The European Union’s early reaction to the war raging in the Middle East only served US interests.
from thefreeonline on 20th Oct 2023 via Timur Fomenko/ South Front /Al Jazeera/
A protester holds a burning picture of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outside the Israeli Embassy in Athens on October 18, 2023 Angelos TZORTZINIS / AFP / shared with thanks
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s showboating in support of Israel in the current Middle East conflict has reportedly provoked a backlash from EU lawmakers and diplomats..
see Clare Daly’s great speech HERE… (WordPress won’t embed it) https://twitter.com/ClareDalyMEP/status/1715032236012036397
When the Israel-Gaza war broke out just over a week ago, von der Leyen made the decision to offer unconditional support to West Jerusalem rather than urge for calm or mediation, having Israel’s flag projected onto the European Commission headquarters and paying a visit to Israel herself.
She clearly did so out of an inclination to appear in line with the US. But her actions have aged poorly as reports of civilian deaths and humanitarian disaster in the besieged Gaza Strip continue to mount.
Today . … Gaza death toll: The number of those killed by Israel since October 7 in the Gaza Strip has climbed to 4,127, including 1,661 children and over 2000 women
Anyone familiar with von der Leyen knows that she is an unapologetic neoconservative and transatlanticist who is single-handedly undermining the autonomy, respect, and foreign policy stature of the EU by actively working to make the bloc subordinate to the US in multiple areas, all while attempting to showcase herself as a true regional leader. If the EU sees itself in a fundamental competition with China and Russia, there could not be a worse advert to the rest of the world than her leadership, and her Israel blunders may be her most damaging decisions yet.
“The west seems happy to believe a fairytale that Hamas killed 5oo at al Ahli -So that’s ok for them- None of these people seem to be aware that even the United Nations has already published figures showing that Israel has already carried out 51 bombing attacks on hospitals throughout the Gaza Strip, killing 15 healthcare workers in the process.
The hospital had already been targeted last week, sustaining damage to the top floor of the new diagnostic centre and the ultrasound in the mammography room on the second floor.
The fact that there is no crater in the parking lot is consistent with an air burst bomb that detonates at a predetermined altitude above the ground in order to maximize damage. The evidence of this air burst is clearly visible in the tweets and videos, where the hoods and roofs of multiple vehicles are shown to be crushed by a powerful force from above.
This damage pattern is only possible with an air burst weapon, not a ground burst rocket or bomb. Notably, Jihadi forces do not possess air burst ordnance capabilities. Only Israel has that.“
Von der Leyen’s foreign policy legacy involves dragging the EU into several confrontations it could have done without. This week, she is heading to Washington DC to try to forge a deal on steel and aluminum trade targeted at China, but that will ultimately resort in throwing the EU market under the bus, again.
Other acts have included backing the American position on Ukraine and striving for full escalation of the war there, promoting energy decoupling with Russia, as well as inventing the term “de-risking” with China and seeking to undermine the bloc’s lucrative relationship with Beijing.
Throughout this, she has been repeatedly eager to pull large sums of money out of thin air and propose fantasy projects which amount to little more than posturing, and which her office alone is not even able to authorize.
For example, that includes offering Belarus billions if it goes ahead with a US-backed regime change, or inventing numerous “infrastructure” schemes to compete with China, such as the Global Gateway, among other things. She has thus repeatedly used the stature of her office to follow American objectives and try to shape the continent without establishing any kind of due consensus.
Almost immediately after the war in Gaza broke out, the European Commission announced all EU aid to Palestine would be frozen. Regardless of what you think of Hamas, with hindsight that decision now appears spiteful, reactionary and inhumane, which tells you how fast the Commission was to jump to the American position of unconditional support for Israel
On Oct. 18th, Israel bombed the streets near the al-Quds hospital. The video of that bombing almost perfectly mirrors theat of the al-Ahli massacre – the missile strike sound, the Israeli jet in the air (firing flares) and the subsequent fireball explosion
But this time there is a widespread feeling it has gone too far. Rather than allowing Europe to have staked out a moderate position on the Gaza conflict, even if it would not be too sympathetic to Palestine, the decision was essentially outsourced to the US, discrediting the EU and only serving to contribute to the growing backlash starting to emerge among Muslim communities in response to the conflict.
For countries such as France, this is disastrous. This hurts the EU’s image across the Islamic world and the Global South by seemingly siding with the oppressors.
Soon enough, a series of embarrassing U-turns followed, including the reinstatement of aid, combined with tweets in Arabic, but the damage had already been done, because Israel has long been given the green light to pursue unparalleled destruction in Gaza, at seemingly whatever the cost.
In doing so, von der Leyen has in fact undermined, in yet another way, the bloc’s ability to present itself as a serious and comprehensive political actor. She seems to have no love for the idea that the EU should have strategic autonomy and be capable of calibrating its own interests and place in the world, and would prefer that it instead be a simple parrot of the US.
Of course, if she took into greater consideration the interests and positions of member states it would be less of a problem. But she does not and instead essentially serves as a completely disruptive force, in practice undermining European diplomacy and preventing the EU from building relations with a wide range of states. In the end, this favors only the US.
The Free 