European Countries Push Anti-Israeli Measures Even as Jerusalem Suffers a Palestinian Terror Attack

A Monday terror attack at Jerusalem is complicating European attempts to find straightforward, overly simplistic solutions to the Mideast’s woes, with France leading a move to reward violence by recognizing a Palestinian state and Spain escalating a diplomatic war with Israel. At the “very same time” that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of Spain verbally assaulted Israel, “Palestinian terrorists attacked and murdered six Israelis, among them Yaakov Pinto, a new immigrant from Spain,” the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, wrote on X in Hebrew, Spanish, and English on Monday.Pinto was one of six Israelis murdered at Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood by two Palestinian terrorists who came from villages near the Palestinian Authority’s capital, Ramallah. Under the PA’s “pay for slay” policy, Ramallah rewards families of terrorists, like the two who were killed Monday, with monthly stipends for life.After Madrid enacted new anti-Israeli measures, Jerusalem on Monday announced sanctions against two members of Mr. Sanchez’s government, Yolanda Diaz and Sira Rego. In response, Mr. Sanchez temporarily recalled the Madrid ambassador to Jerusalem. All of this as Israel mourns the Jerusalem attack’s victims. “This terror attack is a clear manifestation of the threat emanating from Judea and Samaria into areas under full Israeli sovereignty,” a Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs senior fellow, Yossi Kuperwasser, says. “It proves how dangerous the situation is and why we should not allow a Palestinian state to be established in the Judea and Samaria areas.”In denouncing the terror attack, though, President Emmanuel Macron of France made a point to subtly promote what he sees as his cure-all solution for the region: the establishment of a Palestinian state. “France strongly condemns the terrorist attack that has just occurred in East Jerusalem,” Mr. Macron writes on X. “The spiral of violence must come to an end. Only a political solution will bring back peace and stability for all in the region.”The “political solution” that Paris is offering — on the day its own government collapsed in a no-confidence vote — is a September 22 conference at the United Nations to promote global recognition of a Palestinian Authority-led state in areas that Israel seized from Jordan nearly 60 years ago. Those areas include “east Jerusalem,” designated as the future capital of the state.While Ramot is at northern Jerusalem, Mr. Macron identified that neighborhood in Israel’s unified capital in a shorthand indication that it is part of an Israeli-occupied territory. He was upstaged, though, by Mr. Sanchez, who ignored the terror altogether while imposing harsh sanctions on Israel for its conduct in Gaza. “One thing is to protect your country and another very different thing is to bomb hospitals and starve innocent children to death,” Mr. Sanchez said Monday. “What Israel is doing is exterminating a defenseless people. It is breaking all the laws of humanitarian law.”Among the new measures Madrid approved is an arms embargo on Israel, a ban on Israeli oil tankers that provide fuel for Gaza operations docking in Spanish ports, and a closing of its airspace to Israeli planes assisting the war. It also denies entry to any Israeli who actively participates in Gaza “war crimes.”Madrid “is leading a hostile anti-Israeli line, with wild rhetoric dripping with hatred,” Mr. Saar said Monday. He berated Spain’s ties with “dark tyrannical regimes” in Venezuela and Iran, adding that “also striking is the lack of historical awareness of Spain’s crimes against the Jewish people, including the crimes of the Inquisition, from forced conversions to the expulsion of the Jews from Spain — the complete ethnic cleansing of Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century.”Mr. Saar spoke Monday at Budapest alongside his Hungarian counterpart, Peter Szijjarto. “Europe and the international community must choose,” the Israeli minister said: “You are either with us or you are with the jihadists. We know Hungary is on our side.”Prime Minister Viktor Orban is an outlier in Europe, where leaders are increasingly influenced by vocal voices that accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza. Beyond Spain, several countries, including erstwhile supporters, have hinted at imposing arms embargoes on the Jewish state. As Europeans struggle to square their dream of a Palestinian state with the realities of Ramallah’s support for terrorism, though, they also race to spend on defense as the Ukraine war rages. Berlin and London may announce limits on exporting certain arms to Israel, but Germany just signed a $4.3 billion deal for Israeli air defense systems, while Britain purchased Israeli-made tanks. Such deals “tie countries into a long-term relationship with Israel, which helps curb moves towards sanctions against Israel,” an unidentified Jerusalem official told the Economist recently.

European Countries Push Anti-Israeli Measures Even as Jerusalem Suffers a Palestinian Terror Attack

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