With the world’s eyes on the war in Ukraine, Palestinians denounce the international community’s ‘double standards’, recalling the Israeli occupation they are suffering.
“We are horrified and angry by the fact that the world deals with Ukraine and Palestine with double standards. Palestine is under occupation. There are killings, destructions, people who are wounded. Palestinian refugees are in millions. And if Ukraine has been suffering it for a year, the Palestinian catastrophe took place 74 years ago and is still going on”, summarised the Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, on 8 March in a meeting with European journalists, including EUROPE.
For Moustafa Barghouti, politician and president of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society (PMRS), “international law stipulates that people under occupation have the right to defend themselves”. “Is it only applicable to Ukraine?”, he asked on 6 March. “An occupation is an occupation, international law is international law”, he said, adding that otherwise we would be living in “a jungle”.
Shtayyeh said that the Palestinians were resisting the Israeli occupation and were not terrorists. “When Ukrainians fight, you consider them as heroes, that international law should be respected. International law is indivisible and wherever it applies we should fight for it”, he added.
Palestinian civil society is also surprised by this “elasticity” in the values of Europeans, in the words of Abdelfattah Abusrour, director general of the Alrowwad cultural centre in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem, whom we met on 7 March.
“We cannot compare victims with each other, but we must ask ourselves why we need to be selective in the implementation of international law”, said Sahar Francis, Director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, on 6 March.
For Khaled Quzmar, General Director of Defense for Children International - Palestine, the EU’s double standards towards Israel and Palestine, compared to its support for Ukraine, make it an accomplice of Israel.
Double standards in words
The Palestinians criticise the Europeans for their lack of action, but also for the words they use to describe the violence and its perpetrators, depending on whether they are Israelis or Palestinians.
For the EU and its Member States, “if you are Palestinian, it is terrorism, if you are a settler, it is violence”, denounced on 6 March Issam Aruri, Director of the Ramallah office of the Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center. “Burning a family in their home (as in Huwara on 26 February, editor’s note) is violence?”, he asked. Warning that: “The lack of a political (will) to name things encourages the continuation of such crimes”. Aruri called for settler groups responsible for attacks on Palestinians to be classified as terrorist groups.
Ending impunity
In the face of continued settlement activity, which is illegal under international law, and human rights violations against Palestinians, they call for an end to impunity for Israel.
“The international community allows Israel to go unpunished, to be above international law and to not be held unaccountable”, Barghouti said.
“One of the main problems is impunity”, confirmed, on 6 March, Shawan Jabarin, Director General of Al Haq, a human rights organisation declared a terrorist organisation by the Israelis in October 2021 (see EUROPE 12819/28, 12822/20). According to him, if people are not prosecuted for the crimes, they start again.
For the Palestinian Prime Minister, the international community should help his government to put pressure on Israel to respect the agreements signed with the Palestinians. “Between us and Israel, the relationship is contractual, but also colonial. Israel is not respecting any of the agreements signed, not on an economic track, not on a financial track, not on a security track, and not on a political track”, he denounced.
Sanctioning the settlements
Many Palestinians interviewed called for European measures in retaliation for settlement expansion, including a boycott of settlement products. The EU has guidelines for labelling these products.
“It is an apartheid system. Europeans should at least boycott products from the settlements. It is not enough just to label them”, said Barghouti. “This is ridiculous. If you label, you must ban. It is like allowing the sale of stolen material”, compared Issam Aruri.
Palestinians are also surprised at the lack of protest from Europeans when a structure they have funded is destroyed by Israel, which, according to Aruri, is part of the impunity enjoyed by Israel.
In 2022, 918 structures were destroyed, including 140 funded by international donors, and 922 were people displaced. Since the beginning of the year, the Israelis have demolished 250 structures, 39 of which were funded by international donors.
For Khaled Quzmar, “the silence of the international community is not a green light for the continuation of crime, but a partnership in crime”.
Jabarin called for the EU to deduct the funds lost in the destruction from its support for Israel, including the Horizon Europe programme. “This must affect their relations with Israel, the Europeans must put political pressure on them if they are serious”, he said, noting that as the destruction continued, the Europeans reconvened the Association Council on 3 October, the first one in 10 years (see EUROPE 13034/12).
Continuing oppression
Little by little, Israeli settlements are nibbling away at Palestinian land, which is becoming increasingly fragmented. The West Bank is surrounded by a wall of more than 700 km, which is supposed to protect Israelis, including settlers. According to the Palestinian Prime Minister, 751,000 settlers live in the occupied Palestinian territories, about 25% of the total population of the West Bank. The UN puts forward the figure of 600,000 settlers in over 150 settlements and 100 outposts.
“This is worse than South Africa. There, they allowed their people to stay on their land, while here, they do not want Palestinians to occupy their own territory”, stressed Quzmar.
Palestinians do not enjoy full freedom of movement either. The latter are restricted by more than 590 obstacles, including 71 checkpoints, and the West Bankers must obtain a permit - issued at Israel’s discretion - to travel to Israel and East Jerusalem.
In addition to movement restrictions, Palestinians also denounce the injustices they face, such as their access to water, controlled by Israel, even though this water comes from Palestine. They do not have running water every day and have to use water supplies that they store on their roof. In Ramallah, the capital of Palestine, the population has running water twice a week, and a few times a month in the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem. The price of water is also higher than in Israel. Israelis, including settlers, use 430 litres of water per day per person, while Palestinians use 72 litres and the WHO recommendation is 120 litres per day.
The EU remains an important partner
Despite the criticism it faces, the EU remains the main partner of the Palestinians, who suffer from a “difficult” economic situation, according to their Prime Minister.
“The economic situation that we are in is difficult. International aid is shrinking. The United States has cut off all aid. Israel deducts our money (the Hebrew State takes an administrative fee for collecting Palestinian taxes, editor’s note) and Arab aid is zero, except for the money that comes from Algeria. The only money available for Palestine is your money, the money that comes from the European Union”, Shtayyeh acknowledged.
According to him, last year Europe provided 300 million euros in support of Palestine. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)