When is sovereign territory not sovereign?

'These settlements are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7256576.stm

The EU is nothing if not hypocritical. It is perfectly happy to take Serbia and carve it up, and rally around Kosovo by recognising its 'independence' a nanosecond or two after its 'government' declared it. But sixty years after Israel came into existence, and forty one years after Israel won the West Bank and Gaza (and the Golan Heights) in a defensive war, it still has no claim at all on that land. Note- the whole country of Tibet, all 965,000 square miles of it, was invaded by China in 1950, and I haven't heard more than a tiny squeak from the EU about that. There are no students chanting "Chinese are nazis", "Tibetan holocaust", "Chinese are baby murderers", "Chinas Tibet: the new apartheid" in front of the Chinese embassy. Israel puts up with this sort of abuse on an hourly basis.

So I guess when it comes down to it, soveriegnty is a moving target. If you are Jewish or Serbian, you never really know if you are the soveriegn owners of land; whereas if you have the Peoples Army and a billion factories, or if you are the Palestinian Arabs, you can always find people to go along with your extremely dubious claims to sovereignty.

So how does this sit with the EU claim to be all about International Law (when it comes to US actions round the world) and to be the beacon of all that is good and right? Not well.

I believe there are going to be two outcomes from these decisions- first, minority populations in virtually every country in the world will see it as a huge boost to their own campaigns to split away from the majority. Secondly, the Islamists who have insisted that every inch of soil that was ever part of the Umma must perforce be Islamic for all time will see this as a vindication of their head-hacking, rioting, murders and threats of violence. They will see Kosovo as another victory like their 'victory' in defeating the Soviet colossus, except this time it is the EU they have been victorious over. Forget the facts, this event fits perfectly into their fantasy world-view, and the propaganda which trumpets that world view across the internet into young mens bedrooms from Calgary to Kuala Lumpur.

They can't say they haven't been warned. The Russians have said repeatedly that cutting out the historical heart of Serbia would have repercussions for many other successionists the world over, many of whom the Europeans DON'T support. But I suspect that the decadent Europeans don't really care- they want their way and they don't really care what gets broken. They are spoiled brats with no sense of responsibility.