After Sa’ar cuts contact, EU’s Kallas says bloc committed to ‘constructive’ ties with Israel, keeps mum on reported apartheid comparison

European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stresses that the EU is “committed to a constructive relationship” with Israel, after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that he is cutting off contact with her after she reportedly compared Israel to South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Kallas does not address the reported remarks in her response.

“Dear Gideon, as you know, the EU and Israel have a lot that binds us. I value our dialogue and engagement, and I’m open to continue in that spirit, respectfully and constructively. Dialogue is the foundation of diplomacy, especially when differences arise. The EU is always committed to a constructive relationship with Israel,” Kallas writes on X.

Apparently rejecting Sa’ar’s accusation that she has acted “obsessively and with blatant unfairness” in her approach to Israel, Kallas reiterates the EU’s stance that the two-state solution is “the only viable path” to “bring peace to the Middle East,” and that the bloc has therefore “condemned the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank that make it increasingly difficult to get to that goal.”

Dear Gideon, as you know, the EU and Israel have a lot that binds us. I value our dialogue and engagement, and I’m open to continue in that spirit, respectfully and constructively. Dialogue is the foundation of diplomacy, especially when differences arise. The EU is always…

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) June 18, 2026

Despite his severing contact, Sa’ar responds to Kallas in a Hebrew-language post on X, telling her, “even in your statement here, you avoid denying or condemning” the reported remarks, saying this “speaks for itself.”

“To the best of my knowledge,” he continues, the reported remarks “do not reflect the position of the European Union.”

“The matter is simple: if you did in fact make these disgraceful and defamatory remarks, then stand behind them. If you did not make them, deny it. As long as this cloud remains unresolved, my decision will stand,” he says.

It is unclear exactly what cutting contact with Kallas will entail, and whether it applies only to Kallas herself or to her office and other bodies under her supervision as well, though, given the significance of her role, it is most likely the former.

The terms were similarly vague when Sa’ar decided to cut contact with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last month after he placed Israel’s security forces on his blacklist of entities said to be credibly accused of sexual violence in war zones.