Wednesday, July 6, 2016

No better than the moral narcissism of its colonialist European predecessors

The moral narcissism of the European Union is no better than the moral narcissism of its colonialist European predecessors. It's just a different century.

Judith Bergman..
Israel Hayom..
06 July '16..

You can take the Europeans out of the former colonies, but you cannot take the colonialism out of the Europeans. That much is clear, at least as far as the European Union is concerned. In an interview with Israeli journalist and TV anchor Eylon Aslan-Levy, EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen was asked why the EU supports the French peace initiative when the Israeli prime minister has called for direct negotiations. "Why doesn't the European Union simply pressure Abbas to take up Prime Minister Netanyahu's invitation?" asked Aslan-Levy.

Faaborg-Andersen replied, "Because I think experience has shown that the parties are not capable on their own to reach a stage where they are able to sit down and negotiate. There is a need for a third-party involvement and I think that the Paris conference was a recognition of that fact [sic] that there was need for international focus on this issue that has been somewhat dormant for some time, I mean the peace process, and I think this was the motivating factor behind the French initiative coupled with the fact that we are seeing a constant deterioration of the situation on the ground bringing us further away from a two-state solution rather than closer to [sic]."

The Europe of the postnational European Union no longer invades other peoples' countries in order to colonize them, but it still uses all its powers -- limited and toothless as they are -- to invade how other nations should think and feel about the world, and to impose its distinct European view of how the world should spin for the rest of us.

We all know how hard it is to break an old habit, and the ideological parts of colonialism still come very naturally to the descendant of the old Europe -- even if the EU mistakenly believes that being ostensibly riddled with post-colonial guilt and inviting half the world's migrants into its own backyard somehow exculpates it from all its past and present sins.

(Continue to Full Article)

Judith Bergman is a writer and political analyst living in Israel. Twitter @judithbergman.

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