European Union leaders must recognise that the most pressing challenge they face is an internal one — not possible disagreements with Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former national security advisor, Jacob Nagel, told Euronews.
His comments come as EU-Israel ties are coming under strain. Earlier this month, Israel's Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa'ar, severed all contact with the bloc's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, due to alleged comparisons of Israel to apartheid-era South Africa.
Meanwhile, the European Commission is under pressure from some of its member states to propose a range of options to restrict EU trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
"At the end, I think that also the EU countries will come to their senses and will realise who are the good guys and who are the bad guys," Nagel, who served for more than 40 years in Israel's Defence Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office and is now a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD), said onEuronews' interview programme 12 Minutes With.
He argued that the EU "is not relevant" — even though the bloc remains Israel's largest trading partner — echoing a statement made to Euronews by Netanyahu last year.
