The first thing that one learns about conflict resolution – which all high-level politicians are, or at least should be, fluent in – is that if you oppress a people, especially by restricting their basic rights and freedoms, and then consistently ignore their calls for change; there will be a violent reaction. 

This is something that has happened time and time again in the course and aftermath of the West’s colonial history. 

Yet, Metsola seemed to negate all of this by arguing that “now is not the time for whataboutisms” when expressing her condemnation of the attack on Israel and solidarity toward the Jewish people. 

Acknowledging the context of a long and messy conflict is not whataboutism, if anything, it is the first step toward solving it; because how can tensions be eased if we do not understand why people are angry?

Her statement was filled with sympathetic addresses toward Jewish people in Israel and simplified the motivations behind the Hamas attack.

And what does this do?

It paints an inaccurate picture of the conflict today so that people who may not be aware of the history preceding the current tensions – of which not many are – can be manipulated into believing a false narrative. 

Like that, the EU will have less and less public pressure calling for the union to aid helpless Palestinians who have been living in the “largest open-air prison” in the world. 

It also justifies increased financial and military support for a nuclear power – that is also an important EU trade partner – against a comparably powerless people.

She further stated that the motivations of the attack were simply because the Israeli victims were Jewish. This is not true.

Such a claim is arguably disinformation – Hamas’ attack on Southern Israel succeeds decades of ethnic tensions, territorial disputes, and severe oppression of Palestinians: the EU knows this.

So, reducing the motivations behind the attack to anti-semitism is a very manipulative political tactic that cannot go unmentioned.

This is not to say that Metsola should have condoned the bombings or renounced support of Israel, that is simply unfeasible.

However, if she really does care about democracy and human rights – like she often proclaims – she should have been honest about the torture, deaths, kidnappings, and detentions that Palestinians have been enduring at the hands of the Israeli government that they did not elect. This fostered resentment and erupted into an extreme attack. 

It must be noted that Metsola acts as a representative of the position of the EU as a whole, even if that was not explicitly said in her speech. Her address was further sure to point out that Hamas does “not represent the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people.”

Yet, what Palestinian people have are not aspirations but intense grievances amplified by brutal abuse.

At present, Metsola and Commission President Ursula are in Israel to figure out how to mitigate humanitarian consequences. The Maltese EP President has also advocated for humanitarian corridors in Gaza to ensure essential aid and supplies reach those in need amid the conflict, especially after some countries have declared that they will halt all aid.

Moreover, Hamas is a governing body and internationally defined terrorist group. It was formed in 1987 at the start of the first Palestinian uprising against Israel and it is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist group that first formed in Egypt.

Hamas, the Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement,” wants to create a Palestinian state. It rejects any peace deal with Israel, which it refuses to recognize.

In an opinion poll conducted in 2021 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a dramatic surge in support for Hamas was reported.

In the poll, 53% of the 1,200 Palestinians surveyed said they believed Hamas is “most deserving of representing and leading the Palestinian people.” By contrast, just 14% said the same of Fatah.

The West has maintained that as of 2023, Hamas is not reflective of the Palestinian people.

Israel controls the land, air, and sea borders of Gaza which has been deemed illegal according to international law by the United Nations.

The UN, various human rights groups, and legal scholars citing the border blockade consider Gaza to still be under military occupation by Israel.

Besides this, the far-right Israeli government has been enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. In fact, 2022 was described as the “deadliest year” for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, in 2021 Israel raided Islam’s third-holiest site, and August of this year saw a spike in Israeli military and border police killings of Palestinian children.

According to a Reuters report, the main militant behind the Hamas attack Mohammed Deif planned and named it the “Al Aqsa Flood” in retaliation for raids carried out at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque by Israel in 2021.

Meanwhile, speaking to NPR, a Hamas official stated that, along with revenge for the raids, the October 7th attack came in response to “Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people in Jerusalem and the West Bank” and to “break the blockade on the Gaza Strip” which worsened the conditions in the area.

Despite the recent escalation, the issue started a long time ago.

During the 25 years of the Palestine Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration from abroad, mainly from Eastern Europe took place with numbers swelling in the 1930s due to the notorious Nazi persecution of the Jewish community.

Over this period the Jewish population of Palestine, composed principally of immigrants, increased from less than 10% in 1917 to over 30% in 1947.

Palestine had long been a place where Jews migrated, for both religious and historical reasons. In fact, the history of conflict in the ‘Holy Land’ goes back millennia and there is some evidence that there used to be a United Kingdom of Israel before it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

Nonetheless, recent history starts in 1947, when Palestine – which was a British mandate – was sought to be divided by the UN into Arab and Jewish states. This sparked the first Arab-Israeli war won by the latter state in 1949.

750,000 Palestinians were displaced, and the territory was divided into 3 parts: the State of Israel, the West Bank (of the Jordan River), and the Gaza Strip.

Eventually, through more invasions, Israel gained territorial control over the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.

So no, it is not just a solemn moment for Jews in Israel, it is a solemn moment for every innocent human being who has been harmed or killed as a result of a conflict that resembles a colonial crusade.

What do you think of Metsola’s “solemn moment” speech?