By a majority of 46 to 12 with 2 abstentions, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted Tuesday to adopt a report accusing Israel of apparent "systematic and illegal killing" in the Gaza Strip.
The report blames Israel for the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, including "cases of the deliberate fatal shooting of individuals who posed no imminent danger to life amounting to an appalling pattern of apparently systematic unlawful killings."
In an Arutz Sheva interview Dr. Hen Karcher, lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies at Ariel University, addressed the report and who is behind it. He places the spotlight on the person who supervised the writing of the report and from the moment of her appointment the report's statements were a foregone conclusion.
Karcher says she is "a Swedish social democrat parliamentarian named Jahnssen, part of a group which is endeavoring to establish a Palestinian state while ignoring or hardly referring to issues of terror and radical Islam. This is a long-term policy which the Swedes have maintained and therefore the conclusions were inevitable once she was appointed."
But why did the rest of Europe follow her lead? Is there no independent thinking in Europe?
"It's important to remember that this is not the EU but rather a body established after World War II to create a dialogue and encourage interaction and agreements between European nations. The easiest thing for such a body is to decide about subjects which are not held in dispute. For this reason if a humanitarian issue is being discussed without reference to the rockets and missiles and the residents of Gaza are defined as 1.5 million captives in the hands of Hamas, it will be easy to reach such a decision, and people who want to discuss other approaches will be easily defeated."
Karcher adds that "there were a number of arguments to change sentences in the preliminary report but this is like the commissions of enquiry after operations. When biased people are appointed and this is their stance and when in Europe they are dealing with difficulties which are similar to ours, the outcome will be a prejudiced and tendentious report which weakens our position."
Is there any chance of achieving a change in direction, such as MKs Aliza Lavi and Eli Alalouf tried to attain without success?
"It would be wrong to ignore and not to appear at the hearing which preceded the decision since the Palestinians are there. Diplomacy requires us to appear everywhere but also to initiate decisions condemning terror and radical Islam and to highlight Hamas. We can't always just respond, we can't think that if we wear nice suits and say a few sharp sentences it will help. We will be defeated.
"We should have started the battle before this Swedish member of parliament was appointed and not so much later. It's almost impossible to enact changes in a report which was already submitted. There is no dispute that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is bad and when one sees this picture it is easy to blame Israel. After the discussion is presented in this manner we didn't have a chance, we could only express our sorrow, and it would be much more difficult to attain a pro-Israel decision."
Is the European arena irreparably "biased" against Israel?
"If Israel will initiate a fixed participation of our delegates, if we would declare a clear policy and act in the various institutions and create clear and decisive reports which promote decisions condemning terror and harm to women's rights, we would be able to gain supporters and even if other decisions will be taken it will be clear that we and they have common interests."
Does the need to appease European Muslims affect European parliamentarians?
"This matter is very complicated, there are significant debates in Europe over the Muslim issue and many laws are being legislated against radical Islam. These are questions which the EU is also dealing with and each individual country is also dealing with them. Right-wing forces are getting stronger and saying that there is a limit to liberalism and that they cannot allow Islam to gain a foothold in Europe and this is what Israel should be saying."
What can we do to counter this decision?
"We should establish strategic bodies which combine state institutions with our supporters and work effectively through those bodies emphasizing what is important to them and in this way weaken the Palestinian and other radical elements' positions and create alliances in Europe and not just with the new American administration."