European
Hypocrisy
By Saifedean Ammous
10 August, 2007
Tonykaron.com.
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. The Israeli army, one
of the world's strongest, 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' 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 to replace 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.
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 towards 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.
Saifedean Ammous,
who hails from Ramallah, Palestine, is pursuing a PhD in Sustainable
Development at Columbia University, New York. He blogs at TheSaifHouse.wordpress.com.
This article first appeared on the Rootless Cosmopolitan website: http://tonykaron.com.
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