BRUSSELS: European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Thursday he has asked the bloc’s members if they want to impose sanctions on some Israeli ministers for “hate messages” against Palestinians that he said broke international law.
He did not name any of the Israeli ministers to whom he was referring or specify which messages he had in mind.
But in recent weeks he has publicly criticized Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for statements he has described as “sinister” and “an incitement to war crimes.”
“I initiated the procedure to ask the member states if they consider (it) appropriate to include in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers (who) have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law,” he told reporters on arrival at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.
Diplomats say it is unlikely the EU would find the necessary unanimous agreement among its 27 members to impose sanctions on Israeli government ministers.
But Borrell’s decision to float such a proposal indicates the level of anger among some European officials about some Israeli ministers.
Israel’s foreign minister Israel Katz accused Borrell of targeting him with false claims that he had called for Palestinians to be displaced from the West Bank. “I oppose the displacement of any population from their homes,” he said.
Ireland, one of the EU’s most pro-Palestinian members, said on Thursday it backed Borrell’s suggestion.
“We will be supporting Josep Borrell’s recommendation for sanctions in respect of settler organizations in the West Bank who are facilitating (the) expansion of settlements, and also to Israeli ministers,” Irish Foreign Minister Micheal Martin told reporters as he arrived at the Brussels meeting.
Borrell asks EU members about possible sanctions on some Israeli ministers
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Borrell asks EU members about possible sanctions on some Israeli ministers
- He did not name any of the Israeli ministers to whom he was referring or specify which messages he had in mind
NATO wants ‘automated’ defenses along borders with Russia: German general
- That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone,” said Lowin
- The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said
FRANKFURT: NATO is moving to boost its defenses along European borders with Russia by creating an AI-assisted “automated zone” not reliant on human ground forces, a German general said in comments published Saturday.
That zone would act as a defensive buffer before any enemy forces advanced into “a sort of hot zone” where traditional combat could happen, said General Thomas Lowin, NATO’s deputy chief of staff for operations.
He was speaking to the German Sunday newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
The automated area would have sensors to detect enemy forces and activate defenses such as drones, semi-autonomous combat vehicles, land-based robots, as well as automatic air defenses and anti-missile systems, Lowin said.
He added, however, that any decision to use lethal weapons would “always be under human responsibility.”
The sensors — located “on the ground, in space, in cyberspace and in the air” — would cover an area of several thousand kilometers (miles) and detect enemy movements or deployment of weapons, and inform “all NATO countries in real time,” he said.
The AI-guided system would reinforce existing NATO weapons and deployed forces, the general said.
The German newspaper reported that there were test programs in Poland and Romania trying out the proposed capabilities, and all of NATO should be working to make the system operational by the end of 2027.
NATO’s European members are stepping up preparedness out of concern that Russia — whose economy is on a war footing because of its conflict in Ukraine — could seek to further expand, into EU territory.
Poland is about to sign a contract for “the biggest anti-drone system in Europe,” its defense minister, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, told the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.
Kosiniak-Kamysz did not say how much the deal, involving “different types of weaponry,” would cost, nor which consortium would ink the contract at the end of January.
He said it was being made to respond to “an urgent operational demand.”
