The two main news items of the weekend contradict one another in that the Israeli government is reaching out to save lives, while its adversaries take lives by murdering innocent children in their sleep.
ECI has for many years alerted the European Union institutions in Brussels about the Palestinian Authority incitement to terror and the culture of death, which is penetrating Palestinian society, through their media, education and popular culture. On the day when the brutal murder of the Fogel family was announced, Hamas was celebrating their death by handing out sweets to children in the streets of Gaza. Meanwhile the Palestinian Authority was announcing the name of a new street called after a convicted terrorist.
A Palestinian child can walk to school today along a street named after terrorist Abu Jihad, who planned a bus hijacking that killed 37, spend the day in school named after Ahmad Yassin, play soccer in the afternoon in a tournament honouring terrorist Abd Al-Basset Odeh, who killed 31, and end his day at a youth center named after Abu Iyad, who was responsible for killing 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich.
The European Union (EU) should now seriously reconsider its massive financial support to the Palestinian Authority where, as this example demonstrates, hatred is incorporated into the very fabric of everyday life. As the EU is the main financier of the Palestinian Authority, they are also partly responsible for its output. For those EU member states which are currently pressing for the removal of Hamas from the EU terrorist list, the event of this past weekend has made the case crystal clear. Hamas is not a partner for peace but a promoter of death and destruction.
The EU now needs to change its policy focus in the Middle East from condemning Jewish settlements to condemning those who try to demonize and ultimately will want to kill Jews regardless of where in Israel they live.
Jewish settlers are not the obstacle to peace. Palestinian terrorists who kill innocent children are the obstacles to peace, and promoters of a culture which celebrate murder of innocent Jewish children can never live in peace with their neighbours.
