Ex-Israeli attorney general urges EU to recognize Palestine
Former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair has called on the parliament of the European Union to officially recognize the state of Palestine. Ben-Yair, in a piece published Friday in the EUobserver, an independent online newspaper that covers political life throughout the European Union, said that Israel has imposed an “apartheid regime” on Palestinians in the West Bank and asserted that “the Palestinian people are entitled to a state. “Political Zionism sought to find a solution to the persecution of Jewish people by establishing a state to renew Jewish political life… [and] sought to actualize its national-historical affiliation with the land of Israel — not at the expense of another nation,” Ben-Yair wrote.The European Parliament is due to convene on Thursday in Strasbourg, France, and vote on a bill recognizing a Palestinian state. Although the bill’s wording has yet to be finalized, it is believed that it will likely recognize a Palestinian state along 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. Over 700 Israeli artists, celebrities and professionals — including former military officers, ambassadors, and Knesset members — have signed a petition urging the European Union parliamentarians to support the bill. The French parliament will vote on a similar bill on Friday or on December 2, the following Tuesday. The outspoken former attorney general, who served in the position from 1993-1996, also said that political Zionism did not “strive to establish a state within the borders of the biblical ‘Promised Land,'” nor did it seek to control holy sites, including the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a revered structure in the West Bank city of Hebron believed to mark the burial site of six of the seven patriarchs and matriarchs of the Jewish religion.
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