EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton at a press conference in Jerusalem in 2010.

Lady Ashton has hit a raw nerve

The parallel drawn by the EU's foreign affairs chief between the massacre of three Jewish children in Toulouse and Syrian, Israeli and Palestinian war victims has provoked widespread outrage in Israel. But Israel should stop playing the role of eternal victim, argues columnist Gideon Levy.

Published on 26 March 2012 at 14:24
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton at a press conference in Jerusalem in 2010.

As if the horror in Toulouse wasn't enough, as if the suspicion that Al-Qaida was involved in the attack wasn't enough, and as if the constant criticism of Israel wasn't enough, we've invented another imaginary enemy: Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief.

Ashton made some distasteful remarks about the cruel fate of children who had been killed, unintentionally mixing road-accident victims (Belgium ), war victims (Syria, Gaza and Sderot ) and hate-crime victims (France ). And immediately, I mean immediately, Israel fomented an international scandal, despite France's very impressive stand with the Jewish community, first and foremost by its president.

Not a very important stateswoman, but apparently a good-intentioned one, Ashton misspoke. We realize that her intentions weren't bad, certainly not anti-Israel. Listening to her full remarks proves this. Ashton bemoaned the fate of children killed for nothing, as politicians like to do. But the thunderous attack from Jerusalem (and Tel Aviv ), orchestrated by the prime minister and the foreign minister, and backed up by a chorus of journalists and pundits, was wrong and unnecessary, no less than Ashton's remarks.

No one would have ferociously attacked Ashton if she had been a representative of the United States. This attack on Ashton and others like her is suspect; it probably wasn't sincere. Perhaps once again we're cynically using a statesman's faux pas to wring more and more guilt feelings about Israel, to instill more and more fear into the world's statesmen and to make more and more worthless political hay.

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Israel hunts down such remarks as if it were the Anti-Defamation League. The long-term implications are dangerous. Ashton, who was never perceived as an enemy of Israel, but rather a typical European stateswoman who believes that the Israeli occupation should end, might watch her tongue, but now she'll hold a big grudge against Israel for humiliating her. That's not good for Israel.

Israel must never be compared to anything else - not to apartheid and not to other oppressors of freedom around the world, not to other occupation regimes and not to other colonialism. We're always something else. The children of Sderot must not be compared to the children of Gaza, the children of Toulouse must not be compared to other children who are slaughtered elsewhere in nationalist hate crimes.

Our children are different, not only to us - that's natural. But they must be different to the whole world. That's our uncompromising demand. Neither must the Palestinian struggle be compared to any other fight for liberation elsewhere around the world. Anyone who dares compare Israel to anything else - their fate is sealed.

The Ashton mini-storm will be forgotten in a day. Israel will celebrate another minuscule victory, but the residue will build up. It wasn't Ashton who lost her senses, but rather Israel, which is playing the role of the eternally offended party, once again seen in a maudlin light. And this happened just as the world was responding compassionately to the victims and was remarkably empathetic toward Israel.

Reaction

Ashton's speech proof of “Europe’s spinelessness”

The speech in which EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton compared the murder of three Jewish children in Toulouse on March 19 to, among others, the Utøya massacre in Norway, recent deaths in Syria, Gaza and in Sderot, has provoked outraged reactions in Israel. “Such disgraceful equation reflects an incredibly twisted value system coupled with total blindness in the face of global and Mideastern reality”, writes Ygal Walt in conservative daily Yediot Aharonot -

It is no wonder that Hamas rushed to praise Ashton for her statements, thereby highlighting Europe’s moral confusion. […] The European Union’s embarrassing “clarification,” which did not deny Ashton’s remarks but merely claimed she did not mean to compareToulouse to Gaza, made no difference. If anything, it further demonstrated Europe’s spinelessness and the tendency to shift positions and appease different groups, without adhering to a credible, enduring moral compass.

All that remains now is to watch the deterioration of the “old continent” into a new, murky horizon. On the one hand, Islamization trends are expected to grow, while on the other hand, radical nationalistic parties will continue to gain strength. Europe of the late 20th Century, which vowed to uphold the banner of tolerance and liberalism, will slowly turn into a chaotic, angry region where various groups are fighting each other while shunning genuine moral values. In any case, Ms. Ashton need not apologize for or clarify her remarks. After all, her words accurately reflected the mood of her decayed, dying continent.

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