Brussels, 14th October, 2015 - As violence continued to escalate in Jerusalem on Tuesday, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini issued a statement calling for “Israelis and Palestinians to restore calm.”
In a written statement to Federica Mogherini and in meetings with senior EU-officials in Brussels on Tuesday, ECI Founding Director Tomas Sandell stressed that “there can be no neutrality in relation to terrorism and the brutal killing of innocent civilians in Jerusalem. As the single largest financial contributor to the Palestinian Authority, the European Union has a moral responsibility to immediately call for a stop of all Palestinian incitement and violence or freeze any further EU financial support. ”
ECI and many concerned Members of European Parliament have for years called for the EU to stop funding hate in the Palestinian territories and have warned of the consequences of sustaining a culture of hatred and incitement throughout society, from Palestinian kindergartens and UNWRA children camps to the highest echelons of power in the Palestinian Authority.
This autumn Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has called “for filthy Jews not to be allowed on the Temple Mount” and praised ”the pure blood spilled by martyrs in Jerusalem” without any official protests from Brussels or Washington. Meanwhile imams in mosques in the Palestinian territories have called for the killing of Jews, hence fuelling the unprecedented wave of brutal murders of civilians in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel in these last days.
In his message in Brussels on Tuesday, Sandell noted that the EU cannot remain neutral by simply calling for “calm on both sides” when innocent Jewish civilians are stabbed to death, but needs to specifically call to account those Palestinian leaders who are responsible for inciting and coordinating the attacks against innocent civilian Jews.
Jewish lives matter, just as much in Jerusalem as in Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen. If the European Union wants to remain “a union of values”, it cannot turn a blind eye, not to mention continue to finance, a regime which is inciting, supporting and orchestrating terrorist actions, he said.
In a series of tweets late on Tuesday night, the European Union´s ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, condemned the deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem.
He writes: “I condemn today’s brutal attacks in Jerusalem. My thoughts are with the families of three more victims of terrorism and the many injured. These attacks not only cause human suffering. They undermine the trust ordinary citizens feel for passers-by in the street, let alone the trust people need as communities if there is to be any prospect for peace.”