European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has been receiving heavy criticism after her trip to Israel last week where she supposedly sided with Tel-Aviv by failing to reprimand the country for ignoring international humanitarian norms. The EU chief then tried to correct her mistake by pledging to triple Brussels’ aid to Gaza two days later.
After arriving at Kfar Aza kibbutz, one of the worst-hit Israeli settlements during Hamas’ bloody rampage, all von der Leyen did was express the EU’s heartfelt solidarity with the terror victims. Apparently, that was enough to trigger leftists all around Europe.
“She simply said Israel has the right to defend itself, full stop,” an unnamed EU diplomat told Politico. “That is not the line member states agreed.”
As we also reported, EU member states presented their joint position on the conflict after an extraordinary Council meeting last Tuesday, condemning the terror acts and calling for general restraint on both sides, but also urging Israel to respect international humanitarian in terms of its treatment of civilians. The Council also decided to keep funding Palestine and endorsed the two-state solution for the crisis.
Instead of repeating these warnings toward the Israeli officials, von der Leyen—standing next to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and EP President Roberta Metsola—simply said “I know that how Israel responds will show that it is a democracy.”
According to Iratxe García, the leader of the European Parliament’s socialist group (S&D), von der Leyen’s phrasing amounts to an “unacceptable bias” on her part.
“As chief representatives of the EU and its institutions, [von der Leyen and Metsola] had the duty to represent the position of the Union as a whole including its member states,” García wrote in a statement on behalf of her party. “With their visit to Israel they failed, upholding an unacceptable bias that can only cause harm.”
As expected, members of France’s liberal Renew party also shared the socialists’ opinion. “Von der Leyen [is] forgetting an important message: Israel must respect international humanitarian law,” wrote MEP Nathalie Loiseau, Renew’s co-chair of the EP’s security and defense committee.
“I don’t understand what the President of the European Commission has to do with the foreign policy of the EU, which she is not in charge of,” Loiseau added, although no one has a problem with von der Leyen taking on a leading role in foreign policy as long as her position is the same as the Left’s.
‘Mea culpa’ times 75 million
On Sunday, the Commission chief attempted to undo the damage by announcing that the EU would triple its humanitarian aid to Gaza without delay.
“The Commission will immediately increase the current humanitarian aid envelope foreseen for Gaza by 50 million euros. This will bring the total to over 75 million euros,” von der Leyen said after speaking with UN Secretary-General António Guterres to coordinate the disbursement of funds.
“The Commission supports Israel’s right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorists, in full respect of international humanitarian law,” she added as the bottom line, now complete with the necessary formula to please the left. “We are working hard to ensure that innocent civilians in Gaza are provided support in this context.”
Proper EU response and responsibility will undoubtedly be the focus of the second emergency Council meeting on the Israel-Palestine conflict on Tuesday, as well as of the plenary debate in the European Parliament on Wednesday, where all parties and MEPs will have a chance to show off their biases.
So far, Israel has all the surface solidarity of the EU it could ever want, but when it comes to action, the scales undoubtedly tilt toward supporting Palestine and condemning the Israeli airstrikes.