Brussels – 22 Jan 2024
Comment of the European Palestinian Council for Political Relations on the decision of the European Parliament –
The humanitarian situation in Gaza and the ceasefire
January 18th 2024
It is no longer surprising that the European Parliament puts forward strange recommendations – although they are not binding on the political and executive bodies of the European Union, they have a moral significance on which to build a political position that could affect both the executive of the European Union and the lives and fates of millions of people.
On October 19, 500 European politicians voted on recommendations to condemn Hamas, the humanitarian situation in Gaza and a ceasefire, with 21 votes against and 24 abstentions. The majority voted against a ceasefire based on false data that is misleading and unproven. This vote resulted in the European leaders and the European Union and their political position being obscured, which was seen as an encouragement for the occupation to continue committing massacres against the Palestinian people, which continue to this day.
After more than a hundred days of war and countless crimes committed by Israeli occupation forces, after the targeted killings of 115 journalists who made the horrific images from the Gaza Strip available to the world, after the destruction of dozens of human rights organizations that provided information about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and despite the indiscriminate attacks on schools, hospitals, religious sites and cultural institutions, in which thousands of civilians, especially children and women, fell victim through the use of intelligent weapons, the European Union ignored these facts and relied solely on the sources of the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
After UNICEF announced that the Gaza Strip had become the most dangerous sector for children in the world and after 153 countries unanimously agreed on the need for a ceasefire, accelerating the deployment of humanitarian aid and the release of the hostages, these parliamentarians believe that They will add Europe to the list of opponents of this decision along with ten others who rejected it in the world because they made the ceasefire and the end of the war dependent on the release of the hostages, while forgetting 11,000 Palestinians, where more than half of them remain in administrative detention without charge, entirely as hostages, and the occupying state has also seized hundreds of corpses to use them as negotiating tools, according to the Israeli Knesset decision.
After the International Criminal Court began investigating war crimes against the Palestinians
and after the World Health Organization announced the catastrophic medical situation in Gaza and the lack of even basic supplies for the treatment of the wounded, and after the announcement of environmental disasters due to the collapse of infrastructure and water and the accumulation of corpses that the army either removed from cemeteries removed or prevented their burial or recovery from under the rubble of destroyed homes, which make up more than 60 percent of Gaza’s homes.
After all the popular European solidarity movement with the Palestinians, the support of their rights and the demands of millions across Europe over a three-month period to end the war on Gaza, these people are turning a deaf ear, closing their eyes and marginalizing the Palestinian voices of millions on the streets and the legal, humanitarian, trade union and political institutions therein. The European Parliament comes out with its new decision on January 18th this year.
With a decision no less bad than the first decision, even if there was a decrease in the majority, 312 members voted in favor of the decision, 131 against and 72 abstained. From calling for a ceasefire to almost completely supporting the criminal state, ignoring all points of the past and marginalizing the fact that the crimes against the Palestinian people have been going on for more than 75 years and the conflict did not start on October 7th.
The decline of the majority in the European Parliament supporting the occupation and the emergence of serious divisions within the same political blocs and parties have shown that a group of members insist on distorting the facts and misleading public opinion, such as It happened at the beginning of the war and the use of Israeli news, which later turned out to be false, gives up the European interest in not siding with the occupation at the time. In which the European Union acts as a mediator for a political solution based on the two-state solution, which the occupying state strictly rejects.
This decision conveys a sense of superiority over the Palestinian people, as many matters are approved in their name, on their behalf or for them without scrutiny, at a time when all Palestinians from all political blocs agreed that no one should has the right to approve any decision on behalf of the Palestinian people, and that he will not govern or represent the Palestinians except the Palestinians in their own way,
This group of parliamentarians destroys any objectivity and trust in any European initiative in the Middle East and embodies…
Isolation at the international level due to Europe’s position alongside Israel, the United States and Great Britain.
This position minimize the noble value of sending humanitarian assets, even if these people use it to cover up the content of the bad decision, without directly blaming the crew for not providing aid or for obstructing it, even if it is very necessary help, such as water.
Focusing on restricting the movement of some extremist settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem as a form of sanctions demonstrates the extent of hypocrisy in the handling of this decision and forgets that Europeans have an obligation under international law to stop crimes.
How do these people want to punish an extremist settler for his extremism, while they themselves, confiscated the land from the Palestinian and let this settler live in it, gave him weapons and money, considered his terrorist attacks against the Palestinians as legal and is it the same one, who commits war crimes in Gaza?
What the Palestinians are ultimately demanding is an end to the war on Gaza, an end to the siege and the importation of aid and reconstruction and an end to the double standards in dealing with both parties to the conflict.
According to the Palestinian experience, the Palestinian, with his determination, will continue his struggle and legitimate resistance against the occupation in accordance with international law until he achieves freedom, ends the occupation and obtains the right to self-determination recognized by the United Nations in establishing the State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital in accordance with Security Council and United Nations resolutions and the return of refugees in accordance with Resolution 194, even if prices are paid for this.
This has been proven in recent days, despite all Israeli crimes, American support and the overwhelming hypocrisy of Europe. Dignity and freedom are the most valuable things that the Palestinian possesses, and one must understand that this idea can only be eradicated by the complete annihilation of 14 million Palestinians.
European Palestinian Council for Political Relations EUPAC
