[wvns] Saifedeen Ammous: European Hypocrisy
European Hypocrisy
By Saifedean Ammous
http://tonykaron.com/2007/07/30/european-hypocrisy-a-palestinian-view/
While in Paris a few weeks ago, whenever I would discuss Middle East
politics with anyone, I would be overwhelmed with the traditional
refrains of classical anti-Americanism: "they have no culture and deal
with the world as if it had no culture", "they have no morality in
their foreign policy", "they go to war for oil and money" and so on
with inane over-simplified stereotypes. Soon after would come the
cackle of self-righteous pride: "we Europeans are different", "we want
our foreign policy based on a concept of morality", "we attempt to
promote justice in the world and fix up the mess left behind by the
Americans". I would then usually be told something about all the aid
that Europeans give to Palestinians as proof of the decency of
Europeans as opposed to the rabidly Zionist Americans who give
billions to fund Israel's murderous army.
Would that this were true.
Europe's policy with regard to Palestine/Israel is so racist,
short-sighted, counter-productive and hypocritical that it could
almost pass for American policy.
When looking at the current situation in Palestine, an observer will
find an illegal Israeli occupation that has been festering for 40
years, combined with illegal ethnically-exclusive colonies built on
stolen Palestinian land, and the world's only ethnically-segregated
road network, where many routes can only be accessed by Jews. An
internationally-illegal apartheid barrier surrounds Palestinian towns
and villages, not only cutting them off from one another, but also
cutting off farmers from their lands, children from their schools,
patients from their hospitals and workers from their jobs. Israel
controls all of the Palestinians' openings to the outside world,
stifling not only Palestinians' freedom of movement, but also their
economy and trade. One of the world's strongest armies, the IDF, is
regularly unleashed on civilian populations in Palestine, murdering
thousands and killing innocent children with complete impunity. The
Israeli government has as its Deputy Prime Minister an unabashed
Fascist who openly and regularly calls for ethnic cleansing and mass
murder of Arabs as a solution to the conflict. Israel continues to
deny millions of Palestinians their legal right to return to their own
homes from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948, restricts
land-ownership to Jews only, and has discriminatory racist laws in
countless areas from marriage to immigration.
In the face of this travesty of justice, what is the only thing that
the Europeans do? Demand that the oppressed, the Palestinians, only
elect political parties that "recognize Israel's right to exist" as a
precondition for sitting on one table and discussing what to do about
all these travesties.
Let us first bear in mind that the idea of Hamas—or any Palestinian
political party for that matter—recognizing Israel's "right to exist"
is a patently meaningless idea that makes as much sense as Manchester
United Football Club recognizing Tanzania's "right to exist". Nowhere
is it written that nation states have a "right to exist" themselves.
What is meant by "recognition" in an international setting is what
happens when countries exchange embassies and establish diplomatic
relations. Nowhere but in Palestine has the idea of a non-state entity
recognizing a state ever been seriously discussed. Further, the
imbeciles who repeat this canard conveniently ignore that Israel is
not merely "not recognizing Palestine's right to exist", but actively,
deliberately and comprehensively destroying any chance of a
Palestinian state ever existing. But, for the morally-superior
Europeans, Hamas' "recognition" of Israel is the thing that bothers
them the most about Palestine/Israel today, and not all of the crimes
listed above. The kicker, of course, is not just that this is a
morally and logically absurd position, but that Israel's actions are
the root of the conflict, and not whether Hamas recognizes Israel.
This recognition won't change anything on the ground and won't affect
the lives of anyone in any way, but the walls, settlements, killings,
checkpoints and Israel's racist policies will. Only when these are
ended can there be peace, regardless of what Hamas "recognizes" or
declines to "recognize."
All of the aforementioned crimes by Israel constitute clear violations
of the EU Neighborhood Policy terms under which EU neighbors get
preferential access to EU markets and a slew of other benefits and
perks. The EU regularly uses its economic and diplomatic influence to
try and get countries to desist from carrying out racist policies: it
makes trade deals dependent on improvements in human, labor and
minority rights; it has made Turkey's accession to the EU dependent on
Turkey's human rights record, and has stopped Austria from bringing
Jorg Haider into the government. Far from taking any action to try to
pressure Israel to stop some of its crimes in Palestine, the EU has
cowardly chosen a policy of rewarding their transgressions with more
carrots, and Israel continues to enjoy extremely generous benefits
from its relationship with European countries, even being sold arms by
many of them.
The tragic aspect of Europe's policy with regard to Palestine today is
not just that is practically indistinguishable from the policy of the
US, but that it comes bundled with great self-righteousness and an
unshakable belief that it is not only the correct policy, but is also
vastly morally superior to anything anyone else is doing. The
financial aid provided by Europe is the major rationale supporting
this smugness.
As the Europeans continue to do nothing to stop Israel from destroying
the livelihood of the Palestinian people, they take out their
checkbooks and assuage their conscience by providing money to the
Palestinians. Before the election of Hamas, this money went to prop-up
the increasingly unpopular Palestinian Authority in order to guarantee
its survival and a continuation of the painful status quo. After
Hamas's election, they tried to surpass the PA by sending money
through increasingly complex, inefficient, and often
counter-productive mechanisms.
Here is a small microcosm of how this madness works: A Palestinian
town has a wall built surrounding it from all sides, making it
impossible for previously prosperous farmers to access their land,
patients to reach their doctors and children to reach their schools.
Naturally, the town is devastated. That's when Europeans send in their
conscience-assuaging, smugness-propping aid "experts" to "save" the
town, in the process relieving Israel from having to deal with the
consequences of its crimes. They provide the farmers with food instead
of the food they could have produced themselves, and proceed with
projects to teach Palestinians "alternative industries", "new business
models", "good local governance", "participatory development",
"creative educational techniques" and countless other meaningless
prattle that the Palestinians would gladly give up for having the wall
removed, an independent state and some sense of normalcy bestowed on
their lives. Naturally, these projects have a short shelf-life; the
funding soon dries up, the "experts" leave, but the apartheid wall
remains, the livelihood of a whole town is devastated, and the mirage
of Palestinian independence is even more distant. And worst of all:
the next time an unfortunate Palestinian like myself visits Paris,
they will be bombarded with self-righteous recitation of countless
such micro projects, and expected to bow in deference of the mighty
superiority of European morality.
This combination of criminal politics combined with generous futile
charity is what Ann Le More brilliantly dissected in her appropriately
entitled paper: Killing with Kindness: Funding the Demise of a
Palestinian State.
High percentages of European citizens have a good understanding of the
conflict and would like to see a better policy and a just solution.
Countless Europeans spend a lot of time and money in helping
Palestinians, many volunteering to travel there to protect
Palestinians and protest and document the occupation. These brave
souls are some of my personal heroes. There are many sincere and
honest European politicians who have opposed these policies. I do not
doubt the sincerity of many of those who genuinely want to improve the
lives of Palestinians, and am personally very grateful to them. But a
combination of indifference on the part of many and malice on the part
of the leaders kow-towing to the US produces this criminal policy, and
donates a lot of aid to try to appease those who care. Europeans have
to recognize that the only way things will improve is not through
charity, but proper, principled and sustained political action.
True, Europe has shown some principled and humanist action in their
foreign policy in many countries. They may give more aid, send more
peacekeepers and broker more peace deals than the Americans, and they
have certainly improved a lot in the way they deal with the world over
the last few decades. But whatever Europe does, its complicity in the
abhorrent oppression of Palestinians will remain to blight any claims
it has to moral authority. After all, you are only as moral as your
least moral action.
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