Who are the fools that reward Israel’s criminal behaviour?
By Stuart Littlewood
Redress information, 15 December 2008
Stuart Littlewood highlights the rank hypocrisy and double standards of
British and European friends of Israel who not only brazenly defend Israeli war
crimes, racism and other violations of basic Palestinian human rights, but seek
to reward Israel for its criminal behaviour.
Members of the European Parliament recently took a critical view of proposals to
upgrade the EU-Israel Association Agreement and put down amendments designed to
toughen up the conditions. "It's time for the Israeli government to stop
considering itself above the law and start respecting it," warned Luisa
Morgantini, the Parliament’s vice-president.
As a result, the vote was postponed – “a political stunt", said the frustrated
Israel lobby. In the meantime, all 27 EU ministers voted unanimously to approve
the upgrade. However, it is not a done deal just yet. The EU Parliament still
has to vote on this.
Most citizens, myself included, are baffled by the way the EU operates. One
thing is certain: it has little to do with democracy. I seem to remember that
when they voted in 2002 to suspend the EU-Israel Agreement on account of
Israel’s continual violation of human rights, they were ignored by the
Commission and Council of Ministers – that’s Western democracy for you.
Meet Israel’s European friends
Why would anyone in Europe think it a good idea to reward Israel’s disregard for international law and common decency? One of the MEPs in my region in England, a Conservative Friend of Israel, explained his position:
I have been closely following recent developments in the Middle East... I believe there is significant benefit in closer economic and commercial ties between the EU and the only functioning and embedded democracy in the Middle East. I have great sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians ... but, in my view, the state of Israel has been placed in an impossible position by the continuation of terrorist attacks mounted from Gaza. The motive behind the Israeli restrictions was a refusal to tolerate unending and increasing attacks from Hamas and other terrorist groups... I wish to see a two-state solution with an essentially Jewish state of Israel at peace with an essentially Palestinian neighbour, which is free from thuggery and terrorism, and where democracy and social and economic well-being can flourish.
Another, also Conservative, wrote in similar vein:
I am familiar with the situation in Israel and the occupied territories as well as the suffering of many innocent Palestinian caught up in the maelstrom of the terrorist actions of Hamas and the Israeli counter attacks... The Conservatives are opposed to any new settlement building in the occupied territories yet I support an enhanced agreement with Israel, because Israel, as a democratic government, is very similar to Britain. They hold free and fair elections, have a free press, healthy and lively public debate, an independent judiciary and uphold the rule of law. Because of these values Israel finds itself at the front line fighting the existential threat of Islamist terrorism.
Note the way the situation is redefined to make Israel smell good: Hamas the
terrorist, Israel only responding, Israel imposing “restrictions" (when in truth
it’s a full-blown blockade all the way down to shelling Gazan fishing boats),
wishing to see a Palestinian neighbour “free from thuggery" (that’s funny coming
from people who admire and support an apartheid state, the
plain-language description of Israel by the president of the UN General
Assembly, Miguel d'Escoto, and many, many others).
Yet another Conservative MEP the other side of the country sent out the same
distorted framing of the situation, which we can assume is “standard issue" in
the Conservative Party. He too was "very familiar with the situation in Israel
and the occupied territories", adding that the separation barrier had
“considerably reduced the ability of suicide bombers to cross over and kill
innocent Israeli civilians who are still subject to Hamas rockets launched from
Gaza".
It angers me that these MEPs claim to know everything but actually know only the
nonsense they are spoon-fed. Israel is no liberal Western-style democracy, it is
an ethnocracy with a racist agenda. I am deeply offended to be told by such
ignorant people that we in Britain share its values. And when I recently asked a
newspaperman in Jerusalem if the Israeli press was free he laughed in my face.
Most of the time Israel bars journalists, and even medics, from entering Gaza to
witness and report.
Upholding the rule of law? Maybe for Jews. Some 9,000 Palestinians, including
women and children, abducted from their homes, are banged up in Israeli prisons,
many without charge or trial. There are several reports, even by Israeli
organizations such B'Tselem, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and
the Centre for the Defence of the Individual, drawing attention to Israel’s
torture and medical neglect of prisoners and detainees.
