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As a Palestinian, I was deeply moved by the horrific images of an entire society being uprooted, dispossessed, and ethnically cleansed virtually overnight. I was no less impressed that, as in Palestine in 1948, this catastrophe was made possible by rare consensus among rival great powers – Washington, Moscow, and Europe. Each, for its own reasons, found it expedient to sacrifice an entire society in furtherance of its strategic interests. This of course did not stop European and European Union officials from expressing concern and even condemnation, after the fact, about the entirely predictable results of their policies. Or from touting the majesty of European values without a hint of irony. Words, as they say, come cheap.
And nowhere do they come cheaper than in relation to Palestine.
Recently Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas made a number of statements about the Jews of Europe and the holocaust that drew a more genuine European outrage. It is of course only appropriate that historical falsification be condemned and disavowed. But why should I take European condemnations of Abbas seriously, when Benjamin Netanyahu's assertion that the holocaust was inspired not by Adolf Hitler but rather the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was passed over in virtual silence? Or when the European Union's most senior official, Ursula von der Leyen, waxes positively orgasmic in her message to Israel on its 75th year. Israel, she opined, is "a vibrant democracy in the heart of the Middle East", which – in her words and expressing the ultimate insult, "literally made the desert bloom." A land without a people for a people without a land lives on. I for one don't take issue with her celebration of what she termed Europe and Israel's "shared culture and values". These have after all been on full display in Baku during the past year....
Read the full opinion at Mondoweiss