AL-QUDS (Dispatches) – The European Union said Monday that it canceled a diplomatic reception to prevent a radical Zionist minister from attending.
The act of protest by the EU’s delegation to the occupied territories against a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet, the most radical in the occupying regime’s history, could cause a diplomatic spat between the regime and the EU.
Relations already have been strained over the regime’s policies in the occupied West Bank.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power faction, serves as the so-called national security minister and was assigned to represent the regime at the EU’s Europe Day event on Tuesday.
Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Sunday in a Kan radio interview that Ben-Gvir had been assigned by the cabinet secretary to attend “not as a representative of the Jewish Power party ... but to represent the cabinet of Israel.”
The EU said that it decided “to cancel the diplomatic reception, as we do not want to offer a platform to someone whose views contradict the values the European Union stands for.” The remainder of the public event would take place as scheduled.
Ben-Gvir is a former far-right activist and hard-line West Bank settler who has been convicted of incitement and support for a terror group. As the regime’s representative at the Europe Day event, Ben-Gvir would have addressed attendees.
Netanyahu returned to office in December at the head of a coalition that includes ultra-Orthodox parties and radicals, including Ben-Gvir’s small Jewish Power faction. The regime has put expansion of West Bank settlements as a top priority. The EU, along with most of the international community, considers settlements in the West Bank and east Al-Quds illegal under international law and obstacles to resolution of problems with the Palestinians.
The occupying regime captured the West Bank, east Al-Quds and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future independent state.