When the Palestinians exercised their democratic right in free and fair
elections in 2006, Israel and Western leaders rejected their choice and resolved
to destroy their embryonic democracy and bring Palestinian civil society to its
knees in an orgy of vicious collective punishment. As for the Hamas government
now confined to Gaza, does it not have a perfect right under international law
to take up arms (the same right the Israeli government pretends is exclusively
its own) to defend its people against the brutal oppression of an illegal
invader and occupier?
As for terrorists, anyone who has been to the Holy Land knows who they are.
How come the EU finds it so difficult to uphold justice in the Middle East? Meet
the European Friends of Israel (EFI). And what does the EFI do? Its purpose
includes:
- expanding and reinforcing European support of Israel.
- providing decision-makers and those who influence public opinion with
propaganda lies about the Middle East, and, evidently, there are enough
gullible fools to swell EFI’s ranks.
At the core of EFI’s work, says the website, is a belief that Israel
deserves better recognition of the cultural and democratic bonds that it shares
with the EU. EFI’s objective is to “improve and help foster an
environment in which Israel’s commercial interests are enhanced. Our aim is to
increase the number of Europeans who share this belief and encourage them to
take individual political action."
In signing up to support such a lawless foreign power, how can our politicians
possibly conform to the Principles of Public Life, in particular the Principle
of Integrity, which lays down that holders of public office should not
place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals
or organizations that might seek to influence them in the performance of their
official duties?
And have they bothered to read and understand the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, which they are pledged to observe and promote?
EFI, as you might expect, is economical with the truth. It says that Israel
didn't really want to build the Wall and resisted doing so for more than 35
years, but “was forced to act... It is important to stress, as repeatedly
mentioned by Israeli officials, that the fence is not political, and is not a
border."
On the contrary, the Wall has been instrumental in Israel’s seizure of more than
38 per cent of the West Bank, including prime agricultural land and strategic
water resources. These areas are now off-limits to Palestinians. Eighty per cent
of the West Bank's precious water is diverted to illegal settlers while
Palestinians are strictly rationed or go without. If it is simply a security
fence, then why wasn’t it built within Israel’s recognized border?
Is an Israeli life more precious than a Palestinian life?
Another EFI gem was this statement after 27 months of siege:
Faced with unremitting rocket attacks from Gaza (4,000 rocket and mortar attacks on its civilians since the Jewish state dismantled every settlement and removed every settler from Gaza in 2005), the government of Israel has shown great restraint as it takes action to defend its citizens, the right and the prime obligation of any nation.
We hear the non-stop mantra about home-made rockets "raining down" on Sderot
(although only 1 in 500 causes a fatality) but nothing of the countless
thousands of Israeli bombs, missiles, grenades and tank shells that are blasted
into Gaza's tight-packed humanity. And nothing about how Israel still occupies
Gaza’s airspace and coastal waters and all the Strip’s entries and exits.
EFI urges the freeing of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and "wants to
keep awakening the conscience of the world, to display to Gilad’s family that
Europe has not abandoned their son". But it shows no such concern for the 6,500
children arrested by the Israeli army in the last eight years, usually after
bursting into their homes between midnight and 4 a.m., and the use of handcuffs,
blindfolds and leg shackles on these youngsters. They are held for up to 90
days, incommunicado and without access to a lawyer.
Nor do they urge the freeing of the 30-odd Palestinian MPs and legislators
kidnapped and still under “administrative detention".
So where is the balance expected of our EU legislators and decision-makers? Sad
though it is, the Shalit story needs to be seen in context. To Palestinians,
this is just another trained killer in Israel’s occupation force. How many women
and children had his tank blown to smithereens? How many homes had it reduced to
rubble? How much infrastructure, probably paid for by European taxpayers, had it
wrecked?
Why aren’t the same powerful voices speaking up for the sons of Palestinians
snatched from their homes and locked up in Israeli jails? In the Holy Land
struggle eight Palestinians die for every Israeli. When it comes to children,
the kill-rate is 11 to 1. Is an Israeli life deemed more precious that a
Palestinian life?
I am greatly encouraged by the news that a group of human rights lawyers has now
filed charges of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court
against Israel and its leaders – Olmert, Barak, Vilnai, Dichter and Ashkenazi.
Their bloodstained hands have no doubt been eagerly clasped by their many
“friends" in Brussels.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. For further information please visit www.radiofreepalestine.co.uk.
