary generals Willy Claes and Javier Solana, as well as former Irish President Mary Robinson and former U.K. Foreign Secretaries David Miliband and Jack Straw also signed the letter.

“[We] are convinced that a plan that reduces Palestinian statehood to an entity devoid of sovereignty, territorial contiguity and economic viability would severely compound the failure of previous peacemaking efforts, accelerate the demise of the two-state option and fatally damage the cause of a durable peace for Palestinians and Israelis alike,” the letter said.

If that was not possible, “Europe must pursue its own course of action,” the letter urged.