Last week, EU foreign policy commissioner Catherine Ashton published an article in the International Herald Tribune about her recent visit to Egypt, reaffirming the European Union's support for every significant political group in Egypt, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Rarely have the double standards of the EU been so blatantly obvious.
The article was published shortly after Lady Ashton, a British Baroness and former Labour politician with a past in the far-left Soviet-penetrated Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), had sent her fellow EU commissioners a letter informing them that the EU is about to impose binding requirements for labeling products produced by Jews in East Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights. At the same time, the EU has issued guidelines barring the 500,000 Jewish inhabitants of these regions from any EU funding, cooperation, awarding of scholarships, and research funds or prizes.
While the European Commission is waging a campaign against half a million Jews, its chief foreign representative is heaping praise on Jew-hating radical Islamists in Egypt. While in Egypt, Ashton even paid a visit to the deposed former Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a man who has called Israelis "blood-suckers," "warmongers" and "descendants of apes and pigs." Perhaps she cheered him up with the news of the EU's anti-Jewish boycott.
Ashton's article in the Herald Tribune was entitled, "Moving Egypt back to the democratic path." Back to the democratic path? As if Egypt ever has been a democracy? Sorry to disappoint you, Lady Ashton, but the only democracy in the Middle East happens to be Israel. With the exception of Lebanon, there has never been a democracy in the entire region apart from Israel. What Ashton seems to imply in her article, however, is that during Morsi's one-year of tyranny in Egypt, it was "on the democratic path."
Ashton begins her article by describing how she noticed, on her drive into Cairo after dusk, that Egypt's rival groups had "put their differences on hold" for a few hours to break the daily fast during Ramadan. If the Egyptians are able to do that, she remarks, they are surely able to "make their respite from turmoil permanent" and establish "a stable, democratic Egypt."
The EU's leading foreign policy maker is so naive as to think that if a torturer pauses his torturing sessions for a while because he is hungry and needs to eat, this proves that there is some good in him. In her youth Ashton was a fellow traveler of the communists who advocated the West's unilateral disarmament; today she is still appeasing the enemies of freedom.
The problem with the Egyptians, Ashton says, is that they do not yet understand that democracy requires a shared understanding of how decisions should be taken, a degree of mutual respect, and a willingness to respect the rights of minorities. However, she emphasizes, the EU is willing to help them and teach them how to do it. Ashton says that she went to see representatives of the whole political spectrum, including the Muslim Brotherhood. "In every discussion, I confirmed that our support and friendship will continue," she writes. "I was encouraged that every single group I met, whatever their other differences, welcomed that commitment."
She calls Egypt a country that is "vital" for Europe. Hence, she says, the EU wants to play a role in helping "Egypt return to democracy." "Every significant group must be included" in the process, including the Muslim Brotherhood, Ashton adds. All detainees, "including Dr. Morsi and his close associates," must be released. "The EU is a long-term partner and friend of Egypt."
Just think about this a minute: the EU appeases the Egyptians, including the most radical Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, with promises of money and everlasting friendship, while at the at the same time the EU has decided to label products from Israel, a real democracy, that are made in Judea, Samaria, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and in the process hurting more Arabs, who are employed there, than Jews. It has begun to boycott half a million Jews living in these areas as well as countless businesses and institutions based there, including the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
While Egypt's Muslim Brothers are told that they can count on Europe's support and friendship, Jewish sportsmen, artists and scientists no longer get any EU support if they are Jewish and live beyond the 1949 armistice lines. The EU wants "every significant group" included in the Middle East peace process -- except Jews who happen to live beyond the 1949 Green Line. The Muslim Brotherhood is embraced as a friend and partner of Europe, but Jewish sportsmen, artists and scientists are considered a dangerous threat to peace in the Middle East.
Will Baroness Ashton visit Jewish settlers when she happens to be in Judea and Samaria? Obviously not, since the EU advocates their discrimination and impoverishment. But in Egypt, she rushes to the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi to wish them well.
The EU's double standards are also apparent from its decision to cut all financial and commercial links to the Jews beyond the Green Line, while at the same time it refuses to include Hezbollah on its list of terrorist organizations by making a hypocritical distinction between the so-called "military wing" of the organization and its "political wing." This way, it remains possible to raise funds for Hezbollah -- both its "wings" -- in the 28 EU member states.
Have the Jews from Samaria and Judea ever bombed buses on the European continent, as Hezbollah did two years ago in the Bulgarian city of Burgas? Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, will now be boycotted by Ashton in his capacity as "commander in chief" of the organization, but not in his capacity as its "president," but 500,000 Jews get harassed across an armistice line, in their political as well as commercial, scientific and other interests, without making any distinction between various "wings" of their activities.
The EU's policies towards Israel and the Jews have become so vicious, dishonest and unfair that it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the EU is an anti-Semitic organization. The sooner the "political wing" of this organization is dismantled and the EU returns to its origin as a free trade organization, the better.
