European Hypocrisy: A Palestinian View

It is with great pleasure that I welcome back Saifedean Ammous, one of my favorite Rootless Cosmopolitan readers and correspondents — he really is a far better political analyst than he is at predicting football results! Saifedean, currently completing a Ph. D. at Columbia, hails from Palestine and is a passionate and eloquent advocate of its national cause, known for skewering the logic of its foes. Read more of his work at his own site, The Saif House.

European Hypocrisy

By Saifedean Ammous

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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43 Responses to European Hypocrisy: A Palestinian View

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  3. Paul, Dublin, Ireland says:

    As an Irishman and a European, I am ashamed at the cynical and craven behaviour of the EU in respect of Palestine. I believe that many EU citizens, and certainly most Irish people, deplore the fascist Israeli colonial project to enslave and ethnically cleanse the Arab people of Palestine. For my own part, I rigorously ensure that no Israeli produce comes into my home, and I spread the message as far as I can. The Irish have long and tragic experience of imperialists and therefore most of us have a deep affinity for the suffering Palestinian people. Indeed it was the Irish who gave the word Boycott to the world.

    If the EU had the backbone to embargo Israeli imports, I believe that we could have a massive influence on the implementation of UNSCR 242 & 338. After the Holocaust, it was said, never again. And yet, here we are, with the victims of the Holocaust now the perpetrators of a slow genocide and the proponents of a racist state. And the so called civilised world looks away. For shame.

  4. Bernard Chazelle says:

    “Europe’s policy is [..] so racist, short-sighted, counterproductive, and hypocritical”

    I see that Saifedean is in a flattering mood today…

    I am not sure these are the right words actually
    because they imply that Europe has a policy, which
    just happens to be a bad one. It has no such thing.
    Didn’t Gordon Brown just hail Bush’s leadership?
    Didn’t Kouchner say last week that Hamas was
    in cahoots with Al-Qaeda? (Now that Blair is out of office and
    the position of “Bush lapdog” is open, are these
    two auditioning for the part?) A feeling of moral superiority
    is a nice way to compensate for geopolitical impotence.

    I think that increasingly people just don’t care.
    Perhaps there’s a new law of relativity at work:
    if shit happens but it happens somewhere else,
    then shit does not happen.

    Not sure who Saifedean hangs out with, but
    my European friends have, by and large, zero
    illusion about the power of the EU to do much.
    Though I don’t doubt moral superiority is as much
    a European disease as an American one. Actually, if I may
    digress a little, the European variety
    is delightfully ingenious. Goes like this: “We Europeans
    have slaughtered millions, enslaved billions,
    and oppressed trillions; but now we realize
    how wrong we were, and it is this very awareness that is the source of our moral authority.” In other words, if you haven’t killed a few million Jews with your own hands and then felt bad about it, how would you know about morality? End of digression.

    The feeling of moral superiority soothes the guilty conscience.
    And the best part is, it’s cheap, dirt cheap.
    Thanks to Bush, it’s also now frightfully easy.
    When Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Katrina set the standards,
    it doesn’t take much for one to feel like Mother Teresa.

    What’s the downside of feeling morally superior?
    It’s annoying as hell for the others. Yes, but then it’s
    easy to expose (as Saif eloquently did).
    So the real question is this: does it blind people into
    pursuing immoral policies (while thinking they’re angels)?
    Yes, it does. When Niall Ferguson’s sense of moral superiority makes him praise the British empire’s “elevated aspirations,” he becomes, in effect, an apologist for the imperial conquests of today.
    And perhaps thousands of Iraqis would be alive today
    if Ferguson and his ilk hadn’t tried so hard to be
    such superior, beautiful white people. (Though, to be fair, Ferguson recognizes the empire had “blemishes,” you know, “blemishes” like
    the imprisonment, castration, and rape of 300,000 Kenyans
    or the estimated 30 million Indians who died in the great
    British-made famines of the late 19th c. Those pesky blemishes.)

