By Stuart Littlewood

Brussels’s halfwits, like London’s and Washington’s, never stop rewarding the racist Israeli regime even when it’s poised to grab more Palestinian territory

I had barely finished my rant against the British government for showering new rewards on the Israelis (see “Do Palestinians’ lives matter?”) when the European Union voted to do the same.                                               

The UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement, signed last year, comes into force next January. The government says it loves this relationship and is committed to strengthening it. “We will seek to work with counterparts in the new Israeli government to host a bilateral trade and investment summit in London.” This will “identify new opportunities and collaboration between Israel and the United Kingdom”.

Not to be outdone, the EU has now decided to hand Israel a juicy aviation agreement, the latest in a long line of goodies awarded to the apartheid regime for its crimes against humanity. And that’s after the EU had voiced condemnation of Israel’s latest annexation plan.

Not only that, the European Investment Bank, the EU’s financing institution, has just agreed a €150 million loan for a seawater desalination plant – one of the largest in the world – for Israel “in one of the world’s most water-stressed regions”. So water-stressed that Israel long ago stole the Palestinians’ aquifers and deprived them of access to their own supply. And it made no difference that the criminals were now gearing up to annex even more Palestinian territory.

According to this report 437 MEPs (that’s 62 per cent) from European People’s Party (EPP), the Renew Europe Group (REG) and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR) voted to ratify the EU-Israel Aviation Agreement even though MEP Clare Daly from Ireland warned that doing so “would be perceived as an upgrade in bilateral relations with the state of Israel”. So who are these confused people?

The EPP, the oldest and largest, says: “We must continue to promote human rights and democracy in our relations with third countries.” So, naturally, they have no objection to promoting the Israeli regime in its policy to permanently deny Palestinians their human rights and self-determination.

The REG would have us believe: “At a time when the rule of law and democracy are under threat in parts of Europe, our group will stand up for the people who suffer from the illiberal and nationalistic tendencies that we see returning in too many countries.” Oh really?

The ECR declares: “We are the voice of COMMON SENSE.”

As if their behaviour wasn’t bizarre enough, these MEPs then held a separate debate with High Representative Joseph Borrell to discuss EU measures to deter Israel from declaring annexation.

The aviation deal builds on a 2013 agreement. Back then scheduled direct passenger flights connected Israel and 18 EU member states and the EU was said to be the most important aviation market for Israel, accounting for 57 per cent of scheduled international air passenger movements to and from Israel, and that Israel was one of the most important aviation markets for the EU in the Middle East with a strong growth potential.

The aim now is to take EU-Israel aviation relations to a new level. Higher volumes of tourism in both directions will create additional jobs and economic benefits on both sides. Of course, much of the benefit of increased tourism to the Holy Land rightly belongs to the Palestinians if only they were permitted their own airport, but the EU doesn’t seem to care that all visitors to and from the Holy Land are forced through Israel’s Ben Gurion airport – or should we call it Lydda? Thereby hangs an interesting tale.

Growing airline traffic rewards Israeli terror

Strictly speaking, Ben Gurion, near Tel Aviv, belongs to the Palestinians. It was formerly Lydda airport; and Lydda, a major town in its own right during the British mandate, was designated Palestinian in the 1947 UN Partition Plan. In July 1948, after Britain left and Israel declared statehood, Israeli terrorist troops seized Lydda, shot up the town and drove out the population as part of the ethnic cleansing and territorial expansion programme set out in their infamous “Plan Dalet”. In the process they massacred 426 men, women and children. A total of 176 of them were slaughtered in the town’s main mosque. See here for the gory details.

Those who survived were forced to walk into exile in the scalding July heat, leaving a trail of bodies – men, women and children – along the way. Israeli troops carried away 1,800 truck-loads of loot. Jewish immigrants then flooded in and Lydda was given a Hebrew name, Lod.

So, Israel has no real right to Lydda/Lod/Ben Gurion airport – it was stolen in a terror raid, as was so much else. And it’s Israeli terror that is being rewarded by increasing airline flights and boosting tourism and trade.

Today the airport is the international gateway to Israel – and indirectly to Palestine. And what happened to Gaza’s airport? The Oslo II Agreement of 1995 provided for one to be constructed. The Yasser Arafat International airport was built with funding from Japan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Germany and Morocco, and cost $86 million. Arafat and US President Clinton attended the opening in 1998. Owned and operated by the Palestinian Authority, it was capable of handling 700,000 passengers a year.

In December 2001 Israel destroyed the radar station and control tower, and cut the runway.

Back to the fiasco with the 437 MEPs who plainly don’t give a four-X about adding to the Palestinians’ misery. Aneta Jerska, the coordinator of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP) says:

Those same political groups whom we heard expressing concern about annexation had just made annexation possible by voting in favour of the EU-Israel Aviation Agreement. This is by any standards the pinnacle of the EU’s hypocrisy. European citizens need to see no more crocodile tears from their elected politicians. The EU must impose sanctions on Israel, as member states once did against apartheid South Africa, including a military embargo on Israel, a ban on trade with illegal settlements and the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. Only by ending “business as usual”, will Israel feel pressure to change its criminal behaviour.