“What we want to do is to build a two-state solution. So let’s talk about it,” EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell stated prior to a meeting in Brussels with Israeli and Palestinian officials. “What other solutions do they have in mind? To make all the Palestinians leave? To kill them off?”
Borrell’s rhetorical questions are unbecoming of his position. But the Israelis did come up with another plan: create an artificial island in the Mediterranean and send expelled Palestinians there. The idea is not new. In 2017, Israel Katz, who was then Israel’s Transportation and Intelligence Minister, suggested an artificial island off the coast of Gaza as the first step for Palestinian connection to the rest of the world. As Foreign Minister, Katz brought up the plan again, which was rebuffed by EU foreign ministers.
However, the EU’s rejection of the plan, while correct, says nothing of the bloc’s moral and political integrity when it comes to the Palestinian people. The evidence presented at the International Court of Justice, as well as Israel’s open advocacy of its genocidal actions, failed to alter the EU’s passive stance. If the EU is not yet convinced of Israel’s genocidal intent and actions so far, despite the increasing number of Palestinians killed, tortured and injured by the apartheid state, will Katz’s proposal do otherwise? Each Israeli proposal is aimed at wiping Palestinians off the land of Palestine, starting with Gaza. And all Borrell can do is reiterate the moribund two-state diplomacy, because it’s what the EU and the rest of the international community have designated for Palestinians.
To answer Borrell’s questions, yes, Israel wants to make all the Palestinians leave, and Israel wants to kill off Palestinians. Both options are viable in Israel’s colonial agenda. Several statements have been made in that regard by Israeli officials since 7 October. Social media is replete with footage of Israeli soldiers celebrating Gaza’s destruction. The EU is also undoubtedly in possession of its own intelligence gathering, not to mention its decades-long involvement in the political debacle of a two-state illusion that has enabled Israel to reach the point of genocide with absolute impunity.
What is the two-state diplomacy at a point when Israel’s genocidal actions are the clearest evidence that colonialism does not compromise, not even in a scenario where Palestinian political autonomy is still subject to colonial and international impositions?
Borrell is dismissing Israel’s genocide as almost irrelevant by speaking of the two-state compromise. Prior to 7 October, the EU was making use of the political paradigm on the grounds of normalizing colonial violence to the point that each Israeli violation was separated from the ideology and practice of settler-colonial expansion. That status quo has been erased. The EU is now at a point where it is normalizing genocide, while speaking of the two-state paradigm as something it wants to enable.
Who is asking the Palestinian people what they want?
The question itself is patronizing, because why should Palestinians not be able to articulate their political demands when and where they want, without waiting or prompting? The EU has made Palestine about its own brand of politics, desecrating human rights by pretending to advocate for them. However, if Palestinian demands are not articulated from within and taken on board by the international community without any compromise whatsoever, the EU, like the rest of the world, can consider itself complicit in Israel’s genocide.
–Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.
