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The EU’s top diplomate Kaja Kallas has responded after Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said he had “no choice but to sever all contact” with her over reports that she compared Israel to South Africa’s former racist apartheid regime.
Kallas reportedly made the remark during a trip to Mexico in May, where she met with senior Mexican government officials as part of an EU push to further cooperation with Latin America.
“To date, no denial, clarification or response has been issued by her regarding this severe statement,” Sa’ar posted on social media earlier on Thursday.
“Therefore, as the Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to sever all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she directed at the world’s only Jewish state,” he added.
In response, Kallas, a former Estonian prime minister, said she valued “dialogue and engagement” with Israel and that the EU remained committed to a “constructive relationship,” but she made no mention of the reported apartheid comment, which Sa’ar was quick to pick up on.
“Even in your words here, you are avoiding denying or condemning what is attributed to you and has been published publicly,” he replied. “If you indeed said those shameful and libelous things – stand behind them. If you did not say them – deny it”.
In her post, Kallas added that the EU position was firmly that a two-state solution remained the “only viable path” to peace in the Middle East.
“The EU has condemned the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank that make it increasingly difficult to get to that goal,” she wrote.
The two-state solution is a proposal to create two sovereign, democratic states in the area of the former Mandatory Palestine, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states.
In September, 142 countries voted in favour of a two-state solution at the United Nations General Assembly. Israel, Argentina, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Tonga and the United States, voted against it, while 12 nations abstained.
The war in Gaza began following the Hamas militant group’s 7 October attacks on Israel in 2023, when around 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 others were taken hostage into the Gaza Strip.
Israel’s government responded with an air strike campaign and ground invasion of the territory that it says is aimed at wiping out Hamas. The Gaza health ministry says around 73,000 people have died as a result of the conflict.