The last mini-plenary week in the European Parliament was a particularly active one for meetings on the peace process in the Middle East.

On Tuesday, I invited Agnes Bertrand-Sanz, from Development NGO APRODEV, which is a sub-committee of the World Council of Churches, to speak to the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Palestine (DPLC). She shed light on the Israeli government's conceptions of international legality and its consequences for its relations with the European Union. It seems that compliance with international law is considered incompatible with Israel's security and fundamental values. Europe's calls for the country to respect international norms are met with silence and inaction, as they are deemed irrelevant and naïve.

This, in my view, directly breaches the European Union-Israel Association Agreement, which requires compliance with human rights and one wonders if those who negotiated the agreement in the first place knew this?

In line, apparently, with the principle of mutual reliance and recognition of each other’s laws in international law, one state party to an international treaty will normally rely on the other's domestic legal provisions for implementation. However, in view of the above, and as Israel's laws recognise as legal the settlement colonies in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which are regarded as illegal under International law, surely this agreement should never have been made in the first place?

Some progress has now been made following the decision of the ECJ in the BRITA case (no. C-386/08), which has established that goods from the illegal settlements cannot be passed off as ‘Israeli’ goods and therefore do not qualify for preferential treatment by the EU. Israel must now provide, and Member States must insist upon, documentation from Israel establishing that the goods being imported into Europe do not originate in the Settlement Colonies.

This, however, is only part of the Story. Israel’s general disregard of Human rights in its treatment of Palestinians in the West bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip requires that the Association Agreement be suspended until Israel changes its policies. This would not prevent Israel from exporting to Europe, but it would eliminate the special preferences they currently enjoy on the €13bn worth of exports sold into Europe’s Member States (€100m into Ireland).

We also need bring out into the open the ongoing negotiations between Europol and Israel towards a cooperation agreement, particularly in light of the virtual certainty that Israel’s Mossad was responsible for the theft of Irish, British, French and German identities, while engaged in the conspiracy to murder the Hamas militant in Dubai. Parliament's consent to this Europol agreement will be required. If we do not learn the lesson and fail to secure real safeguards during these negotiations, leaving the details to be ironed out afterwards, we will again leave the door open to serious breaches of international and EU law, and member state sovereignty.

On Wednesday, availing of the presence in Brussels of the Chair of the Fateh Group in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr. Azzam Al-Ahmad, I invited him to share his views on the current state of the peace process with the DPLC. In his contribution, he regretted that the Obama administration backed down from the demand for Israel to halt construction of settlements. P.M. Netanyahu also refused point–blank the US proposed confidence-building measures such as the release of some of the 8000-odd Palestinian prisoners; the easing of checkpoints and restrictions on the movement of Palestinians; to permit desperately needed construction materials into Gaza; to transfer some parts of the West Bank currently controlled by the IDF to Palestinian Authority control, and to end the daily incursions into Palestinian Authority controlled territory.

A critical question, he said, remains unanswered by the US. What action will be taken if there is no progress after months of talks? In the meeting I had the night before with President Abbas, in the company of the President of the EP, he also pointed out that they are too familiar with, and weary of, years of empty cycles of talks that lead nowhere, and they have no wish to get on that merry-go-round again. 

Finally, later in the day, I spoke in the Parliament’s debate on the EP response to the Goldstone report. In my speech I deplored Israel's contempt for the EU when she denies MEPs their democratic right to meet members of the Palestinian Legislative Council in Gaza, the theft of European Citizens’ identity in their murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, and the ongoing collective punishment of 1.5m Gazans contrary to the Geneva Conventions.