Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced on Thursday the suspension of all official contacts and meetings with the European Union's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas. This decision comes in the wake of reports indicating she compared Israeli policies to the apartheid regime that previously existed in South Africa.
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In a post on his official account on the "X" platform, Sa'ar accused the European foreign policy coordinator of "acting obsessively, and with blatant bias and injustice toward Israel for a long time." He pointed to diplomatic reports that revealed she drew these comparisons during recent high-level talks in Mexico.
The European website Euractiv had quoted officials and diplomats covering the sidelines of the talks as saying that Kallas publicly compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to the historic apartheid regime in South Africa until the early 1990s. These remarks triggered a wave of widespread criticism and objections from a number of European representatives and diplomats participating in the meeting.
The Israeli Foreign Minister explained in his statement that the European side has not issued any denial, clarification, or official response regarding this serious statement so far. He followed up by saying: "This silence left us with no choice but to cut all forms of communication with Ms. Kallas."
Sa'ar conditioned the resumption of diplomatic relations with the EU foreign policy chief upon her explicit retraction of what he described as "fabricated lies" directed against Israel. He reiterated his defense of Israeli policies, calling it "the only Jewish state, and the only democracy in the Middle East," as he put it.
