The European Union's decision to ban financing of or cooperation with Israeli institutions in the occupied Palestinian territories — namely illegal settlements — is a directive and a policy complying with all United Nations resolutions.
It highlights growing European impatience with US permissiveness enabling Israel to pursue proliferating settlements. US Secretary of State John Kerry is pursuing a futile attempt to revive a "peace process" with no clear and unequivocal admission by Israel that it is an occupying power and bound by the articles of the fourth Geneva Convention. Since June 1967, Israel has never admitted that it is an occupying power. So the ongoing proliferation of settlements is clearly one of a conquering power.
