Ashrawi slams EU position on Gaza as "schizophrenic"

BRUSSELS, July 24 (KUNA) -- Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, PLO Executive Committee Member, Member of Palestinian Legislative Council and Head of the PLO Department of Culture and Information, Thursday expressed her dismay over the EU foreign ministers' statement on Gaza during their meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.
The foreign ministers of the 28-member European bloc condemned the rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and justified the Israeli military assault against the civilian population as "Israel's legitimate right to defend itself." "We are dismayed by the schizophrenic approach of the European Union's Foreign Affairs Council Conclusions," said Ashrawi whose statement was distributed to the press by the Palestinian embassy in Brussels.
"The EU is portraying Israel as the victim when we know that Israel instigated this assault and provoked a Palestinian response as part of a recurring pattern of Israeli violence against a captive population," she noted.
"The people being murdered by the hundreds (745 to date) and bombed out of their homes by the thousands (146,000) are the Palestinians, not the Israelis. The "criminal and unjustifiable acts" are those committed by the Israeli army and its military mega machine, whether by air, by sea or by land, against the Palestinians of Gaza, annihilating families (45) wholesale," said Ashrawi.
"By using the dehumanizing and racist language of Israel that accuses the civilian population of Gaza of providing "themselves as human shields," the EU is subscribing to the usual Israeli distortion of blaming the victim," she stated.
She called on the EU to maintain "a moral, legal, political and human consistency, rather than adopt Israel's narrative in order to gain its damning approval." (end) nk.sd