    The state of Israel was a European idea to begin with.
    Europe has a moral responsibility to help the cause of justice
    in that part of the world. But moral responsibility? Who wants that?
    Who wants moral responsibility when one can have
    moral superiority and “elevated aspirations” for one tenth the cost and 10 times the enjoyment.

    Sadly, Saifedean’s anger is entirely justified.

  5. blowback says:

    I am increasingly coming to the belief that European “support” for Israel is based on racism but not just against the Palestinians. It is also based on anti-semitism. Europe “removed” a large part of its Jewish population after WW2 to Palestine and doesn’t want them back particularly now that it would have to take a large number of Russian and Sephardic Jews if Israel collapses 5 million Israeli Jews is an awful lot of people absorb***.

    ***Actually, compared to the number of Palestinians and Iraqis that will be absorbed by Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, it is nothing.

  6. blowback says:

    Sorry, the last sentence should have read “that were/will be absorbed…”

  7. Matthew says:

    Blowback: Of course, you are right. There was reason Merkel was most offended by Ahmednejad’s comments. From whose land would this European Jewish state be carved….Merkel’s not giving up Bavaria!

  8. Pingback: European Hypocrisy - A Palestinian View By Saifedean Ammous « Dandelion Salad

  9. Pingback: Recognizing Israel « The Radical Mormon

  10. Shlomo says:

    Saif,

    You make a forceful attack of Israel’s racist policies against Palestinians, and a strong case for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank. It is clear that the Occupation is bringing out the worst in Israelis–especially regarding the shooting of Iman al-Hams, which I did not know about. This is shameful, just shameful. At least in the U.S., the Haditha perpertrators do not go unpunished.

    I think the policy of not “talking to terrorists” is patent bull. The term “terrorist” has become an almost Orwellian term since 9/11, often implicitly defined as “guerilla fighters I don’t like”, and in some extreme cases, simply “Islamists”. While all terrorists are Islamists, not all Islamists are terrorists–for example, in Turkey the secular party is more destructive, and the Islamist one more democratic and moderate. Also, it seems to be the case nowadays that if you don’t talk to the radicals in power, they will be replaced with someone more radical. Which means the U.S. and Israel need to talk to Hamas already, before Army of Islam begins gaining popularity.

    But I’d like to look a bit more into the semantics of “recognizing Israel”. If the demand were truly “recognition” in the diplomatic sense as a precondition for gaining a state, this would be truly insidious. Hamas is not a state, so it can’t negotiate, but it can’t negotiate until it gets a state!

    However, I’m not sure this is what Israel means when it says “recognition”. Somehow, I don’t think it wants any Hamas embassies in Israel. So rather than using the formal, diplomatic translation of “recognition”, I’ve thought up some alternative meanings:

    –NOT deliberately killing Israeli civilians, with extra points awarded for more grotesque crimes.
    –“Recognizing” Israel’s rights to Israel proper, excluding the West Bank and Gaza.

    The second one is especially important. It’s fairly hard to negotiate if each side does not “recognize” the other as a negotiating partner. So if Hamas does not “recognize” Israel as a negotiating party, why would Israel negotiate? If Hamas truly wants to “cleanse Israel of Zionists”, as its charter says, there’s not much to negotiate, because Hamas will keep fighting even after getting the West Bank. Seen in this light, setting “recognition” as a precondition is to prevent Hamas from using negotiation as a tactic: I give you my finger, you go for my hand.

    Of course, none of that changes the fact that Israel should provide for the Palestinians. Even if it is not for moral reasons of helping the poor (which seem to have fallen from favor of late), at the very least, we should help the Palestinians to prevent further radicalization.

  11. Andrew says:

    Saif,

    I’m shocked that you left out the historical aspect of this. How did Israel come about? How did Israel gain nuclear power?

