The Irish Times. 6/19/07
Madam, - As a Palestinian, I am appalled that the European
Union and the United States have backed Mahmoud Abbas's
so-called "emergency government" in Israeli-occupied Ramallah.
The Palestinian Basic Law makes no provision for such a
development.
Hamas, no matter what one thinks of it, won the January 2006
election fair and square. On the eve of its victory, it had
already observed a one-year unilateral truce with Israel.
According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, Israel
killed almost 700 Palestinians in 2006, of whom half were
unarmed civilians, and 141 were children. By contrast,
Palestinians killed 23 Israelis.
On what basis, therefore, did the EU shun the elected
representatives of an occupied people, while allowing their
occupiers to continue their depredations - wilful killing of
civilians and land theft for Jewish-only settlements - without
any response? Hamas tried to enter mainstream politics through
the front door - explicitly modelling its policies on those of
the IRA in the context of the Irish peace process. The door
was slammed shut in its face as the US funded and armed
unaccountable and corrupt militias whose job was to undermine
the results of a democratic election, and the EU meekly agreed
to impose cruel sanctions against an occupied people.
EU officials may comfort themselves that they are supporting a
"legitimate" Palestinian government. As a student of European
history, I see a close parallel with the collaborationist
second World War regimes of Quisling in Norway and Pétain in
France. Has Europe really learned nothing from its own
history? Has Ireland learned nothing from its own painful
past, as well as the spectacular success of the peace process
in the North?
The result of these short-sighted EU policies will be to
deepen the split among Palestinians and give Israel a free
hand to continue its violent colonisation of illegally
occupied lands. - Yours, etc,
Mr. Ali Abunimah
