The EU is setting up a high-level group of political and military leaders from member states, Ukraine and the UK to speed up efforts to close Europe’s defence capability gaps amid rising Russian threats.
The EU is setting up a high-level group of political and military leaders from member states, Ukraine and the UK to speed up efforts to close Europe’s defence capability gaps amid rising Russian threats.
Are you talking about Gaza? You do realize Russian war is far more deadly, serious, globally-impacting and an actual threat to the union? No one wants to get involved in the middle east (except US for whatever reason, constantly) and things there are relatively calm for almost a year now, so that feels like a weird thing to switch over to instead of focusing on Russia
Utterly false.
There are still hundred bombs raining down on Gaza every day? Do you not understand the word “relatively”? Why would EU get involved in middle east when they have their own war?
We are involved - up to the hilt. I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt, but are you really making comments like this in good faith?
Yes. Why would EU shift focus from themselves to middle east and make themselves the next US (self proclaimed world police) that everyone hates for getting themselves involved in middle east? Answer me.
Answer what? Your nonsense reply ignores international law, not to mention decency.
See my previous answer https://lemmy.world/post/51412614/25621166
Ehh.
It really isn’t that hard to understand the basic geopolitic neutrality concept of “support Israel’s existence and security, support Palestinian statehood and civilian rights, oppose Hamas, and oppose Israeli policies that violate international law”. EU is not a militaristic union, and each country can diplomatically mostly do what they want. Hell, even some states are borderline hostile towards one another. It’s not called “United States of Europe”. There has been fair amount of pushback, from nasty public denouncations, to ending trade deals (including military), etc, but it’s all done by individual countries. Israel has never threatened EU, so EU upper body has no legal right to impose total trade embargo to Israel. Spain even banned fuel shipments which provide other EU countries. Stop thinking of EU like US. Yes, since EU union contains many countries, some would naturally, statistically, lean towards supporting Israel, but if you’re going to then claim entire EU is like that, is basically how racism gets born. We are constantly getting threatened by a much larger and scarier country, with multiple drone incidents already, and now this weird ass mysterious CIA visit (which happened before Russia invaded Ukraine) being like a bad omen, I cannot express how much I would not want to go around pissing off US right now, which could be our strongest ally, just to meddle in middle fucking east. Get a grip.
“Just because you’re not interested in politics doesn’t mean politics isn’t interested in you”. Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Western Sahara, etc… these are all countries in Europe’s immediate vicinity and what happens in these countries affects the EU whether we want it to or not. If I’m rich, I’d rather live in a nice neighborhood with neighbors who are doing as well as I am, than in a dangerous neighborhood where all the neighbors see me as a stuck-up rich boy whose car has too many hubcaps.
The STILL ongoing civil war in Libya, for instance, causes a constant stream of migration across the Mediterranean, with a lot of human trafficking, because Libya hasn’t got time to worry about that when Libyans are killing other Libyans.
Morocco intentionally sent refugees into Ceuta for politically motivated reasons.
An unstable Arabian Peninsula is not good for Europe. An unstable North Africa is not good for Europe. Perhaps the USA can cause shitstorms in the Middle East and then blithely walk away back to the other hemisphere, but that shit is on our doorstep.
While it’s true that Russia is a direct threat to Europe and Israel is not, that doesn’t make the genocide okay. Even if we don’t want to actively stop the genocide, we could at least stop stop selling weapons to Israel (and send them to Ukraine instead), and maybe just refuse any kind of trade with them until they stop.
It’s ridiculous how few EU leaders are willing to condemn genocide. Even just the words would help. Right now we are simply complicit.
EU… selling weapons? What? EU doesn’t have some central arms factory they sell weapons from. You’re thinking of some country. Some countries have done a full embargo, including stopping arms trade. There are others who have not (Greece?).
I don’t think you understand EU.
I do. You’re just making up pointless complaints for argument’s sake.
Pointless complaints? Your complaints are illogical in the first place. Israel has not threatened EU markets or safety, there is no legal basis for the EU upper body to tell other countries they cannot trade with Israel. You’re angry at the wrong government because you do not understand how EU operates. Fix yourself and be angry at specific countries. Here’s anology for you - this is like blaming all people of color X because what some in the group did.
You are making up nonsense as you go along. I didn’t even single out any specific government. I was speaking in general terms. There are a few national leaders in the EU that have condemned the genocide, and a lot that haven’t. Some have stopped their weapons shipments to Israel, but others haven’t. Some even crack down on critics of the genocide, like the UK (Europe, not EU) and Germany (EU).
That is how the EU works. I don’t know how you think it works, but maybe you should fix yourself and learn to read before you direct some random anger at an innocent passerby because you can’t read.
But maybe I shouldn’t have called it pointless complaints, but a strawman attack. You’re not attacking anything I said, so you are just arguing for argument’s sake.
This is your comment;
So let’s go over it.
EU has not tried to join the conflict or profit from it. We have, however, sent assist.
They would need to show EU and member states knowingly assisted particular unlawful acts. Merely maintaining diplomatic relations, trade, or research cooperation does not legally equal collusion.
Same as before. EU is not world police.
Are you saying people of Israel does not deserve equal treatment to others because of what their government did? The deals are not done with Benyamin. They’re literally paying for the programmes they participate it. That rhetoric comes awfully close to genocide supporters.
EU countries can do that. No one bars them from doing so. However, that is not the function of EU. Funnily enough, international law does not contain a general prohibition on trading with countries somebody classifies as “settler-colonial ethnostates.”
Are you talking about random tweet congratulating Israel on 75th year of independence, a country full of innocent people, not Netanyahu, IDF or military? Interesting. Did you know China and Russia, who are borderline their enemies, did it too? By the same logic, should we become hostile towards every American just because of what Trump does? Same for China, Russia, Thailand, much of Africa, etc… If you say no, then you’re a hypocrite. If you say yes, you’re a dangerous person to society and stability of the world. We still maintain semi-normal relations with Russians themselves despite what is happening you know… one of my best friends is Russian.
You do realize most of the times countries defend someone, is not because they care about the thing they’re defending, but because of other ulterior motives? No one even cared about the Jews in WW2 till they invaded big players and everyone needed to mobilize the population into fighting against them, and Jews was a good event to pick for propaganda (not that it didn’t happen, but it’s simply not why countries went against Germany)
You’re putting someone else’s words in my mouth. Don’t do that.
So you didn’t make it up, you copied it from someone else. That still doesn’t make it okay. Next time, before you direct your irrational anger at someone, maybe check first if you’ve got the right person.
That said, your arguments to justify trade and friendly relations with a genocidal nation are not convincing.
I think you need to prove how Israel threatens EU for EU to tell other countries what they can’t do, not the other way around. While that doesn’t happen - countries are free to do what they want, they are not puppet states.
The child abductions in Ukraine, to rob them of their identity, counts in fact as an act of genocide.
Edit: it’s true, you can find it here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abductions_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war#genocide-question
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_genocide_of_Ukrainians_in_the_Russo-Ukrainian_war
This is why I asked. We have ongoing genocide at our doorstep, but people only speak about genocide happening in Gaza.