    Just as a start, both these questions lead to answers in Europe and nowhere else! Ridiculous. Although I would not treat Europe’s “projects” or attempts to assist Palestinians with such a harsh tone, noting that there must be some benefits, at least in the short term, of learning alternative methods for what needs to get done in light of the Israeli-imposed apartheid system.

  12. saifedean says:

    Shlomo,

    The first demand you state is entirely irrelevant to the issue of recognition. Incidentally, Hamas has observed, almost impeccably, a unilateral cease-fire for about 2 years now. Israel of course reciprocated.

    Your second demand means you missed the whole point of my argument on recognition. Neither Hamas nor anyone anywhere has the right, authority or obligation to recognize the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state. This makes as much sense as asking the Yankees to recognize Saudi Arabia’s right to exist as a Muslim state. To posit this as a precondition for negotiations is absurd. But what’s really disappointing for me is that yet again, you paper over all of the stuff that Israel has done and jump to find something that the Palestinians haven’t done compeltely perfectly. Come on; This recongition business is pure nonsense.

    But your last paragraph is even worse. Israel should NOT provide for Palestinians. We do NOT want their charity. We want them to stop oppressing, dispossessing occupying and ethnically cleansing us. Give us that and we won’t ask for any dime of charity.

    The poverty in Palestine is not the cause of the political situation, it is the OUTCOME, and an entirely predictable one, of a racist government oppressing a people for 60 years, denying them their homes, property, right to self-determination and countless other freedoms. Charity will not solve this.

  13. saifedean says:

    Andrew,

    You are absolutely right. But to write about Europe’s past in this issue would need books, and not an article. I wanted to concentrate on the issues of the present, which are horrendous enough even if one were to ingore all the past.

    And I do not mind European aid projects, and they are sometimes helpful, in an immediate kind of way. But the real problem that is there is that they are provided as a way to assuage guilt over real criminal policies, and that they give the illusion of the EU doing something good, when in reality they are doing the worst things possible with their policies.

  14. Shlomo says:

    Saif,

    My last paragraph was poorly worded. Obviously, the best solution that Israel can carry out is more than charity; it is ending the Occupation, as I’ve said elsewhere. When I said “provide for”, I meant both ending the Occupation and giving some assistance to Palestinians, not giving assistance while continuing Occupation.

    Your critique of my demands–that you base on Israel’s self-proclaimed Jewish character–is the secular humanist in you talking, but I don’t see how it relates. According to secular humanism, it is idiotic for Saudi Arabia to be a self-declared Moslem state just as it is idiotic for Israel to be a self-declared Jewish state. But for some reason, Hamas has never deliberately killed Saudi civilians; nor proclaimed in its charter that it wants to “cleanse” Saudi Arabia of Islamists. Only Israelis receive such special treatment. So clearly, there is something else going on.

    I propose to you a simple, yet elegant answer: maybe Hamas just hates Israelis. They refuse to recognize Israel; they target Israeli civilians; they call for “cleansing” the land of Zionists. This leaves open the possibility that Hamas simply uses negotiations (and a respite from bombings) as a tactic with which to gain power, lull everyone into a false sense of security, and then strike with force. While this answer is quite uncharitable of Hamas, the time to double-check is now, not when Ismail Haniya attains a Ministerial position in the new Israeli-Palestinian Parliament. Thus, Israel seeks “recognition” as a proof that Hamas is in fact NOT seeking an ethnic cleansing.

    Also, please note that I stated explicitly that Israel/America should talk to Hamas. What I sought to do was explain why Israel would and should find “recognition” desirable, and why Hamas’ failure to “recognize” would greatly complicate any negotiations. In short: Hamas is not blameless. Just because they oppose the hegemony of America and Israel does not make them saints. For example, take the Aksariya shrine bombers.

    Finally, one of your favorite accusations nowadays is that I “paper over” Palestinian grievances and Israel’s role in them. Nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I wrote:
    “This is shameful, just shameful. At least in the U.S., the Haditha perpertrators do not go unpunished.”
    I do not paper over what Israel has done. In fact, I take it as a given that Israel should end its increasingly apartheidal occupation of Palestnians ASAP. Especially on this blog in this context, that should be taken for granted. Everyone agrees, and lots of people have already said it better than I could.

