{"id":1169742,"date":"2026-08-26T04:24:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T04:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1169742\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T04:24:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T04:24:50","slug":"slovenias-jansa-helps-netanyahu-blunt-eu-response-to-west-bank-land-grab-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1169742\/","title":{"rendered":"Slovenia\u2019s Jan\u0161a helps Netanyahu blunt EU response to West Bank land\u2011grab \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bratislava has undercut European reaction to Israel\u2019s drastic carve-up of the West Bank, signalling that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a new Brussels\u2019 inside-man \u2013 Slovakia\u2019s populist prime minister Janez Jan\u0161a.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s decision to build a settlement in the strategic E1 area of the West Bank, carving the two-state solution into oblivion, was due to have met with condemnation \u201con behalf of the European Union and its 27 member states\u201d.<\/p>\n

But this was downgraded to a lower level, in protocol terms, to a statement by Kaja Kallas, the EU high representative for foreign affairs.<\/p>\n

Kallas\u2019 remarks were also larded with gratitude that \u201cwe [the EU] note the recent charges brought by the Israeli prosecutors against some perpetrators of such [West Bank] violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s prosecutions have near-zero outcomes.<\/p>\n

And the diplomatic downgrade was due to a veto by Slovenia, diplomatic sources said.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu used to rely on Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a> to routinely defang EU statements.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But Orb\u00e1n lost office in April, while Jan\u0161a returned to power in May, and turned his own and the country’s Middle East policy upside down.<\/p>\n

During his last time in office, on 19 June 2021, Jan\u0161a signed up to EU sanctions <\/a>against Israeli firms if they dared to build E1.<\/p>\n

“The European Council stresses that businesses should not bid for construction contracts for E1 or other settlement developments and underlines the legal and reputational consequences for businesses participating in settlement construction, including the risk of serious breaches of international law,” said the Jan\u0161a-signed 2021 text.<\/p>\n

And the new E1 construction was seen as such a grave development that even other Israel-friendly EU states, such as Austria, Germany, Greece, and Italy spoke out forcefully against it<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

But fast forward to 2026 and Jan\u0161a is not only degrading EU diplomacy, he also gave VIP treatment to Israeli settler extremist, Yossi Dagan, in Ljubljana on 15 June, while Israeli private-intelligence firm Black Cube tried to tip the balance in his favour in Slovenia’s May vote<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bratislava has undercut European reaction to Israel\u2019s drastic carve-up of the West Bank, signalling that Israeli prime minister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1169743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,221969,283716,221967,283714,221968,283715],"class_list":["post-1169742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier4328","tag-identifier4695","tag-nameisrael","tag-namepalestine","tag-termcodeisrael","tag-termcodepalestine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117159916725619364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}