EU concordance with Israeli state terror

The latest upsurge in Israeli state and settler terrorism is not without recent precedent and precautions which are easily overlooked as the world resumes its spectator stance while Palestinians fall as its victims. Since the terrorist arson attack by Jewish settlers in Duma in July, Netanyahu’s government has incited violence against Palestinians and ordered further repressive measures, citing “security concerns” in order to provide impunity for further, widespread attacks by security officials and heavily-armed settlers. Palestinian retaliation is dismissed as “terrorism”.

However, Palestinian resilience has prompted two diverging narratives. The first relates to a ritual debate as to whether the Palestinian mobilisation against settler and state violence constitutes a new intifada. Such discussion may or may not detract from reality, depending on what criteria and historical narrative such analysis employs. The second, vile narrative has been articulated by EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, who has capitalised upon Israeli violence to urge further diplomatic compromise.

Distorting colonial violence into “tensions”, Mogherini declared, “Far from preventing the resumption of a political dialogue, the latest tensions should push both parties to work together for the sake of their people.” According to the Times of Israel, Mogherini spoke with both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and with Mahmoud Abbas, insisting that, “A negotiated two-state solution is the only way to bring the lasting peace and security that both Israelis and Palestinians deserve.”

Mogherini’s comments provide ample proof of intentional diplomatic distortion of the facts. Israeli settlers and their colonial government are not deserving of any peace or security; they act outside international laws and conventions. The EU, however, is seeking ways through which to reward Israel for its extrajudicial killings of Palestinian civilians by insisting upon further depletion of Palestinian territory. The international community’s alleged logic follows the twisted aspirations of Israel’s colonial aspirations; fewer Palestinians on the land, thanks to the various forms of extermination used by Israel, which results in more land “free” of Palestinians for settlement expansion and the accommodation of illegal Jewish settlers.

Given that there has been no evidence of any genuine “credibility” in any political process approved by the international community for Palestine, Mogherini is regurgitating stale rhetoric that spells out nothing new. Indeed, the tedious repetition of searching for an agreement on a two-state compromise is predictable and has provided fodder for futile statements calling for “calm” every time Israel violates international law. It is, however, a mistake to ignore or dismiss such rhetoric, to which international leaders always resort. The element of consistent discriminatory discourse does not reflect a lack of thought or strategy. It is an affirmation of Israel’s impunity at an international level, consolidated by its supporters’ insistence that the acutely asymmetric warfare is actually a struggle between equals — when, clearly, it is anything but — and thus lending the violence by heavily-armed colonists and those who are colonised a degree of equivalence — when, legally and morally, there isn’t — as well as eliminating historical narratives.

International leaders, Mogherini included, seem to forget that the “escalating tensions” jargon used in their superfluous statements is achieving little to censor the images of Palestinians’ death throes with multiple gunshot wounds. Once again, despite media distortion and diplomatic hypocrisy, the world is attuned to the systematic violence that Netanyahu and his illegal settlers have unleashed. However, the sensationalism accompanying such graphic atrocities needs to be eliminated and a practical approach applied, one that avoids constructing planned forms of extermination into a transient phase.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.