International community should ‘strongly intervene’ in Israel-Palestine conflict: EU foreign policy chief

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) - EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday said that the international community should “strongly intervene” in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“If we don’t … the seeds of hate that are being sewn in Gaza will sprout and the spiral of hate and violence will continue generation after generation, funeral after funeral,” Borrell said at the University of Valladolid, where he was given an honorary doctorate.

He said the last solid attempt at peace was during the Oslo Accords 30 years ago, but that neither Israel nor Palestine had enough support for it at the time. He added that it is the international community’s fault that hardly anything has been done since then.

“So what to do? When and how to do it? No one has the answer. We think that a two-state solution should be imposed from the exterior so there will be peace,” Borrell said.

He also criticized the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “personally boycotting” a two-state solution for the last three decades.

“To stop it, they themselves went as far as creating Hamas. Yes, Hamas was financed by the Israeli government to try to weaken the Palestinian Authority and Fatah,” he said.

Admitting that even the EU is highly divided on the issue, Borrell urged nations that may be less inclined to support a two-state solution to think of their own interests.

“When 144 states vote to support Ukraine in the UN General Assembly, we say they are on the right side of history. But when 153 countries ask for a humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, it's difficult for us to say the same is true,” he said.

Borrell said this dissonance triggers political and moral problems for the EU, which he said should be more united on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

“If we don’t want our position on Gaza to cause other countries to stop supporting us in Ukraine, we should defend our interests in a way that is more compatible with the perception of the rest of the world,” he continued.

Borrell asserted that while the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are different, they have the same fundamental issue — “land.”

Speaking of Israel and Palestine, he said both nations believe they have the legitimate right to live on the same territory.

“It’s hard to say if both rights are equivalent, or if one has more rights for being there first,” he said. “But, in practice, one enjoys the rights more than the other, which has been reduced to exile and occupation because Israel was stronger, with our help,” he said.

Borrell also reflected critically on the belief before Oct. 7 that “peace between Arab countries and Israel was enough.”

“One week before the Hamas attack, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said ‘the Middle East is quieter today than it has been in two decades,’” Borrell reflected.

“What we’ve been watching since Oct.7 has been the collapse of the status quo and the unsustainable character of a situation that we had wanted to ignore,” he added.

The University of Valladolid, where Borrell spoke, was established in the 13th century, making it one of the oldest in the world.

Borrell, 76, is a member of Spain’s Socialist Party. He served as the foreign minister of Spain from 2004 to 2007 and as the EU’s top diplomat since 2019.