Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell co-chaired the 9th Regional Forum of Foreign Ministers of the Union for the Mediterranean, hosted by José Manuel Albares, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union, and Cooperation of Spain, in Barcelona on Monday.
Speaking at the meeting, which was attended by foreign ministers and representatives of UfM member states and relevant regional institutions, Safadi stressed that ending the Israeli aggression on Gaza must be a priority for the international community, and ending the use of starvation as a weapon must also be a priority.
“Protecting international law, protecting international humanitarian law, must be a priority for all of us, because if we do not protect it, Israel violates it, and war will not bring security to Israel, but peace and justice will, and the path to this peace is clear, and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination must be realized, otherwise this vic
ious circle of wars and violence will haunt us year after year in the future,” he stressed.
Safadi, who is also deputy prime minister, urged everyone to act in accordance with international law, the UN Charter, and humanitarian values to prevent Israel from killing with impunity. “The current Israeli government is the most extremist in the history of Israel; just yesterday a member of that government was openly calling for expelling Palestinians from Gaza, reoccupying Gaza, expelling all Palestinians from Palestine, and establishing what he sees as Greater Israel. This is a minister in power, and how can we not stand against that and say enough is enough and do whatever we have to do to stop it?” Safadi asked.
Safadi touched on the humanitarian crisis in northern Gaza and Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and international humanitarian law, saying, “What is happening in northern Gaza over the past three weeks, where an entire population has starved, and not a single truck of food or medicine
has been allowed into Gaza for weeks.”
“The number of victims of Israeli aggression has now exceeded 43,000, in addition to tens of thousands of people buried under the rubble, as well as the starvation of an entire population, and we have not only seen the aggression continue, but we have seen it escalate against innocent people in Gaza, and we have seen a quieter war against Palestinians in the West Bank and against all the fundamentals of peace, and of course we have seen the aggression now escalate and extend to Lebanon. Peace and stability are now jeopardized by an aggression whose only goal is more war, more killing, more destruction, and the consequences are dire, not only in terms of the unacceptable human toll we are currently seeing, but also in terms of the implications for our international system, international law and international humanitarian law. Israel has violated every provision of international law and international humanitarian law, and what Israel is doing not only defies international
law, it defies European values, and I am referring to the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Is Israel violating this agreement or not?” Safadi said.
Safadi also stressed the need to stop the killing and destruction, undermine the prospects for peace, and violate international law, international humanitarian law and European values. “Let us look at the number of humanitarian workers who have been killed, the largest number in any conflict the world has seen in decades, the number of journalists who have been killed, the number of women and children who have been killed and amputated, and children left without parents to take care of them, in the middle of an entire region reduced to rubble, where there is no electricity, water or functioning hospitals, this is the reality that we must speak against very effectively, and we must take immediate action to ensure that it stops, and stops now, because with every day it goes on, everything in us changes, that’s the reality we have to face.”
“There is no alternative
to the two-state solution; the only alternative is more war, the other alternative is apartheid, which is what we see now in the occupied Palestinian territories, and we should not allow ethnic cleansing to happen, we should not allow genocide to happen,” Safadi concluded.
In a joint press conference with Borrell, Albares, and UfM Secretary General Nasser Kamel, Safadi said ‘the UfM was born out of the Barcelona Process to contribute to peace, stability and a better future for our peoples.”
“But we meet today while Israel is killing peace, undermining stability and making the future full of conflicts and wars because it continues to kill children and bury mothers under the rubble of their homes. When we gathered here last year, Israel killed about 15,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and today we are meeting with the number of Palestinians who died as a result of Israeli aggression exceeding 43,000 in an inhumane aggression on Gaza. Innocent people are killed, in addition to more than ten thousand buried under the
rubble of their homes, schools and hospitals,” Safadi added.
Safadi referred to the meeting of the Israeli Knesset today and the two draft laws that was palced on its agenda to prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from operating, which confirms that a member state of the United Nations defies the will of the international community and works to prevent an organization established by the United Nations General Assembly by the will of the international community in what “represents a precedent that cannot and should not pass without an effective international response, not only to protect the children of Palestine who will starve if UNRWA does not provide them with aid and the children of Palestine who will not find schools to go to if UNRWA does not open its schools that Israel has destroyed the vast majority of them; but also to protect what remains of the credibility of the United Nations, international law and international humanitarian law. Will the world accept that Israel defies it
s will in this blatant way and closes down an organization created by the international community? If it does that, let us admit that there will be no credibility left for all international laws, for all international humanitarian laws, and for any talk about the necessity of applying international law to everyone without exception and without discrimination.”
“What Israel is doing in northern Gaza is a crime of ethnic cleansing, killing children in northern Gaza, denying them medicine, preventing UNRWA from doing its work, using starvation as a weapon in Gaza, and bombing schools, mosques and churches. These are the actions of a rogue state that the International Court of Justice is now considering a case against it for genocide, and the question is how long the world will allow Israel to inflict this destruction in Gaza, and now it is inflicting similar destruction in Lebanon, displacing more than 1.2 million Lebanese from their homes so far, and no deterring measure or even a binding resolution from the S
ecurity Council resolution saying enough is enough and that no state in this day and age can be allowed to commit all these crimes without response. And those who speak out are subjected to bullying campaigns that we’ve seen against the UN Secretary General, we’ve seen against the High Commissioner for Foreign Policy, we’ve seen against Spain, we’ve seen against the French President. Israel is doing all of this simply because no one is stopping it from doing so. It is time for the world to act to protect its values, its laws, its principles, its joint action, and to protect children who have been deprived of their lives, their homes, their schools, their right to food, medicine, a bite of bread, or a sip of water.,” Safadi explained.
