Israel has bowed to European Union demands to deny funding eligibility to Israeli scientific enterprises operating in Jewish settlements. It thereby removed a key obstacle to finalising a deal for Israel´s participation in the multi-million dollar research programme Horizon 2020.
Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni said she had struck a compromise with EU head Catherine Ashton to try to rescue the funding ahead of a Dec. 1 deadline. Far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet resisted EU demands to expressly deny its funds for the first time to Israeli projects in Israeli-occupied
land. Livni said she struck a compromise with Ashton that softened the programme's restrictions by permitting Israel to specify in a note that it objects to Europe's policy.
"The Europeans don't want their money in settlements and that's their right, but Israel expressed its position that it doesn't accept this European position," she told Israel Radio. Had Israel not compromised, some 2,000 scientists could have
lost funding, Livni said, adding Israel also risked loss of its prestige as a "start-up nation" also known as a high-tech hub. "We would have isolated ourselves," she said.
The EU's main demands were met by the deal, EU representative in Israel, Faaborg-Andersen said. "There will be no EU funds spent in settlements, and that is the key for us."
Further steps against the settlements are expected next year with the EU's Executive Commission announced plans to bar financial assistance to any Israeli group operating in the West Bank from 2014.
Horizon 2020 calls for dividing up some 80 billion euros in matching funds among promising scientist applicants over seven years. Israel, the only non-European partner in the project, is expected to provide a billion euros, and receive 1.5 billion back for its scientists.
Zeev Elkin, Israel's far-right deputy foreign minister, vowed to seek compensation for scientific enterprises in settlements losing out to any European funding restrictions.
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The Europeans don't want their money in settlements and that's their right, but Israel expressed its position that it doesn't accept this European position, Livni said.
My heart and my best intentions still tell me this is true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pa4_NBlYK8
It appears that international sanctions work and that a boycott is a tool like no other. Even Israel’s prime minister has admitted this; he has called on the world not to ease the sanctions [on Iran]and to even intensify..
This being the case, the moral is clear: This is the way to act with recalcitrant states. This applies not only to Iran, …. but with another country that does not obey the decisions of the international community.
Israel has signed the Horizon 2020 agreement for scientific research with the EU barring funding from companies or institutions with ties to the settlements. This is irrefutable proof that a boycott threat works well with Israel, too.
The truth is hard to miss. By signing the agreement, Israel gave a hand to the first official international boycott of the settlements. ….
Now we have a limited boycott and a harbinger of things to come. The negotiations over the agreement were conducted by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, whose office is located in the heart of occupied East Jerusalem. For some reason, the EU didn’t boycott her for this. Negotiations over funds trickling to the settlements are being conducted with a minister who, according to the entire world, has as her office in a settlement on Jerusalem’s Saladin Street.
This absurdity reveals the hypocrisy of boycotting just the settlements. Every Israeli organization, institution or authority is somehow involved with what’s going on beyond the Green Line. Every bank, university, supermarket chain or medical institution has branches, employees or clients who are settlers. The settlements are an all-Israeli project and the boycott can’t be limited to them….
… here everything is tainted by occupation. Israel funds, protects and nurtures the settlements, so all of Israel is responsible for their existence. It’s unfair to boycott just the settlers. We’re all guilty. …
The success achieved with Iran must become the world’s road map in how to end the Israeli occupation and the denial of the Palestinians’ rights……
The truth is a bitter reality with which no Israeli can be happy. Disconnected from the international reality, most Israelis are convinced that the status quo where the people of one nation lack all rights while the people of another nation enjoy full rights can’t continue indefinitely.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.560992
Despite EU settlement guidelines || Dutch government's new business initiative includes Israeli companies in West Bank
http://www.haaretz.com/news/keeping-track-of-the-peace-process/.premium-1.561416
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