World Jewish News

EU’s Schulz’s Knesset address sparks ire of lawmakers from the Jewish Home party

Members of the Knesset from the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party including the Minister of Economy Naftali Bennett, walked out of the Israeli parliament Wednesday during the address of European Parliament President Martin Schulz after he criticized the blockade of Gaza and regretted that Israelis are allowed to consume more water than Palestinians in the West Bank.
During his half-hour address in his German mother tongue, Schulz said it was an "honor" for him to speak the Knesset, which he called the "heart of Israeli democracy" and a "symbol of hope for the Jewish people."
He said that, although he had been born in 1955, years after the Holocaust, "I bear responsibility which stems from the mass murder perpetrated in the name of my nation, each German bears it."
He reiterated the EU’s “clear commitment to Israel’s right to exist, and to the right of the Jewish people to live in security and peace.
“The European Union will always stand at Israel’s side,” he said.
He also mentioned Israeli victims of Palestinian rocket attacks, saying that Europeans can hardly imagine the emotional hardships parents in the Israeli southern cities of Sderot and Ashkelon undergo when they fear for their children. “Therefore Israel has a right to protect its citizens,” he said.
In a reference to Iran's nuclear program, he said he can well understand why Israel feels threatened. “Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons,” he said, adding that this is not merely an Israeli worry but one of the entire world.
And he reiterated what he said on Tuesday in a speech at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that the EU doesn’ plan to boycott Israel.
But he also also criticized certain Israeli settlement policies and called on Israel to consider easing its blockade of Gaza, suggesting that it increases Palestinian frustration and thus makes Israelis less secure.
“The blockade of the Gaza Strip is your reaction to attacks on the civilian population. But it also does not allow real development and drives people to despair, which in turn is used by extremists,” Schulz said. “Perhaps the blockade creates not more, but less, security.”
Schulz also recounted a meeting he held two days ago with young Palestinians, saying they dream of something that most people take for granted: “to live in their own country, without violence, without restrictions of movement.” Palestinians have the same rights as Israelis to self-determination and justice, Schulz said.
“One of the questions from these young men that moved me the most was: How can it be that Israelis are allowed to use 70 liters of water per day and Palestinians only 17?”
These statements led the members of the Jewish Home party to leave the Knesset plenum.
Jewish Home chairman, Minister Naftali Bennett later released a statement demanding an apology for “two lies that the Palestinians fed him.”
“The words that were heard in the Knesset are very serious,” Bennett stated. “Silence in the face of false propaganda legitimizes actions against Israelis. I will not accept false moralizing against the people of Israel, in Israel’s Knesset. Certainly not in German.”
"Our national honor as the State of Israel isn't mine or the ministers'. It belongs to all of the people of Israel," he said.
Palestinians received the same amount of water as Israel and Israel is actually “taking care” of Gazans, providing them with food and cement “that is being used against” Israel, said Moti Yogev, a lawmaker for Jewish Home.
“His support for Palestinians who incite for the destruction of Israel, from the Knesset podium, 70 years after the Holocaust, is a chutzpah without parallel,” he added.
According to observers, Martin Schulz was unimpressed by the heckling. He said with humour that compared to the European Parliament this was ‘’harmless’’. He told Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein that the Israeli parliament was quiet compared to the European Parliament and that he would have been disappointed if there hadn't been any reaction to his speech.
When the yelling — “Palestinians are liars” and similar slogans — continued, preventing Schulz from proceeding with his address, Edelstein said that the correct information about the alleged discrepancy in access to water would be submitted to the guest, but that it shouldn’t be done by shouting in the plenum.
The leader of the opposition Labour party Isaac Herzog, who chairs the delegation for relations with the European Parliament, came to Schulz’ s defense. “The behavior of the Jewish Home MKs was shameful and scandalous,” he said.
“I think some of the Knesset members didn’t even hear the speech,” he told Israel Radio shortly. “My colleagues and I were embarrassed. We know Martin Schulz. He defends Israel’s position, including in the European Parliament.”
Schulz’s speech included “deep, historic words about the justice of Israel, about the Shoah and its lessons, about the battle against anti-Semitism and against evil; it was very impressive. And then he talked about our relationship with the Palestinians and the founding of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as part of the two-state solution. We have to get used to the fact that even our friends around the world are sometimes critical of us, and they’re going to say it. In the Knesset itself far worse things are said,” Herzog added.
In his address, the European leader also expressed support for the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians and said he truly believes a final-status deal was in reach.
He stressed that if there is a deal, the EU is willing to offer Israel the status of a “privileged partnership,” which includes “unprecedented financial and personal support.”
“We Europeans support you on the rocky path to peace, which will demand tough concessions from both sides. We know that the Israeli people wants peace,” he said.

by Yossi Lempkowicz

EJP