    In contrast, YOU have not criticized Hamas misconduct with close to the vigor with which I criticize Israeli misconduct. Why is that? Is it somehow more tolerable to you when Hamas expresses genocidal sentiments than when Israel does? Because that is NOT humanistic at all, my friend!

  15. Steve says:

    Can we have an enlightened discussion?
    Israel is a small country, and I would welcome you accept it as a fact.
    The ordinary people of Israel are doctors, carpenters, clerks, scientists etc.
    These are normal people not some kind of rowing tribe.
    They want to stay and live in peace.
    Saif can not erase the history of the land, a past which has seen many of wars.
    The current residents of Israel are not responsible for the past wars.
    The current living Palestinians have a tough life, but no real right to return to a land that has been lost by the previous generations.
    The past generations were responsible for the losses due to their participation in the many senseless wars.
    If the residents of Ramallah, Nablus, Betlehem….want to live in peace, they need a representation that can reach an agreement with Israel, and end the presence of the Israeli army.
    It is not advisable to seek Iranian help to reverse the result of past wars, and perpetuate the hostility.
    One day, it is time to abandon violence.

  16. yabonn says:

    Mugged by a gang of cackling anti americans in Paris. Awful. And they were classical anti-americans at that. The worst kind. Dreadful. Glad you didn’t bow, in deference or otherwise.

    Apart of that, I understand you would like Europe to take a more pro-Palestinian stand. Would be fine with me, but as Europe has no real foreign policy and little leverage on Israel, I don’t see it happening, and don’t see it having an effect if it happened.

    Surely, though, it does make the money spend there smug, smug, smug, and no better than the money not spend by not Europe, all things considered.

    I digress, surely, from your main point : thinking oil is the reason the US is in Iraq is anti americanism, as is the belief that “oil money and free markets for a bright Iraqi future” (Bremer’s unicorn iirc?) was a bit silly. Now I know those are clichés – glad we got that tabooed.

    Or was your point about Palestine your main one? Sorry if I misunderstood – I’m not sure which one you were smuggling with the other.

  17. jon says:

    I agree saif. The things I have learned leads me to believe that Israel and Europe are once again proving might is right. They’re stepping all over palestine and others like them who don’t live up to our standards of living (sort of like we step on a bug or eat an animal). That is exactly why we cannot remain here on planet earth, if we want to preserve the biological diversity. 1 american or european is killed and there is an uproar larger than the storm on jupiter. 1 palestinian is killed and its just another day. A nation on the brink of extinction. This is exactly what is happening to biological life because humanity has outgrown its environment and it has become cancerous to the little things (might makes right). To make matters worse, an eye for an eye still holds. For every israeli killed, 10 times more palestinians are slaughtered in retaliation and in policy. This happened in Iraq – policy. Sanctions killed far more Iraqis, in a shorter span of time, than Saddam ever did. All Iraq had to do was bother us, and we completely destroyed them in response. What is remaining is just a shadow of what was there under Saddam’s rule (much much worse). Does this make any sense? Thusly, the war will never end because the palestinians will never kill enough israelies to make up for their losses. Well, it’ll end when palestine is essentially crushed beyond recognition and completely assimilated (which is what is happening now and is also happening in iraq at enormous cost). Like someone once said, if an eye for an eye were policy, noeone would be left alive.

