The previous Palestinian delegate to the EU, Leila Shahid, has instructed EUobserver that she left diplomacy behind so as to not betray her folks, and that she is livid with the EU’s response to the continued battle.
The 74-year-old Palestinian consultant from 2006-2015 is a considerate lady. Because the Lebanon-born daughter to Palestinian mother and father walks into the restaurant in Paris’s sixteenth arrondissement to satisfy the International Press Membership, the journalists ready for her instantly take a stand. She is particularly well-known and revered in France, even amongst those that disagree along with her.
-
Shahid was the Palestinian delegate to the EU from 2006 to 2015. ’I have never modified in any respect. I’m nonetheless advocating for my folks. I’ve, nevertheless, deserted diplomacy in each sense’ (Picture: Leila Shahid)
Since 7 October, her stance is, nevertheless, perceived as extra radical than ever. Particularly as she refused to sentence Hamas straight after the assault.
”I have never modified in any respect,” she instructed EUobserver after the convention. ”I’m nonetheless advocating for my folks. I’ve, nevertheless, deserted diplomacy in each sense.”
Shahid has been advocating for the Palestinian trigger since her youth; within the Seventies she joined Fatah, based by Yasser Arafat and one of many main political factions inside the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). She has since then represented Palestine within the Netherlands, Denmark, France and, in the end, from 2005 to 2010, within the European Union.
”I left diplomacy behind as a result of I could not betray my folks anymore. The EU diplomats and the EU, normally, have no real interest in peace within the Center East. There are some exceptions, just like the Scandinavian international locations, however all in all: the EU is barely enthusiastic about their very own business pursuits,” Shahid instructed EUobserver.
She mentioned she believes that Europe is trapped by guilt for what they did, or what they let occur, to the Jews throughout World Battle II.
”Could I remind you that it was not the Arabs who dedicated these horrendous crimes to humanity, however the Europeans. And that guilt, I consider, it appears is blinding Europe for the crimes that Israel — not the Jews, thoughts you — is committing as we communicate,” Leila Shahid mentioned.
Shahid was near Arafat over time. First, as Palestine’s consultant to the Netherlands and Denmark, then to France, and between delegate to the European Union. In 2004, she sat by Arafat’s deathbed in Paris.
In line with Shahid, the continued warfare can’t be placed on Hamas’s shoulders alone. She nonetheless refuses to sentence the organisation straight.
”I’m no Islamist, I do not help Hamas and their ideology, however I refuse to simply accept the narrative that the warfare began on 7 October,” Shahid mentioned.
She mentioned that nothing can ever justify the killing of civilians, whether or not they’re Palestinian or Israeli, however that she believes it to be the worth to pay for not resolving the battle.
”As a human being, I mourn all kids and civilians killed, Israeli civilians but additionally the hundreds of Palestinian victims which might be changing Gaza right into a graveyard. These are victims that European politicians are inclined to overlook about,” she mentioned.
”For 56 years the worldwide group, together with the EU and the UN, has been speaking about the proper to self-determination. But, right here we’re, 30 years after the Oslo Accords, and the scenario is worse than ever. It is vitally short-sighted to consider that this began a month in the past,” she added.
Shahid instructed EUobserver that she had already been deceived by the European Union earlier than the newest warfare in Gaza.
”The European Union has been depoliticised. Few member states need a political union, which is why the challenge has turn out to be a technical enterprise challenge,” Shahid mentioned.
She claims that the Europeans have confirmed to be extra within the commerce markets, like those in Africa or the Arab world, and subsequently refuse a standard political place in worldwide conflicts.
”That was the case with Ukraine after 2014, earlier than 2022, and that has lengthy been the case relating to Palestine. I left my place [as a Palestinian ambassador] to the EU so as to not betray my folks, as I consider the EU remains to be doing as we speak,” Leila Shahid mentioned.
When requested about whether or not it contradicts the Palestinian trigger for Palestinian representatives, resembling herself, to not condemn Hamas, she expressed a transparent stance.
”I’ve no drawback condemning violence in opposition to civilians, however I would like the worldwide group to acknowledge and condemn the hundreds of Palestinian victims, not solely in Gaza however on the West Financial institution and in Japanese Jerusalem, the place Hamas is absent,” she mentioned. ”This violence did not begin a month in the past and Europeans have to look themselves within the mirror.”
Insisting on the 56 years of violence in opposition to Palestinians, she additionally admits her personal failures.
”I did not succeed, in enterprise, we’re farther from peace than ever,” she mentioned.
”Nevertheless, the EU wants to try Israel’s politics, [Benjamin] Netanyahu, and earlier than him a number of others, [who] have actively labored in opposition to peace. From January this 12 months he’s forming a authorities with, for instance, extremist Itamat Ben-Gvir, convicted of supporting terrorism in opposition to Palestinians,” Shahid identified.