Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Friday sharply criticized EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas after she said Judea and Samaria should be treated like the Crimean Peninsula, which was seized by Russia. “Did she stop to think about what she was actually saying?” he wrote on X.
Kallas made the comparison in an interview with The Irish Times. After 12 countries announced they would impose sanctions on settlements, she voiced support for banning trade with them, calling it “a principled stance.” Sa’ar, for his part, wrote that "the comparison drawn by Kallas has no factual or legal basis whatsoever and is completely unacceptable.”
He argued that the Jewish people’s connection and right to Judea and Samaria and the Land of Israel “are more extensively documented than those of any other people in human history.” He added that, contrary to Kallas’ comparison, “Judea and Samaria have never belonged to a Palestinian state, which never existed.”
Sa’ar added that the Palestinians themselves had previously agreed to a negotiated solution regarding the disputed territories. In his view, the very comparison between Russia and Israel is unacceptable.
“And finally - what does the high representative for foreign affairs and security policy is trying to do?” he asked. “Comparing the only democracy in the Middle East, that contributes in so many ways to Europe’s defence and security, to Russia?”
He concluded: “Did she stop to think about what she was actually saying?”
Crimea, it should be recalled, was seized from Ukraine by the Russian military in 2014 following the popular uprising that ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych from power. Russia immediately held a referendum there in which it said the camp favoring joining Russia had won, and the peninsula was annexed by Moscow.
Putin described the move as “historical justice.” Crimea had been part of Ukraine since the 1950s, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and remained under Ukrainian control when the country gained independence in the early 1990s. Moscow argued that leaving the region in Ukrainian hands when the country became independent was an original sin that needed to be corrected.
Sa’ar had already announced he was cutting off contact with Kallas
(Photo: AP Photo/Leo Correa)
As for Kallas, this is not the first time she has sparked anger in Israel. About two months ago, it was reported that she had compared Israel to South Africa’s apartheid regime. Following the remarks, which Kallas’ office did not deny, Sa’ar announced his decision to cut off contact with his EU counterpart.
“Kaja Kallas, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, has for some time been acting obsessively and with disgraceful unfairness against the State of Israel,” Sa’ar said in a statement. “It was recently publicly reported that during her visit to Mexico, she compared Israel to the racist apartheid regime that existed in South Africa. I thank the many European elected officials who rejected and condemned these grave remarks.”