European complicity with Zionist Genocide
Gearóid Ó Loingsigh
28 December 2023
Ursula von der Leyen with Benjamin Netanyahu.
It has been said that with one phone call from Joe Biden to Netanyahu the genocide in Gaza could be halted. Comparisons have been made to Reagan doing just that with the Irgun terrorist, Menachem Begin, who was the Israeli Prime Minister during the siege of Beirut in 1982 or Obama in later years. Little has been said of the European Union’s equal capacity to make a similar call and bring an end to the slaughter. The EU is not a minor player in the region, and Israel is as much dependent on the EU as it is on the USA, though in a slightly different manner.
From the start the EU decided to support Israel, come hell or high water, and hell it was to be, for the Palestinians. Ursula von der Leyen stated that Israel had the right to defend itself against what she termed terrorism and that “Europe stands with Israel”.(1) A month later, as the gravity of Israeli plans were clear for all to see, she continued to talk about the Hamas attack on October 7th, much of which has now been proven to be false (there were no decapitated babies, many of the dead were Israeli military not civilians and furthermore Israel itself killed many of the civilians). She made no condemnation of Israeli bombings of civilians. She and the EU still stood by Israel.(2) But on October 20th 842 staffers at the EU signed a letter condemning her position and pointing out she was legitimising a war crime in Gaza, and pointed to her support for the blockade of food and water in Gaza.(3) But, Von der Leyen continued as before and still stands by Israel and its “right to self-defence”, despite the evidence that what Israel is engaged in, is genocide and multiple war crimes.
Some have made reference to the Nazi past of her family, and though interesting, it is not the reason for her support nor that of the EU, though it may affect the tone of her statements. In evaluating her behaviour we should, of course, bear in mind her aristocratic and Nazi past, of which she is apparently very proud of and has made reference to. But they are just anecdotes, others with a clean family tree have also supported Israel. The reason why the EU supports Israel is one of naked self-interest. Like the USA, the EU has decided that Israel is also its very own Forward Operating Base to keep in check the Arab masses and ensure the flow of oil.
The EU was in a position to halt the genocide from the word go. Von der Leyen could have told Israel to back off and it would have. Without the EU, the Israeli economy collapses. A ban on exporting to or importing from Israel would see the modern-day Babylon collapse overnight with little effect on Europe itself. Israel is the EU’s 25th largest trading partner, way behind Turkiye which is the EU’s sixth largest trading partner. However, the reverse does not hold. The EU is a significant trading partner for Israel. According to the European Commission’s Office in Israel (Von der Leyen & Co.) 31.9% of Israeli imports come from the EU and 25.6% of Israel’s exports go to the EU with total trade amounting to €46.8 billion in 2022. Israeli imports of services amounted to €16.7 billion in 2021 with exports representing €9.8 billion. Further the EU invested €60.5 billion in 2021. Israel depends on the EU.(4) One phone call is all it would have taken to put Netanyahu in his place and stop the genocide.
European complicity in the genocide is not limited to its economic role. Between 2012 and 2022, Israel received just over 5.4 billion US dollars in arms transfers, from three sources. Unsurprisingly, the USA was the primary supplier. But Germany supplied Israel with $1.475 billion and Italy supplied a further $261 million. In the same period, Israel exported $7.458 billion to a range of countries, including the UK, bastions of democracy such as Azerbaijan ($854 million), Turkiye ($60 million). But by far the biggest recipient was India which received $2.879 billion.(5)
The type of weaponry received is important. Israel received $2.734 billion in aircraft, $609 million in armoured vehicles, $752 million in missiles, just the type of weaponry it has used to reduce Gaza to rubble and carry out its genocide. All of those regimes who supplied Israel with weaponry are as guilty as the Israelis. After Operation Cast Lead (December 2008 – January 2009) it was obvious what type of regime held sway in Tel Aviv. They have repeated this type of operation on many occasions since then, with major interventions and also a number of smaller, though still deadly attacks. The nature of the Zionist regime was laid bare to the world, and yet the EU continued to export the type of weapons needed to carry out a genocide.
Hopefully, some day in the future we can hold a Nuremberg style tribunal to judge those responsible. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, places obligations on states and gives them the faculty to try people for the crime of genocide.(6) To be clear about what genocide is, the Convention to which most states are signatories defines it in Article II as:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.(7)Israel was one of the first signatories to it and has made no reservations on any aspect of it, unlike the USA which has placed some caveats on its jurisdiction in relation to the USA.(8) There can be no doubt that Israel is engaged in genocide, nor can there be any doubt that the EU is complicit in it and its representatives should also be put on trial. Any state can put them on trial and issue arrest warrants. Following WWII not only were the Nazis tried at Nuremberg, other Nazis were tried by individual states in the subsequent years. Countries such as France, Germany, Israel, Norway and others brought Nazis to trial after the Nuremberg Trials. In Hungary alone, around 26,000 people were tried for treason, war crimes and crimes against humanity. In Czechoslovakia around 32,000 people met a similar fate. Some 100,000 Germans and Austrians were tried in western Europe and in the Soviet Union another 26,000 were also tried.(9) Any nation can place those accused of genocide on trial. To date it has been a question of power. The US won the war in the East and so were not charged for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nearly all those tried for crimes against humanity have been on the losing side of a conflict in which the US and Europe wished to punish one side. It is entirely conceivable that the powers that make up the BRICS(10) could detain war criminals and place them on trial in a national or a supranational court convened by them. It is possible though unlikely. It is however necessary. International law is dead, buried under the rubble of churches, mosques and hospitals in Gaza
Netanyahu and the entire High Command of the IDF should stand trial like Göring and others did and should face the same consequences as Eichmann who the Israelis tried and executed by hanging. Ten top ranking Nazis were executed, with Göring committing suicide the night before his scheduled execution. Others should meet another fate as did those lower ranking Nazis in subsequent trials. Various EU leaders should also be tried. Von der Leyen is a key case and should meet the fate her Nazi family escaped from. Keir Starmer, Macron, Merkel, Rishi Sunak and others should all be put on trial and at the very least imprisoned. Europe is as much to blame for the current genocide as the USA and Israel itself.
Notes
(1) Press communiqué (13/10/2023) Statement by President von der Leyen with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_23_4986
(2) Von der Leyen, U. (09/11/2023) Speech by President von der Leyen at the International Humanitarian Conference for the Civilian Population in Gaza https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/speech-president-von-der-leyen-international-humanitarian-conference-civilian-population-gaza-2023-11-09_en
(3) Irish Times (20/10/2023) EU staff members express fury over von der Leyen stance on Israel-Hamas conflict. Naomi O’Leary. https://www.irishtimes.com/world/middle-east/2023/10/20/eu-staff-members-express-fury-over-von-der-leyen-stance-on-israel-hamas-conflict/
(4) Figures taken from the European Commission’s page https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/israel_en
(5) Figures taken from https://www.sipri.org
(6) See
Article IV
Persons committing genocide
or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether
they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private
individuals.
Article V
The Contracting Parties
undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions,
the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present
Convention, and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons
guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III.
Article VIII
Any Contracting Party may
call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action
under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for
the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other
acts enumerated in article III.
(7) See Convention at https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/genocide-conv-1948
(8) See https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/genocide-conv-1948/state-parties
(9) See Postwar trials and denazification https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/survival-and-legacy/postwar-trials-and-denazification/
(10) For information
on BRICS see https://infobrics.org