Safadi called on partners in the UfM to take effective action to preserve international law and international humanitarian law and stop its violations by Israel, saying, “Our call to all our partners in the Union for the Mediterranean, Europe was built on international law and k
nows the importance of preserving international law, so how can Europe not act now while this law is being violated with a crudeness that the world has not seen for years, so our call to our partners in the Union for the Mediterranean, and to the entire international community, is that enough is enough, move to save what can be saved of the credibility of international law, of multilateral action and of innocent children, women and men, who have lost everything, because in Israel there is an extremist government, in which an active minister spoke yesterday, calling for the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes, a minister in a government recognized by the world calls for committing a war crime, and we have not seen a response to that either, so we call on our partners in the European Union to take action. These wars cannot continue, this aggression must stop, and the supply of weapons that Israel uses to kill innocent people must be stopped, sanctions must be imposed, our region must be protected, becaus
e whatever happens in the Middle East is immediately reflected on Europe. The region must be protected from the actions of this Israeli government.”
In response to a question, Safadi stressed that the call to recognize the Palestinian state is a call made by the Arab countries and many countries or a number of European countries that have recognized the Palestinian state, including Spain, Slovenia, Ireland, Malta and Norway, in addition to other countries that have recognized it, and stressed that this is an important step, and we call on all European countries to take it as well and to recognize the Palestinian state as a full member of the United Nations.
On the peace agreement with Israel, Safadi reiterated that no one has offered the Palestinian cause what Jordan has offered and is offering. “When the time was a time of war, Jordan fought and offered martyrs on the soil of Palestine, and when the Arabs decided collectively, and there was an international will that negotiations would be the way to approa
ch the conflict, Jordan negotiated and obtained its rights and recovered its land, and enshrined in its agreement the need to fulfill the Palestinian right to self-determination and the removal of injustice and oppression,” Safadi said.
Safadi explained that the agreement is used by Jordan to serve Palestine and peace, “because all the roles we play now are because the peace agreement enables us to do so. If we cancel the peace agreement, the only ones who would benefit from that now are the Israeli extremists who want to disavow their obligations under the agreement, whether to Jordan or to the Palestinian people.”
Safadi underscored that Jordan, as part of the historical Hashemite custodianship of Islamic and Christian holy sites, plays a key role in protecting the Arab, Islamic and Christian identity of these holy sites, and the Jordanian-Israeli peace agreement allows or recognizes a special role for Jordan in managing the holy sites. Without the Jordanian role, there would have been a vacuum that Israe
l exploited to impose its sovereignty over the holy sites and change their Arab, Islamic and historical identity. We in Jordan are nothing but confident that we support Palestine, support the right of the Palestinian people to their freedom, dignity and their independent, sovereign state on their national soil with occupied Jerusalem as its capital, on the basis of the two-state solution that guarantees security and peace for all.”
Safadi continued, “All Arab countries have chosen peace as a strategic choice, and we are all in the Arab and Islamic countries committed to this peace, but the peace we want is the real peace that the peoples accept, which can only be achieved if the occupation ends, and the Palestinian people obtain their full legitimate rights, primarily their right to freedom and a sovereign state on the June 4, 1967 borders, with occupied Jerusalem as its capital, therefore when we speak as Arab countries, we all say that we have a solution that we put forward, which is the solution that embo
dies the Palestinian state to live in security and peace next to Israel. But the question is, what solution does Israel offer? It has offered nothing. Its prime minister is reneging on his commitment to a two-state solution, and the Israeli Knesset is passing a law that prevents the materialization of a Palestinian state, thus killing the chances of achieving a just and comprehensive peace.”
He stressed that the Kingdom has stood and will continue to stand with the Palestinian people and their right to freedom, statehood and dignity, and with their right and the right of all peoples of the region to live in security, peace and stability.
Safadi underlined that Jordan continues to work with partners to put an end to the aggression in Gaza and Lebanon and the unilateral measures that undermine the prospects for peace in the West Bank as the only path to achieving a just and lasting peace that will guarantee security and stability for all, and for all peoples of the region, stressing that the priority now is t
o end the aggression, the humanitarian disaster, the war crimes being committed in Gaza and Lebanon, and the violations of international law.
In response to a question, Safadi noted that Israel is undermining the two-state solution by building settlements, confiscating land, and strangling the Palestinian economy. “These are illegal actions that were taking place long before October 7, 2024 saw the largest land grab in 30 years, and last year broke the record in the number of settlement expansions we see.”
Safadi reiterated that the two-state solution is the only path to a just and lasting peace, saying, “There is simply no alternative; the only alternative is more conflicts, because if it is not the two-state solution, it will be apartheid, because Israel will not grant 5 million Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza their rights, so the two-state solution is the solution that will guarantee peace and security for the two peoples and the region, or the continuation of the same thin
g with continued occupation, and therefore, if you kill the two-state solution, you are moving towards an apartheid reality that is ugly and leads only to more war and conflict.”
Safadi held bilateral talks with EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell, Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanya Fayon, Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister for International Relations and Foreign Minister Ervin Ibrahimovic, José Manuel Albares, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union, and Cooperation of Spain, and Bahraini Foreign Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani on developments in the region, efforts to stop the Israeli aggression against Gaza and Lebanon, the dangerous escalation in the West Bank, and ensuring the protection of civilians.
Safadi also discussed with them bilateral relations and means of enhancing them in various fields.
Source: Jordan News Agency