November 28, 2012
EU diplomats seek visa ban for ‘violent’ Israeli settlers
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European diplomats recommended imposing visa bans on "violent" Israeli settlers, as Denmark helped organize a workshop on labeling settlement goods in the European Union.
The Political and Security Committee -- a group of EU ambassadors dealing with conflict zones -- suggested the ban at a meeting in Brussels on Nov. 16, according to the news site E.U. Observer. According to the committee memo, "Individual E.U. member states could explore possibilities of denying access of known violent settlers to the E.U."
Meanwhile, DanChurchAid, a Danish Christian nonprofit, invited European Council officials to a workshop on labeling goods from Israeli settlements. The invitation to the closed meeting on Wednesday said participants would discuss “possible practical actions” by EU states to “avoid inadvertently supporting the viability and growth of settlements.”
According to the invitation, the initiative is “supported by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that Rafi Schutz, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, has complained to the Danish Foreign Ministry and several other EU governments that the labeling drive “unfairly singled out and discriminated against Israel.”