  18. bob k says:

    The readers of Tony’s thoughtful empathetic views will be interested in the work of Axel Brot, pen name of a retired
    German defense analyst , who presents a concerned European view of the welding of the EU foreign policy to the barbarism of the Israeli and American neo-conservative agenda. Men of good will are being tossed aside across the the world as the nililism of the neocons offers the world an “Us or chaos” choice in the words of Axel Brot in the first of a three part look at the origin and cross currents of the world today, as we look at the looming dark ages of the PNAC’s totalitarian vision of the destiny of man. Saifedean Ammous’s despair is widely shared. Here is the link to Asia Times:http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IH08Aa01.html

  19. lolaone says:

    If I were much younger, I might be confused by Shlomo, Steve, and yabonn. However I’m 63 years old, have seen things done to the Palestinians by the Israelis, so abominable,that I shouldn’t repeat them here. These things happened here in the REAL world. I’ve seen olive groves bulldozed on a whim, or to use the land for a new Jewish settlement. On the farmer’s land. He wasn’t waiting for a handout. I’ve never been clear about Palestinian aid being doled out by the Israelis. How did they become the keepers of all things Palestinian? It’s a real question . Maybe someone could finally give me a straight answer. Thanks. lolaone

  20. bob k says:

    lolaone,
    The “tribe” Steve describes is in the extermination business. They intend to erase Palestine from the pages of history. “The blood dimmed tide” washing over Southwest Asia is the dark totalitarian vision of “absolute control of body, mind, and soul”, by a small elite who consider humanity two legged beasts fit only for slavery or extermination. I aknowledge your despair!

  21. lolaone says:

    Thank you Bob K. It’s an answer. lolaone

  22. yabonn says:

    lolaone : You misunderstand – my comment isn’t about Palestine/Israel. I can agree with just about any critic of Europe’s foreign policies. But :

    – in Saif post’s, it come bolted to some weird recount of his trip to Europe. Last time I saw this syntactic (cackling? expecting to “bow in deference”??) field, it was 2003-2004, and hyperventilating wingnuts on a trip to Europe were posting “behind the ennemy lines” tales of How the World is Mean to US. If Saif can’t hear “at least we’re not Bush” without going purple, he should stay in the US.

    – it come with a frankly weird aesthetic-y take on Europe’s financial help : sure it helps, in a way, somehow, not much, but _most important_ I find that annoying ! Because of the cackle !

    Fuck that, really. There are few cases : (i) the financial help makes it worse (then show how, appeal for it to stop), (ii) it does not, but Europe hides behind not to do anything else (a better point but none of your anecdotes show that), (iii) the funds are a (very, very) marginal help and then no one should give a damn if it irks-you-while-in-Paris.

    – Europe’s pressure ousted Haider? Lol? Europe could apply the same pressure to Israel as it does to a candidate like Turkey? Wtf?

    No really, I wouldn’t have believed I could disagree so much with a post critisizing Europes foreign policies.

  23. Eurora says:

    It’s a shame what the europeans leaders are doing. And i can assure, the european citizens – most of them oppose the politics to their leaders. Of course some rightwingers and christian zionists agree – but the man/woman with common sense reject such a policy against palestinians. It’s a big shame, what more can i say..
    We are many who support palestinians and their case, this is upsetting many people living in Europe, because people here are more enlightened – americans are not.
    They have always believed in the Israeli propaganda, europeans can’t hide behind the propaganda, cause they know too well what is going on in the Israeli/Palestinian conflicts. (my english is limited). All the citizens can do is to make protests and demonstrations, but will the leaders all over Europe listen? I have no idea yet, cause Europe is not a united state, but many different countries and different languages.

    I can’t speak for all the europeans, but i know i speak for a lot of people when i say the leaders are making me sick from their Hypocrisy.

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  26. An avid reader says:

    In our lives, nothing will be done to help the plight of the Palestinians. There is nothing any country can do unless a coalition of different countries confront Israel about its long racist practices toward the Palestinians.

