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The shame of Europe

4 min read Javier García

JAVIER GARCIA

As a European, in recent months I have repeatedly felt indignation and shame at the behavior of Europe and its leaders. The servile attitude towards the US designs in Ukraine - against its own interests -, the cancellation of Russian culture, the position towards China, the calls to restrict asylum to refugees, the rise of the extreme right, the imposition of the single discourse and the censorship of any different opinion were devastating symptoms.

But the position of the European Union (EU) in the face of the enormous tragedy that it is suffering and will suffer even more, if no one remedies it, the Palestinian people has exceeded all limits of what is imaginable.

I had always thought that the values ​​of the enlightenment, the concepts of freedom, peace, solidarity or justice were ideas worth fighting for and being proud of as a European. That those words that are inscribed in Western constitutions were not a fiction, but rather came from an enriching European tradition of free, humanist and plural thought.

However, the political evolution of Europe and its leaders - in parallel with the unstoppable decline of Western domination over the world - have made these values ​​increasingly lose their genuine meaning, in the mouths of politicians who proclaim them, but never defend them. .

That practically no European leader has criticized or called for restraint on the Israeli Government for leaving two million Gazans without water, without food, without light and without fuel while it bombs them without respite, is terrible and embarrassing. And even more atrocious is that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, traveled to Israel this Friday to “show solidarity”, in her words, exclusively with the Israeli victims, without mentioning the Palestinian ones. She also did so on the same day that Israel announced a 24-hour ultimatum for more than a million Palestinians to leave their homes in the north of the Strip, including Gaza City.

An ultimatum that involves expelling one million one hundred thousand Palestinians from their homes in one day, even more than those evicted during the entire sadly remembered Nakba of 1948, after the creation of the State of Israel when nearly 700 thousand Palestinians were forced to leave. behind their villages to become refugees for life.

Well, once in Israel, Von der Leyen not only endorsed that ultimatum - considered unviable and very dangerous by the UN - but she once again expressed solidarity only with the Israeli victims, while tons of bombs continued to fall on residential buildings in the fringe, on its mosques, its hospitals or on the United Nations agencies themselves. Israeli bombs that have already killed nearly 600 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. And no one in Europe seems to be ashamed of that trip, of that tremendous disregard for Palestinian suffering.

The same president of the EU Commission who a year ago before the European Parliament said: “Russia's attacks against civil infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Leaving men, women and children without water, electricity or heating, now that winter is coming, are acts of pure terror. And we should call them that.”

Rarely has the European double standard and the cynicism of its leaders been so evident. Especially when Russia did not leave the entire Ukraine without water, electricity or heating, much less, as Israel has completely left the entire Gaza Strip and its two million inhabitants - the vast majority refugees -, while bombing them in a much more savage and indiscriminate way than what Moscow has done so far with the Ukrainians.

For Von der Leyen, these victims apparently did not deserve even a comment during her visit to the country that is killing them and leaving them without light, water or food. Nor were a few words necessary, in his opinion, asking Israel to protect the civilian population in its bombings. The images of him smiling with Netayanhu, while he spoke about the “barbaric attacks” of Hamas, without saying a word about Palestinian suffering and claiming to represent all Europeans, will remain engraved in the history of infamy.

We know that the pressure from the United States on Europe is enormous. We know that the blows of a collapsing empire are usually the most dangerous, especially those of one accustomed to finding its benefit in promoting wars, generating conflicts and preventing the prosperity of others instead of trying to solve their problems or collaborating to solve them. those of the world.

We know that Europe can do little to change the course of events decided and pursued by the hegemon in Ukraine, in Gaza, in the Middle East and, if it could, in the entire world.

But without political or strategic autonomy, European leaders should show at least a minimum of decency. If you are incapable, please stop raising concepts such as humanism, freedom, solidarity or justice. Stop tinkering with values ​​that you absolutely do not pursue and have clearly abandoned.

Stop speaking on behalf of all Europeans once and for all. They do not represent us.

Javier García is a journalist. He has been head of correspondents in the Middle and Far East, Latin America, Europe and Africa, as well as a special envoy to different war conflicts. Currently, he is a professor of Journalism at Renmin University in Beijing. His last book is China, threat or hope.

 

Javier García

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