Top EU diplomat laments failure to ‘stop’ Netanyahu

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell voices regret that no power, including the United States, can “stop” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he appears determined to continue fighting in Lebanon and Gaza.

“What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems to be able to stop Netanyahu, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank,” Borrell tells a small group of journalists as he attended the UN General Assembly.

Israel has repeatedly sparred with the top EU diplomat, and Foreign Minister Israel Katz recently accused him of being antisemitic.

Borrell says he backs an initiative by France and the United States for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel has brushed aside as it steps up strikes on Hezbollah targets, in a days-old campaign that has killed hundreds.

Borrell says Netanyahu has made clear that the Israelis “don’t stop until Hezbollah is destroyed,” much as in its nearly year-old campaign in Gaza against fellow Iranian-backed militant group Hamas.

“If the interpretation of being destroyed is the same as with Hamas, then we are going to go for a long war,” Borrell says in English.

The outgoing EU foreign affairs chief again calls for diversifying diplomacy from the United States, which has tried for months unsuccessfully to seal a truce in Gaza that would include the release of hostages.

“We cannot rely just on the US. The US tried several times; they didn’t succeed,” he says.

“I don’t see them ready to start again a negotiation process that could lead to another Camp David,” he says, referring to the 2000 talks at the US presidential retreat in which Bill Clinton unsuccessfully sought to broker a landmark deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.