NST Leader: Of EU and Israel
Palestinian protesters wave Palestine flag over Israeli security room during clashes at Tayaseer checkpoint as they try to cross the checkpoint to reach the Jordan valley, near the West Bank city of Tubas, 06 June 2022. According to Palestinian medical sources, 25 Palestinians were wounded during clashes that erupted as they attempted to cross the checkpoint during a protest against the Israeli settlements. - EPA pic
WHY isn't there a Palestinian state? This is at least a 74-year-old question, but it is worth asking again. Yes, why? Because Israel doesn't want it. And so doesn't the United States. But they are not the only ones.
The European Union, a grouping of 27 countries, appears not to want it, too, if the May 23 speech of the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Mestola, to the Israeli Knesset is anything to go by.
No, this is no misreading of Mestola's intent. Or that of the EU. After all, she was speaking of the European project. Here is why.
Begin with the future, the stated purpose of her address to the Israeli lawmakers. What exactly is this future? Growing the existing strong bond between Europe and Israel. We have no quarrel with this, but shouldn't this partnership be conditioned, especially when the partner is a settler colonialist and occupier of Palestinian territories?
If European corporate contracts can be conditioned on the observance of international human rights laws, surely the EU's partnership with Israel can be based on Tel Aviv ending occupation and settler colonialism.
No, there was no mention of settler colonialism nor occupation of Palestinian territories. There was no mention at all of Israel's atrocities committed against the Palestinians. Just a year earlier — not to mention anything about the ongoing killings of Palestinians — the Israelis rained bombs on Gaza killing 248 civilians, 66 of them children, and injuring 1,900.
Yes, civilians. Except for Hamas, there are no Palestinian soldiers to speak of. Yet, Mestola wasn't moved to give space to this in her speech. This wasn't Mestola's or Brussels' message. It was about peace for Israel and Europe. Not for Palestine or Palestinians.
Perhaps this is why she so proudly mentioned Golda Meir, the only female prime minister of the Zionist regime. To Mestola, she was one of the titans of Israel. A tyrant is more like it. To Meir, the Palestinians didn't exist or so Al Jazeera quotes her as telling The Sunday Times of London and The Washington Post in June 1969. "When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state?... It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist," Meir was quoted as having said. Titan or tyrant?
Meir had made it clear which she was. We ask: is this a subtle way of Brussels telling the Palestinians that there would be no state for them because, like Meir put it in 1969, they do not exist? Like the African-Americans in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the Palestinians have become invisible. Israel doesn't "see" them. America doesn't "see" them, either.
Now the EU tells us it doesn't "see" the Palestinians. If so, who are Israelis killing? Whose homes are the illegal Jewish settlers demolishing? Who are the Israelis keeping under occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem?
We tell the EU this: stop pretending to support the two-state solution by making perfunctory statements on creating a "secure Israel" and a "viable Palestine", like Mestola did in her speech, when all Brussels is interested in is growing an all-powerful Greater Israel in Arab land. But know this. Brussels is also growing Israeli impunity.
WHY isn't there a Palestinian state? This is at least a 74-year-old question, but it is worth asking again. Yes, why? Because Israel doesn't want it. And so doesn't the United States. But they are not the only ones.
The European Union, a grouping of 27 countries, appears not to want it, too, if the May 23 speech of the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Mestola, to the Israeli Knesset is anything to go by.
No, this is no misreading of Mestola's intent. Or that of the EU. After all, she was speaking of the European project. Here is why.
Begin with the future, the stated purpose of her address to the Israeli lawmakers. What exactly is this future? Growing the existing strong bond between Europe and Israel. We have no quarrel with this, but shouldn't this partnership be conditioned, especially when the partner is a settler colonialist and occupier of Palestinian territories?
If European corporate contracts can be conditioned on the observance of international human rights laws, surely the EU's partnership with Israel can be based on Tel Aviv ending occupation and settler colonialism.
No, there was no mention of settler colonialism nor occupation of Palestinian territories. There was no mention at all of Israel's atrocities committed against the Palestinians. Just a year earlier — not to mention anything about the ongoing killings of Palestinians — the Israelis rained bombs on Gaza killing 248 civilians, 66 of them children, and injuring 1,900.
Yes, civilians. Except for Hamas, there are no Palestinian soldiers to speak of. Yet, Mestola wasn't moved to give space to this in her speech. This wasn't Mestola's or Brussels' message. It was about peace for Israel and Europe. Not for Palestine or Palestinians.
Perhaps this is why she so proudly mentioned Golda Meir, the only female prime minister of the Zionist regime. To Mestola, she was one of the titans of Israel. A tyrant is more like it. To Meir, the Palestinians didn't exist or so Al Jazeera quotes her as telling The Sunday Times of London and The Washington Post in June 1969. "When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state?... It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist," Meir was quoted as having said. Titan or tyrant?
Meir had made it clear which she was. We ask: is this a subtle way of Brussels telling the Palestinians that there would be no state for them because, like Meir put it in 1969, they do not exist? Like the African-Americans in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the Palestinians have become invisible. Israel doesn't "see" them. America doesn't "see" them, either.
Now the EU tells us it doesn't "see" the Palestinians. If so, who are Israelis killing? Whose homes are the illegal Jewish settlers demolishing? Who are the Israelis keeping under occupation in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem?
We tell the EU this: stop pretending to support the two-state solution by making perfunctory statements on creating a "secure Israel" and a "viable Palestine", like Mestola did in her speech, when all Brussels is interested in is growing an all-powerful Greater Israel in Arab land. But know this. Brussels is also growing Israeli impunity.
Hamas does not recognise Israel's right to exist in peace.
ReplyDeleteThere is no acceptable Palestinian partner to engage with for peace.