Pal-Think statement denouncing the EU's position on Israeli violence against the Gaza Strip

Tuesday 20 November 2012, Gaza

In an official statement issued by the office of the European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Ms Catherine Ashton, commenting on the current Israeli escalation against the Gaza Strip, Ms Catherine Ashton held the “Hamas” movement and the other Palestinian factions responsible for starting the current crisis with Israel. The statement further added that the European Union supports Israel's right to defend itself.

This statement confirms once again that the European Union's position does not differ greatly from the American and British positions, which are entirely biased in favour of Israel. It is a position characterised by inaccuracy and does not reflect what actually happened on the ground. The European Union's position does not take into account the enormous difference in the balance of power: while the statement affirms the right of the state of Israel to defend itself, it makes no mention at all of the right of the Palestinian people living under occupation to resist the occupier, as stipulated by international laws and legislation. The European Union's position likewise contains no reference to the dozens of civilian victims — women, children and the elderly — who were killed while they slept. Nor did the European Union's statement refer to the destruction of dozens of civilian buildings and the wrecking of service infrastructure, some of which the European Union itself helped to build.

As a reminder, the Israeli escalation directed against the Gaza Strip has led to the killing of more than 130 citizens, most of them women and children; the targeting of journalists and media institutions; and the destruction of many civilian buildings, among them the Ministry of Youth and Sport and other sporting facilities, and the civil administration building of the Ministry of the Interior, the building that houses the population registry, since that building contains historical documents more than a hundred years old, dating from the Ottoman and British Mandate eras, which it will be impossible to recover.

The European Union's position is an entirely unbalanced one that sees reality with one eye, and confirms once again that Western society still operates with a double standard. Such a deficient position does not at all encourage the achievement of peace in the region. Such unbalanced positions on the part of the European Union greatly weaken its credibility and its qualification to be a neutral mediator.

The Palestinian people greatly appreciate the European Union's positions in support of them in the fields of development, the economy, the environment and culture, but they always aspire for the European Union to play an influential role in the peace process. The Palestinian people hope that the European Union will take a position consistent with international legitimacy, which stipulates the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to obtain an independent state; the European Union must also affirm its position on the illegitimate blockade Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip for years.

The Arab Spring revolutions witnessed in some Arab countries, which have affirmed the desire of the Arab peoples to achieve more just and democratic political systems, must be met with a parallel spring in the policies of the European Union and the West in general towards the Palestinian cause. The European Union must work hard to activate its political role in the Middle East by supporting the right of the Palestinian people to establish their independent state in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a unified political and geographical entity.

Gaza, 20 November 2012.