Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar sharply rebuked European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Friday after she compared Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to Russian-controlled Crimea while advocating for an EU-wide prohibition on trade in goods originating from those communities.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Kallas called on European governments to take what she characterized as a “principled stance” by backing a bloc-wide ban on commerce involving products from “Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territories.” Kallas said there was widespread agreement among EU countries that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria violate international law.

To bolster her argument, Kallas invoked the European Union’s actions following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. “The question is what do we do about this? If we take the example when Crimea was occupied, then it was very clear, it’s illegal, we don’t recognize this, which means that we stop the trade with any products that come from Crimea,” she told the newspaper.

“We should have the same principled stance – you know this is illegal, everybody agrees – so we should stop trading with Occupied [Palestinian] Territories.”

Sa’ar responded forcefully on social media, rejecting both the historical and legal premise behind Kallas’ analogy.

“The comparison drawn by Kaja Kallas has no factual or legal basis whatsoever and is completely unacceptable.”

Sa’ar argued that the Jewish connection to Judea and Samaria stretches back through thousands of years of recorded history and rejected the contention that the territories could be equated with land seized from an existing sovereign state.

“The Jewish people’s connection and right to Judea and Samaria and the Land of Israel are more extensively documented than those of any other people in human history. Contrary to the comparisons drawn by Ms. Kallas, Judea and Samaria have never belonged to a Palestinian state, which never existed. Even the Palestinians themselves signed on a negotiated solution for the disputed territories.”

Sa’ar also questioned why the EU’s top foreign policy official would draw such a comparison between Israel and Russia, pointing to Israel’s democratic system and its security relationship with Europe.

“And finally – what does the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy is trying to do? Comparing the only democracy in the Middle East, that contributes in so many ways to Europe’s defence and security, to Russia? Did she stop to think about what she was actually saying?” concluded Sa’ar.

The clash followed additional European moves targeting Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria. Days earlier, British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced that Britain would bar imports of goods produced in those communities. France and Canada joined the announcement, saying they too would “bring forward national measures to ban trade in settlement goods.”

Israel subsequently unveiled a series of retaliatory steps through Sa’ar. Among them, Israel said it would shutter the British Consulate in Yerushalayim, remove British personnel from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat, and terminate British involvement in training Palestinian Authority forces in Judea and Samaria through the “British Support Team in Ramallah.”

In addition, Israel announced that 12 British elected officials and other British citizens would be denied entry to the country. Israeli officials said the individuals were being barred because of antisemitic or anti-Israel activity, or because they had denied Israel’s right to exist.

{Matzav.com}