{"id":498787,"date":"2026-06-18T09:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498787\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T09:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T09:31:13","slug":"israel-cuts-contact-with-eu-foreign-policy-chief-over-reported-apartheid-comparison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498787\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel cuts contact with EU foreign policy chief over reported apartheid comparison"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sa\u2019ar\u2019s announcement came about a week after the reported comments were published. According to Sa\u2019ar, Kallas, the EU\u2019s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, has not denied, clarified or addressed the remarks.<\/p>\n

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1 View gallery <\/p>\n

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EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar <\/p>\n

(Photo: AP Photo\/Leo Correa)<\/p>\n

\u201cKaja Kallas, the high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, has for some time been acting obsessively and with disgraceful unfairness against the State of Israel,\u201d Sa\u2019ar said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was recently publicly reported that during her visit to Mexico, she compared Israel to the racist apartheid regime that existed in South Africa,\u201d he added. \u201cI thank the many European elected officials who rejected and condemned these grave remarks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sa\u2019ar said that because Kallas had not responded to the report, he had no choice but to sever contact with her.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, so far Kallas has refrained from any denial, response or reference on her part regarding the remarks,\u201d he said. \u201cTherefore, as foreign minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to cut off all contact with Ms. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel she hurled at the only Jewish state, which is also the only democracy in the Middle East. And that is what I am doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move marks another low point in Israel\u2019s relations with the EU\u2019s foreign policy leadership. Israel also boycotted Kallas\u2019 predecessor, Josep Borrell, who was repeatedly criticized by Jerusalem over his positions on the war and on Israel\u2019s conduct.<\/p>\n

Kallas had initially been seen in Jerusalem as relatively balanced toward Israel compared with some other senior EU figures. But Israeli officials say that over the past year, she has shifted her tone, in line with a broader hardening of positions among many EU leaders toward Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sa\u2019ar\u2019s announcement came about a week after the reported comments were published. According to Sa\u2019ar, Kallas, the EU\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-498787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}