Why the EU must stop firing blanks over Gaza

JVL Introduction

The Hamas eruption from Gaza, with all its awful consequences, did not come from nowhere, as this perceptive overview from Art Neslen, writing from Brussels, makes clear.

He reminds us of the power imbalance between Israel and Palestine, Israelis and Palestinians.

For instance, 80 percent of Gazans need humanitarian assistance to survive. Half are unemployed. Most are under 18.

We must not allow “Hamas’s hideous attack” to distract attention from the asymmetric nature of the conflict: 6,407 Palestinians were killed between 2008 and 2021, compared to 308 Israelis.

And Neslen reminds us that Gazans are overwhelmingly refugees or the descendants of refugees created when the state of Israel was created.

It is this refugee issue that is the “beating heart” of the Palestine question.

This article was originally published by euobserver on Wed 11 Oct 2023. Read the original here.