EU is shamefully ignoring number one Israeli concern – security
There is a simple and perhaps inconvenient truth that the EU must digest: the Palestinian population is currently completely unprepared for peace.
By ALEX BENJAMINUpdated: MAY 17, 2016 12:12A CONCRETE wall and pillbox is seen next to a drilling rig across from the southern Gaza border near where a Hamas tunnel was uncovered.(photo credit: REUTERS)
Europe’s media are rightly focused on the despicable recent Islamist stabbing attack in Munich that left one dead and three wounded.So most Europeans will have undoubtedly missed that in Jerusalem, that same day two 80-year-old women out for a morning stroll were stabbed in the back by Palestinian assailants who fled the scene and went back to east Jerusalem.Two 80-year-old women. Probably grandmothers. About as much threat to anyone as a feather duster.Shlomi Tedegi, a medic, described the scene of the attack: “In an area adjacent to the promenade we saw two approximately 80-year-old elderly women lying in the dirt. They were fully conscious and suffering from stab wounds, one in the extremities and her upper body and the second in her upper body.”Meanwhile in Gaza, the IDF keep uncovering fresh tunnels, and large amounts of the chemicals used to propel rockets.The day of the attacks, Israel marked Remembrance Day, a day dedicated to the memory of the soldiers who have fallen in defense of the country, from 1948, 1967, 1973, two Lebanon wars and all the attacks and skirmishes in between, as well as to the thousands of Israeli citizens murdered to date by terrorists. It is rare to meet a single Israeli whose family circle or whose friends haven’t been touched in some way by terrorism, or the loss of a loved one on active duty. Remembrance Day in Israel doesn’t hark back to a bygone age, it reflects everyday reality and the price Israel pays for simply existing.The numbers go up every year.The number one overarching concern for Israeli citizens, wherever they are, is security. They want the freedom that most of us enjoy in Europe, despite the recent terrorist attacks here: to live a life without concern that you may be stabbed, shot, blown up on a bus or have your house hit by a rocket.Events in Munich, and the threat of Munich – and much worse besides – is the daily reality for Israeli citizens.And sadly, shamefully, it is being massively overlooked by the EU, which prefers to hold debates about settlements.
The recent debate in the European Parliament, where High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini spoke, is symptomatic of this myopia and, to be brutally honest, total lack of regard for Israeli security.There is a simple and perhaps inconvenient truth that the EU must digest: the Palestinian population is currently completely unprepared for peace.They are fed from birth a steady and unrelenting diatribe of hatred for Jews and Israelis. They are incited to stab, murder and maim. Most cannot even countenance the existence of the State of Israel. As one Israeli academic and thinker once noted, “Even if we were to move all of Israel into a small apartment in Tel Aviv, it would be too much for them.”Taking all of the above into consideration and in the absence of any concerted EU effort to tackle this ongoing and daily incitement, this raw and unbridled hatred that saw two 80-yearold women lying in the dirt, we would respectfully ask any European citizen if they would want unchecked and illegal construction of homes by people who seek their and their family’s destruction, within rocket reach of their own homes, cities, villages or hamlets? We think the answer would be a resounding no.So why must it be imposed on Israeli citizens? The author is the Executive Director for Europe Israel Public Affairs.