Editor: If the U.N. Expert on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, thinks the EU President is complicit, what about us? Our government has been supplying Israel with weapons, bombs, and money throughout the entire slaughter in Gaza.
Now that Israel has stolen Gaza from the Palestinian people (they already stole the West Bank) I wonder if anyone who’s been defending Israel’s murder of more than 18,000 children, calling them all “accidents” or using the “human shields” talking point, will now admit they were wrong.
I’m simply asking this question because it only seems logical that the entity supplying an aggressor with the aid and supplies it needs to carry out a genocide with the intent to steal land (Members of Netanyahu’s cabinet admitted the goal very early on in the “war.”) should be considered just as guilty. It’s a rhetorical question, but if you have an answer for me, leave it in the comments.
As the International Court of Justice takes its next steps on investigating and prosecuting war crimes in Israel’s war on Gaza, the top expert on Palestine at the United Nations is pushing for even more international accountability.
In a wide-ranging exclusive interview with The Intercept, U.N. special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese, called for top European Union officials — including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen — to face charges of complicity in war crimes over their support for Israel during its 18-month assault on Gaza.
“The fact that the two highest figures of the EU continue business as usual engagements with Israel is beyond deplorable,” Albanese said. “I’m not someone who says, ‘History will judge them’ — they will have to be judged before then. And they will have to understand that immunity cannot equate with impunity.”
Israel has killed more than 50,000 people and destroyed almost all of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure since an attack by Hamas in October 2023. Most of the dead were civilians — including tens of thousands of women and children.
Israel’s initial aim of returning hostages taken by Hamas morphed into a U.S.-backed vision for ethnically cleaning Palestinians from Gaza. To that end, Israel’s army has intensified lethal attacks, along with a watertight embargo on food, water, electricity, and aid.
“They will have to understand that immunity cannot equate with impunity. ”
Francesca albanese
“It is impossible not to see this as an intent to exterminate,” the EU’s former foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell wrote late last month.
A complaint against the Leyen, the European Commission president, was filed at the International Criminal Court last May for complicity in war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Since taking office in December, the bloc’s new foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas has blamed Hamas for an Israeli decision to end its ceasefire in March, continued normal diplomatic relations, and vowed to “stand in solidarity with Israel.”
“The 1948 Genocide Convention calls upon signatories to not only punish but also prevent genocide,” said Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East analyst and non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies. “Here we have the two senior EU officials not only refusing to take even symbolic action to prevent genocide, but actively normalizing and supporting it in the full knowledge that their backing enables the crimes they nominally oppose.”
