Why 7 October is our collective failure – My opinion in the EU Observer

My opinion in the EU Observer on why October 7 is our collective failure – also as Europeans.

7 October was one of the worst days of my life. When it happened, I was at Emmanuel Macron’s annual party conference as his parliamentary group’s Middle East adviser.

I quickly realised I had a friend among the families of the hostages.

Udi Goren and I had been exchanging messages for years as he wanted to visit Egypt. My family had long been involved in the peace process since the 1990s.

On 7 October, Tal Haimi, Udi’s cousin, was killed and his body is withheld by Hamas to this day. For two months, his pregnant wife and two kids believed and hoped that he had been captured alive, until the terrible news of his death came. Udi had the courage to keep campaigning for the remaining hostages still, urging the Israeli government to return to negotiations for a ceasefire and a deal.

Nothing, however, came out in this direction from Benjamin Netanyahu.

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When I drafted the European Parliament’s resolution on the aftermath of the 7 October attacks with MEPs, we had to meet with Israel’s ambassador at his urgent request.

I seized the opportunity to tell the ambassador that the families of the hostages were desperate for a ceasefire to negotiate their release, that most did not understand the logic behind the killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians to achieve this goal.

“We do not represent the families of the hostages. We represent the State of Israel,” the ambassador coldly replied, only to then continue — complaining that our resolution supported international law and the work of the International Criminal Court to prosecute war criminals on all sides.

I remember exchanging afterwards with Udi and we agreed that the wrong people were getting too much airtime. The governing Israeli far-right could not care less about his message to “bring them home.”

However, to my surprise even a majority of MEPs naively sided with Israel’s far-right.

For four months, the EU could not bring itself to call for a ceasefire and negotiations. Neither could a majority in the European Parliament, despite the fact half of the hostages had been successfully released, precisely after a week of negotiations thanks to a ceasefire in November 2023.

Full article:

https://euobserver.com/16035/why-7-october-is-our-collective-failure/

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