Leaders, international ministers and diplomats from dozens of Arab, European, African and different international locations gathered in Cairo on Saturday for a “peace summit” aimed toward de-escalating the violence in Gaza. However after hours of speeches, that they had little to point out for the journey apart from a gaping divide, as Arab leaders castigated Western international locations for his or her silence on Israel’s airstrikes on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
“The message the Arab world is listening to is loud and clear,” King Abdullah II of Jordan mentioned in his remarks. “Palestinian lives matter lower than Israeli ones. Our lives matter lower than different lives. The appliance of worldwide regulation is non-obligatory, and human rights have boundaries — they cease at borders, they cease at races they usually cease at religions.”
One objective of any summit is to finish in a joint assertion that each one the international locations in attendance can agree on. However European leaders arrived in Cairo understanding they may not signal Egypt’s draft declaration, which didn’t point out Israel’s proper to defend itself towards Hamas, in response to European diplomats and officers concerned within the summit preparations.
“Like every other nation on the earth, Israel has the appropriate to defend itself and to defend its individuals towards this terror,” the German international minister, Annalena Baerbock, mentioned in a speech on the summit, although she added that the protection have to be “throughout the framework of worldwide regulation.”
In the long run, there was no assertion.
Nonetheless, the remarks of a number of European leaders made clear that the hovering civilian dying toll and looming humanitarian disaster in Gaza had compelled a refined shift in rhetoric. Whereas reiterating Israel’s proper to defend itself, the European leaders on Saturday uniformly referred to as on Israel to behave in response to worldwide regulation and urged better protections for Palestinian civilians, factors that had acquired much less emphasis within the first few days after Hamas’s Oct. 7 assaults on Israeli civilians.
And regardless of the dearth of a summit declaration, European officers mentioned leaders from Greece, Cyprus, Italy and Spain, in addition to the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, have been keen to point out up in Cairo, if solely to display to their Arab companions that they have been involved about civilians in Gaza.
In a lot of the Muslim world, the Western response has sparked criticism of hypocrisy and double requirements for its failure to sentence the siege and Israel’s airstrikes on civilians in Gaza — which critics mentioned was the identical type of violence Western international locations readily described as a “conflict crime” when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Outrage over these perceived double requirements was on show on the Cairo summit, the place chief after chief of Arab international locations mourned the hundreds of Palestinian civilians who’ve died in Israeli airstrikes since Oct. 7.
“Wherever else, attacking civilian infrastructure and intentionally ravenous a complete inhabitants of meals, water and fundamental requirements can be condemned,” King Abdullah mentioned. “Accountability can be enforced.”
The president of the European Fee, Ursula von der Leyen, who’s essentially the most seen chief talking for the European Union, added gasoline to these prices with a number of missteps on her watch, together with the unilateral announcement by considered one of her commissioners, later withdrawn, that the bloc would droop support to Gaza after the Oct. 7 Hamas assaults. She didn’t attend the summit in Cairo, sending considered one of her deputies as an alternative.
In newer days, because the humanitarian state of affairs inside Gaza has worsened and the civilian dying toll grown, it has turn into clear that European leaders need to ship a special sign — although one that’s nonetheless more likely to sound too muted to Arab ears.
“Collective punishment is prohibited by the legal guidelines of conflict,” mentioned Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, in an obvious admonishment of Israel. “When conflict have to be performed, there are limits to what may be performed to human beings. A complete siege is towards worldwide regulation.”
Each Western official on the summit talked about the necessity to guarantee a gentle stream of humanitarian support to Gaza, and several other international locations introduced on the summit that they might improve their funding for such support. Ms. von der Leyen has additionally introduced a tripling of support to the Palestinians. (The bloc is the biggest donor of support to the Palestinians.)
And whereas the remainder of the world would possibly see a European Union absolutely aligned with Israel, throughout the bloc, complaints about Ms. von der Leyen’s staunchly pro-Isreal posture have grown, even triggering a uncommon letter of criticism by European Fee workers members, who’re often each avowedly impartial and afraid for his or her profession prospects within the E.U. government department.
The letter, which was addressed to Ms. von der Leyen personally, signed by some 850 staffers and first reported by Euractiv, accused her of a “patent present of double-standards” and mentioned the Fee had given a “free hand to the acceleration and legitimacy of a conflict crime within the Gaza Strip.”