    Quite frankly, i believe the Israeli government has used all its excuses and is unable to fool the few that are able to discern truth from lies We have reached the point where the same words uttered by such a racist government cannot be be believed anymore. Israel is running out of reasons to punish the Palestinians in their struggle to live on “Palestinian soil”. It has become too apparent and shameful to witness daily ethnic cleansing. Lives are lost on both sides with no solution to be found. Again, As the Israelis are much more powerful, they must abandon this religious dream of Greater Israel and focus on the future of the upcoming generation whom do not see an end to violence. The Israeli population is tired of worrying about Palestinians living, breathing violence and radicalizing themselves. They want to live in a peaceful and calm land, one that does not remind them of their difficult times in Europe.

    However, on that same token, should that particular dark moment in history, as the Holocaust, be a reason to fight the Palestinians, who themselves happened to be living on the same land years before 1948?? Have we become so blinded by the present, that we forget our past. Where did Israel find such hatred for the Muslim and the Koran? Is it because, a community of muslims just happened to live on the lands they believe is theirs, according to the Torah. Might i remind some who have forgotten, it was the Christians who massacred the Muslims and Jews alike, during the crusades. Jerusalem lived very peaceful times under Muslim rule. When the Muslims took Jerusalem before the second crusade, they didn’t slaguhter all its inhabitants, as the Christians did when they entered. What is the source of anger towards the Muslims living on Palestinian land. Doesn’t Israel beleive in the same idea that another state has a “right to exist” ? The Isaelis are so keen on having their neighbor recognize them, that they themselves do not recognize a “palestinian state”.

    We are living times where injustice is rampant and future is tainted by greed and individual’s interests. How long are the Gentiles of this world going to realize that there was a mistake during the creation of some states in the Middle east. The strength of Israel has remained unchecked for quite too long. Israel needs to be tamed and confronted, furthermore, needs to abide by all international laws. The extremists in Israel need to be uprooted from society and pursued to the fullest extent of the law. Remember, It took Jewish extremists to assasinate Yitzhak Rabin in his pursuit of peace. Once again, these extremists will pay the price. Noone is above the law.

    Some may dream that Israel will grow landwise as their extremists want it, but nothing is eternal. Nothing.

  27. Sycloms says:

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  28. calum nairn says:

    Nice article found your site searching in yahoo I think you could have taken a more neutral view.

  29. Thanks for the post, I’ll keep checking back for more stuff, bookmarked!

  30. Lisa says:

    Dearest Mr. Saifedean, I hope you know.. people all over the planet are beginning to see the wisdom they must read qur’an and hadith first before becoming moslems, to avoid jumping from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.

    You speak of the hypocrisy of others ( EU and USA et al ) but …as I have said … I have completely read qur’an and hadith. I know who and what Mohamed was and what his “teachings” were. And so therefor I know what you write here is of little value to people who value complete truth. I value truth.

    May I ask you to one day write to me and let us discuss simply together specific sharia and specific hadith ?

    I believe in God alone being good and not one man, prophet or otherwise is God so that means not one man or prophet is good and not one religion is good since not one religion is God …and not one holy book is good since no books are God ( idol worship is forbidden by God )

    Only God is good.

    If we may ..may we discuss hypocrisy from that point instead of from the religious standpoint of islam or israel or christianity? You know..from the standpoint in agreement with the actual ONE God alone who is good ?

    I only happened accidentally on your site while looking for something else and what you wrote intrigued me because you seem to be just another man who believes religion and men rather than truth ..but that maybe you know you are jaded ?

    If you do not wish to discuss further I completely understand and I am not hoping for a fight or battle of stupid ” Let’s pretend other people do not understand people” game.

    God bless your life on the earth which is your gift to you from God and no one else.

    Lisa 4/08/2010

  31. Lisa says:

    IF you moslem I should have added … I really cannot tell. Sorry, if I am incorrect .

    Lisa

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  33. thanks for your time for providing valuable info about the topic. I am a fan on your website. Keep up the great job.

  34. mersin emlak says:

    Thanks for the post, I’ll keep checking back for more stuff, bookmarked!

  35. European Hypocrisy: A Palestinian View | Rootless Cosmopolitan – By Tony Karon Peculiar article, just what I was looking for.
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