In branding all criticism as Hamas-supporting, Israel is turning a deaf ear not only to neighbours in the region, and peace supporters at home, but to its closest friends like the US and the EU
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a statement in response to the Israel's government decision to ban United Nations representatives from visiting the country at United Nations headquarters in New York on Wednesday When UN secretary general António Guterres on Monday told the UN Security Council that the “appalling” massacres of Israelis by Hamas did not justify the “collective punishment” of the Palestinian people and condemned “clear violations of...
Guterres prefaced his remarks by making clear his abhorrence at Hamas murders and its use of human shields. And it is not the first time that the UN has condemned actions ranging from the blockade of food, medicines, fuel and water to the 2.2 million inhabitants of Gaza, to the bombing of civilians.
The attack on Guterres reprises a familiar theme of Israeli diplomacy – the suggestion that all criticism of Israel and all arguments for retaliatory restraint represent arguments for a false moral equivalence of Israeli and Hamas actions and a denial of Israel’s right to defend itself. There is no equivalence, and arguments about it are merely semantic distractions from the central questions in the debate. There is no question about Israel’s right to defend itself – but not without rules.
In deliberately branding all criticism as Hamas-supporting, Israel is turning a deaf ear not only to neighbours in the region, and peace supporters at home, but to its closest friends and allies like the US and the EU, which is warning that an attack on Gaza, however understandable, may be deeply counterproductive.‘Our neighbours on both sides have drums.
Within the EU, the fear of being tainted by accusations of anti-Semitism or being soft on terrorism is also in danger of stymying a collective response. Foreign ministers, unable to agree a common position on the call for a “humanitarian ceasefire” or the less ambitious “humanitarian pause” to allow relief supplies in to Gaza, have left the decision to leaders at their summit today.
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