The previous Palestinian delegate to the EU, Leila Shahid, has informed EUobserver that she left diplomacy behind in order not to betray her individuals, which she rages with the EU’s action to the recurring problem.
The 74-year-old Palestinian rep from 2006-2015 is a little however thoughtful female. As the Lebanon-birthed child to Palestinian moms and dads strolls right into the dining establishment in Paris’s 16th arrondissement to satisfy the Foreign Press Club, the reporters awaiting her instantly decide. She is particularly popular and recognized in France, also amongst those that differ with her.
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Shahid was the Palestinian delegate to the EU from 2006 to 2015. ‘I have not altered in all. I am still promoting for my individuals. I have, nevertheless, deserted diplomacy in every feeling’ (Photo: Leila Shahid)
Since 7 October, her position is, nevertheless, regarded as even more extreme than ever before. Especially as she rejected to condemn Hamas straight after the assault.
“I haven’t changed at all,” she informed EUobserver after the meeting. “I am still advocating for my people. I have, however, abandoned diplomacy in every sense.”
Shahid has been promoting for the Palestinian reason because her young people; in the 1970s she signed up with Fatah, established by Yasser Arafat and among the significant political intrigues within the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). She has ever since stood for Palestine in the Netherlands, Denmark, France and, inevitably, from 2005 to 2010, in the European Union.
“I left diplomacy behind because I couldn’t betray my people anymore. The EU diplomats and the EU, in general, have no interest in peace in the Middle East. There are some exceptions, like the Scandinavian countries, but all in all: the EU is only interested in their own commercial interests,” Shahid informed EUobserver.
She claimed she thinks that Europe is entraped by shame of what they did, or what they allow occur, to the Jews throughout World War II.
“May I remind you that it was not the Arabs who committed those horrendous crimes to humanity, but the Europeans. And that guilt, I believe, it seems is blinding Europe for the crimes that Israel — not the Jews, mind you — is committing as we speak,” Leila Shahid claimed.
Shahid was close to Arafat for many years. First, as Palestine’s rep to the Netherlands and Denmark, after that to France, and in between delegate to the European Union. In 2004, she rested by Arafat’s deathbed in Paris.
According to Shahid, the recurring battle cannot be placed on Hamas’s shoulders alone. She still declines to condemn the organisation straight.
“I am no Islamist, I don’t support Hamas and their ideology, but I refuse to accept the narrative that the war started on 7 October,” Shahid claimed.
She claimed that absolutely nothing can ever before validate the murder of private citizens, whether they are Palestinian or Israeli, however that she thinks it to be the cost to spend for not solving the problem.
“As a human being, I mourn all children and civilians killed, Israeli civilians but also the thousands of Palestinian victims that are converting Gaza into a graveyard. Those are victims that European politicians tend to forget about,” she claimed.
“For 56 years the international community, including the EU and the UN, has been talking about the right to self-determination. Yet, here we are, 30 years after the Oslo Accords, and the situation is worse than ever. It is very short-sighted to believe that this started a month ago,” she included.
Shahid informed EUobserver that she had actually currently been tricked by the European Union prior to the most up to date battle in Gaza.
“The European Union has been depoliticised. Few member states want a political union, which is why the project has become a technical business project,” Shahid claimed.
She declares that the Europeans have actually verified to be a lot more interested in the profession markets, like the ones in Africa or the Arab globe, and consequently decline an usual political placement in global disputes.
“That was the case with Ukraine after 2014, before 2022, and that has long been the case regarding Palestine. I left my position [as a Palestinian ambassador] to the EU in order not to betray my people, as I believe the EU is still doing today,” Leila Shahid claimed.
When inquired about whether it negates the Palestinian reason for Palestinian reps, such as herself, not to condemn Hamas, she revealed a clear position.
“I have no problem condemning violence against civilians, but I need the international community to acknowledge and condemn the thousands of Palestinian victims, not only in Gaza but on the West Bank and in Eastern Jerusalem, where Hamas is absent,” she claimed. “This violence didn’t start a month ago and Europeans need to look themselves in the mirror.”
Insisting on the 56 years of physical violence versus Palestinians, she additionally confesses her very own failings.
“I didn’t succeed, in business, we are further from peace than ever,” she claimed.
“However, the EU needs to take a look at Israel’s politics, [Benjamin] Netanyahu, and before him several others, [who] have actively worked against peace. From January this year he is forming a government with, for example, extremist Itamat Ben-Gvir, convicted of supporting terrorism against Palestinians,” Shahid explained.
