Europe’s “Human Rights” Persecution of Israel

The Council of Europe sees itself as a beacon of democracy and human rights. However, when it comes to the Jewish state of Israel, it systematically sides with totalitarian and genocidal Middle Eastern forces that seek to extinguish those fundamental rights for the Jewish people.

The Council of Europe’s rejection of President Trump’s recognition of Israel’s capital Jerusalem is not merely a policy disagreement. It is a rejection of the reborn Jewish state’s fundamental right to choose its capital like any other independent nation. Jerusalem was the capital of the Jewish nation long before the emergence of European states and is today the thriving capital of modern Israel. It is not Europe’s business to meddle regarding the location of Israel’s capital and where the United States decides to move its embassy.

The Council of Europe had the audacity to state that “….Jerusalem could well become the capital of both the State of Israel and the future Palestinian State, as a result of direct negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians.”

This statement brings this key European body to Orwellian territory by creating a false symmetry between reality and fiction, between a reborn Jewish state of Israel that exists and an Arab state that never existed and still does not exist. It also ignores the fact that Jerusalem has never been the capital of any other nation than the Jewish people.

Israel’s late liberal Foreign minister Abba Eban would not have felt at home among today’s self-appointed European “liberals”:

“Nobody does Israel any service by proclaiming its ‘right to exist’…..There is certainly no other state, big or small, young or old, that would consider mere recognition of its ‘right to exist’ a favor, or a negotiable concession.”

This also applies to Israel’s capital. Any European diplomat visiting Israel wishing to meet its leadership, travels to Jerusalem, the seat of Israel’s government, parliament, Supreme Court and most ministries.

This key European assembly’s hypocrisy against Israel knows no boundaries.

“It also regrets the ongoing building of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, thus undermining the feasibility of the two-State solution.”

This European neo-colonial statement reprimands the indigenous Jews for living in their ancient capital Jerusalem while unilaterally declaring “East Jerusalem” as “occupied”. “Occupied” from whom? From Jordan that illegally occupied Jerusalem’s old city from 1948 until 1967? From PLO that never controlled any part of Jerusalem and was busy “liberating” the Jewish state within the green line with numerous terror attacks from Tel Aviv to Haifa and beyond?

While President Trump has not taken a position on specific boundaries of Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem, Europe has systematically rejected any connection between the Jewish people and Jerusalem. While Jordan was illegally occupying Jerusalem’s old city and desecrating ancient Jewish sites until 1967, no European government recognized modern (West) Jerusalem as Israel’s de facto capital.

While disqualifying itself as an honest broker between Jews and Arabs, Europe hypocritically blames the United States for its own sins:

“The role of the United States as a serious broker in the peace process was undoubtedly undermined by the declaration of its President on Jerusalem. Its future role should be based on a renewed attitude of neutrality in the peace process.”

Europe has neither been a “serious broker”, nor embraced “neutrality” regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Quite the contrary, Europe’s political elite has systematically sided with Israel’s Arab enemies.

For the first time, the Council of Europe urged the terrorist chief Abbas to cease support for terrorists and their families. However, in practice EU continues to fund terrorism against Israel and supports the “unity” between Hamas and Fatah that both seek Israel’s destruction.

In May 1948, US President Harry Truman became the first international leader to recognize the reborn Jewish state. In December 2017, President Trump completed the circle of justice by becoming the first international leader to recognize Israel’s capital Jerusalem. Like Truman, President Trump faced significant domestic and international opposition.

One year into Trump’s presidency, only the divided American people are qualified to determine whether their country are closer or further from “Make America Great Again”.

However, President Trump and Vice President Pence have already secured a respected place in the Middle East’s history by embracing reality over fiction and truth over falsehood regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict and Iran.

The politically incorrect reality is that when it comes to the Jewish people, Europe has not evolved much since 1945. The Holocaust made it impossible for polite European democracies to openly associate with antisemitism and discrimination of Jewish citizens. However, antisemitism that was labeled “The Longest Hatred” by the late renowned Israeli scholar Robert Wistrich, refused to die in Europe’s heart. Instead, much of post-colonial Europe continued to embrace Jew-hatred in the name of anti-Zionism and “human rights”.

Even the leftist Israeli novelist Amos Oz noted: “Out there, in the world, all the walls were covered with graffiti: ‘Yids, go back to Palestine,’ so we came back to Palestine, and now the world at large [sic] shouts at us: ‘Yids, get out of Palestine.'”

While Europe struggles with the trauma of the Holocaust, the Muslim Arab world struggles with the trauma of failing to complete Hitler’s destruction of the Jewish people. The conflict between Arab and Jew was never about “settlements” or specific borders but about the miraculous return and rebirth of the Jewish nation in its ancestral homeland Israel within any borders.

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Daniel Kryger is a writer and a political analyst. He lives in Israel.

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