The Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, announced this Thursday the cutting of “all contact” with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallas, accusing her of having compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with apartheid South Africa.
“As Foreign Minister of the State of Israel, I have no choice but to cut off all contact with Mrs. Kallas until she retracts the blood libel directed at the only Jewish state in the world, which is also the only democracy in the Middle East,” Saar wrote on the social network X.
A “blood libel” (also called blood slander) is a false and anti-Semitic accusation that claims, since the Middle Ages, that Jews kidnap and murder children of a religion other than their own to use their blood in various rituals.
The leader of Israeli diplomacy based this statement on a publication in the media Euractivaccording to which the diplomat made this comparison in a series of closed-door meetings during a visit to Mexico.
“Ms. Kallas, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy and Security Policy, has been acting for a season in an obsessive manner and with flagrant injustice towards the State of Israel,” Saar’s message begins.
The minister accuses her of not having denied, clarified or responded to these statements, alleging that the only possible solution is to cut ties with her: “And that is what I am doing,” concludes the message on social networks.
Euractiv It states that Kallas compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to apartheid in South Africa in the 1990s and, according to some officials present at these meetings, explained that she felt “moved” after a visit to the museum about it in Johannesburg.
Kallas visited Israel and the Palestinian territory of the West Bank in March 2025, maintaining a position critical of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, but also vindicating Israel’s right to self-defense.
Now, in the Brussels bubble it is understood that the former Prime Minister of Estonia is hit by a controversy caused by her adversaries in the EU itself, starting with the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with whom the relationship is more than tense. The moment is also complex, because several countries (such as France or Germany) have proposed a possible deep restructuring of the European External Action Service (EEAS) that Kallas commands.
A term used by the UN
The United Nations and Organizations such as Amnesty International have compared the treatment of the Palestinian population to South African apartheid, with both Gaza and the West Bank being walled to remain separated from the territory of Israel, which controls the movements of the population and has a strong military presence in these territories.
In the case of the West Bank, the UN pointed out in a January report that among these similarities is how Israel applies two different legal systems to the population, giving unequal treatment to its settlers (who reside in violation of international law in the enclave) and the Palestinians.
