Belgium’s House of Representatives adopts resolution calling on government to prepare ‘counter-measures’ against an Israeli annexation, resolution urging formal recognition of a Palestinian state sent back to committee

Yossi Lempkowicz

4 years ago

Belgium should “play a leading role at European and multilateral level with a view to drawing up a list of effective countermeasures intended to respond proportionately to any Israeli annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory,” says the text of the resolution adopted on Thursday.

The resolution urging Belgium to formally recognize a ‘’State of Palestine’’ was sent back to the foreign affairs committee for further debate after the French-speaking Liberal party MR tabled several last-minute amendments that substantially changed the text.

The House of Representatives, Belgium’s lower house of Parliament, has adopted Thursday a resolution calling on the government to prepare a list of “counter-measures” against Israel if parts of the West Bank are to be annexed.

Another resolution urging Belgium to formally recognize a ‘’State of Palestine’’ was sent back to the foreign affairs committee for further debate after the French-speaking Liberal party MR tabled several last-minute amendments that substantially changed the text.

The resolution on ”effective counter-measures”, which was adopted by 101 votes in favor and 39 abstentions in the 150-member House of Representatives, had been tabled by the Greens and supported by the Socialist Party.

Belgium should “play a leading role at European and multilateral level with a view to drawing up a list of effective countermeasures intended to respond proportionately to any Israeli annexation of the occupied Palestinian territory,” says the text of the resolution.

The resolution mentions that if there is no agreement at European level on such counter-measures, Belgium should seek to set up a “coalition between like-minded member states”, to work out a common response.

“It is a matter of defending international law. There is no equidistance to be respected in this fight,”said MP Ecolo Simon Moutquin who authored the resolution.

For him, the resolution has two objectives: “On the one hand, send a message to the Israeli government ‘Don’t cross that red line’. On the other hand, give some hope to the Palestinians who have suffered injustice for decades.”