EU Should Condemn Iran, Not Israel, for West Bank Violence

by Con Coughlin

• [T]he fact that the EU's foreign policy chief [Josep Borrell] has even suggested imposing punitive measures against Israel, a country smaller than the state of New Jersey, when it is involved in a desperate fight defending itself against the world's largest sponsor of state terrorism, Iran, and its proxy terrorist groups -- Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iraqi militias, as well as Iran's powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- on at least seven fronts, shows a woeful lack of understanding of the conflict.
• Borrell's constant articulation of anti-Israeli views also raises questions about his suitability to continue holding such an important position in the EU. Earlier this year, he launched a blistering attack against the "Israeli occupation authorities" for imposing punitive measures against an openly genocidal Palestinian Authority (PA).
• Even so, Borrell's stance reflects the deep anti-Israel sentiment that exists within the EU bureaucracy... After Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, rather than receiving support for her gesture of solidarity by visiting Israel, during which [European Commission President Ursula] von der Leyen went to the Kfar Aza kibbutz (where at least 52 of 700 residents were murdered), she faced a barrage of criticism from EU insiders, with 800 EU staffers writing an official letter of complaint criticising her "uncontrolled" support of Israel.
• [UN Secretary-General Antonio] Guterres's willingness to focus his criticism on Israel, and not the Iranian-backed terrorists, is yet another example of the UN's institutional anti-Israel bias. If the UN has any genuine interest in taking a balanced approach to the violence in the West Bank, then, instead of focusing its criticism exclusively on Israel, it would call on Iran to cease backing the network of terrorist groups it backs in the region, whose main goal is the destruction of Israel on the way to destroying the United States -- the main representative of the West.
• The failure of international bodies such as the EU and the UN to demonstrate any pretence of balance when intervening on vital international security issues such as the Iranian-sponsored conflicts taking place in Gaza, the West Bank and southern Lebanon not only makes a mockery of their claim to be independent arbiters on the issue. It also runs the risk of making them utterly irrelevant, to the extent that they suffer the same fate as the League of Nations in the 1930s, whose inability to confront fascism condemned it to abject failure.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell's constant articulation of anti-Israeli views also raises questions about his suitability to continue holding such an important position in the EU. Earlier this year, he launched a blistering attack against the "Israeli occupation authorities" for imposing punitive measures against an openly genocidal Palestinian Authority (PA), while standing next to PA Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. Pictured: Mustafa (L) and Borrell at a press conference in Brussels, Belgium on May 26, 2024. (Photo by Lukasz Kobus/European Commission/Handout)

The European Union's dangerous bias on the Gaza conflict, where it constantly backs Iranian-backed terrorist groups at the expense of a democracy, Israel, has been exposed yet again by the latest anti-Israel stance adopted by Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign minister.

In a move calculated to further strain the EU's already problematic relationship with Israel, Borrell has announced that he has asked the bloc's members to consider imposing sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers for "hate messages" against Palestinians, messages that he claimed broke international law.

Borrell did not name either of the ministers specifically. But it was obvious who he was referring to given that, in recent weeks, he has publicly criticised Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich for statements Borrell has described as "sinister" and "an incitement to war crimes".

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