Galway Free Palestine Campaign : The schizophrenic "morality" of the EU towards Palestine

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Monday June 23, 2008 18:46

by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

"The morality of the issue or the suffering of the Palestinians would not move ... Obama (Ilan Pappe)

Commendably, Minister of State for Overseas Development, Peter Power on 19th June announced a funding package of €241,000 for the NGO, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the funds to be used for a maternal and child health outreach programme in the Nahr El Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon with Mr Power promising to further support the Palestinian refugee population.

Commendably, to encourage "democratic" reforms in beleaguered Cuba, on the same date, the EU agreed to scrap sanctions with EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner opining to reporters that: "Of course there is clear language on human rights, on the detention of prisoners." Reprehensibly ...

Activist Mary Kelly with Maia, her son Martyn's little girl

when it comes to Palestine, the "clear language" and actions of the EU towards Israel is corrupted in a fog of hypocrisy and tokenism and if the Commissioner is exercised with the "detention of prisoners," then Israel's detention of some 11,000 Palestinians should be the stimulant to her conscience, for her not to stand hypocritically by and do something effective.?
It's the schizophrenic "morality" of the EU and Irish government that the Free Palestine Campaign addresses with our petition calling on the EU to suspend or terminate the Euro Med Agreement - which economically privileges Israel - until such time as Israel mends its criminality of which Ilan Pappe, in a recent Electronic Intifada interview is not hopeful: "I still think the worst moment was 1948 and the ethnic cleansing; but it is very bad indeed. It is the final stages of the Israeli unilateral attempt to divide the West Bank into two parts, one annexed to Israel and the other maintained as a big prison camp, or a Bantustan at best. The situation in the Gaza Strip is worse, there the "prison" is already in place, and because of the resistance by the Palestinians to the imprisonment, Israel launches an escalating policy of massive killings. The world seems indifferent, and the Arab world uninterested." http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9634.shtml

Besides the question of Palestine being the "moral issue of our age" (Nelson Mandela) it is also the beam in the blind eye of the EU which instead of terminating the Agreement and initiating immediate effective sanctions is actively in the process of cosseting that country further under the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) , true to hypocritical form "Ireland is one of several countries which, while supportive of an enhanced EU relationship with Israel, believes this must be linked to progress in the peace process." says the Irish government fresh after its refusal to press for the suspension of the Euro-Med Agreement when Dermot Ahern was at the helm of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Besides buying feel-good hypocrisy with the €241,000 for Medical Aid for Palestinians the Irish government and EU should reflect on the murderous racist obscenity that is Zionism, from the opinion of South African Minister, Ronnie Kasrils: "Can Israeli oppression of the Palestinians from 1948 onwards, and the dreadful occupation, now be compared to apartheid? Actually it's far, far worse." to maybe to just one racist salient fact that the Israeli High Court has sanctioned the use of live ammunition on peaceful Palestinian protestors, only barring its use when foreign nationals and Israeli Activists are present but which hasn't inhibited the Israeli Occupying Forces, however, as evidenced in Bil'in when Ibrahim Burnat, was shot three times in the thigh when internationals were present at last weeks protest. See Youtube Video