European Union: a moral bankruptcy

Editorial by La Jornada, Mexico

Yesterday, the European Parliament held a minute’s silence in memory of those who became victims of the attacks carried out by the Islamist group Hamas in Israel on 7 October last year. In a series of targeted attacks, the armed group killed 1205 people, mostly civilians, and abducted a further 251, 97 of whom are still being held hostage and 34 of whom were probably killed by Israeli bombs in the Gaza Strip.
   The solemn act on the anniversary of 7 October and the statements by top politicians, officials and other public figures show in all their hypocrisy the obvious partisanship, duplicity, affectation and insensitivity of a Europe and of this European institution that prides itself on defending justice and human rights. In these statements, not a word was said about the second group of victims, namely the 41870 people massacred by the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip within a year after the bloody Hamas assault, with weapons supplied mainly by Washington and the members of the European Union.
    There was also no mention of the thousands of Palestinians arrested in Israel before 7 October nor of the hundreds of kidnapped hostages. Their families were not invited to speak about the ongoing pain they feel because they do not know the whereabouts and fate of their loved ones.
    For countries that subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, every human life must be of equal value. In this case, a group of victims 40 times larger and made up overwhelmingly of civilians, including infants whose lives were snuffed out just days or weeks after birth, has been silenced. By erecting a wall of silence between good and bad victims, between the unforgettable and the easily dispensable, the supposed act of humanity has become an act of insult to all humanitarian sensibilities. It reflects the persistent racism and colonialist obsessions that are devouring the Western institutions and societies.
    The disparity in the treatment of the dead, wounded, hostages, orphans, the traumatised and those who languish for lack of food and medicine – the latter group consisting exclusively of Palestinians – is also outrageous because of the fundamental differences between the groups of perpetrators. Those killed in the horrific Hamas attacks were victims of an armed group considered illegal by the entire West, while Palestinians are dying every day under attack by a state that is represented in multilateral bodies and, on paper, abides by the principles and rules agreed by the international community.
    As the President of the European Parliament said, nothing can ever justify the mass killings, rapes, kidnappings and arbitrary torture that took place a year ago. But also nothing can justify those which the regime of Benjamin Netanjahu is committing since one year up to this date. The failure to show any sign of compassion for the Palestinian victims in the civilian population is not only a brutal moral asymmetry, but an incitement to continue the genocide. 

Source: https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2024/10/08/editorial/union-europea-bancarrota-moral-1345  of 8 October 2024

(Translation Current Concerns)

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