When I was elected co-spokesperson of the Young European Greens in 2019, I was welcomed and told in various ways that as long as ‘Israel-Palestine’ would not be on the agenda that year, my term would be an easy one.
Everyone who studies international relations, peace and conflict studies, European studies, foreign policy etc, knows that to comment on the Israel-Palestine conflict is risky. We’re thought to become conflict avoidant. Our policy makers, members of Parliament, states, in turn become conflict avoidant.
But few are the conflicts resolved by avoidance.
By now you will have read a number of reactions to the news of escalated conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean. In Israel. In Palestine. In Israel-Palestine. Including by various green stakeholders and parties, and the European Green Party.
Some of them, like the one of the European Greens, focus on “state security”, which in this conflict is always meant to signify Israel state security. When we think of Palestine, we think of Palestinians. Their lack of access to water, electricity, food, safety. Therefore we think of “human security”.
If we apply two lenses to the same problem unequally, we end up with a skewed analysis of the situation.
In broadening the application of sovereignty, of defense of state security to encompass Palestine – then the conversation is more nuanced regarding who is the aggressor, and who is defending. I encourage you to check out the one-sentence by Green Belgian Senator Fourat Ben Chika in that regard.
Doing the same regarding human security, we cannot but express our concern for every Israeli caught in the cross fire of the war.
In looking for a reaction from a political leader that resonated with the nuance I expect from us in Europe I came across the words of Caroline Lucas, a Green MP for Brighton. She condemns Hamas for targeting civilians. She also condemns the illegal Israeli occupation and their response.
It can be about both – not an either-or situation.
In the night between the 7th and 8th October as I tossed and turned in a hotel bed in Brussels my thoughts were in the Mediterranean.
I watched videos by a Palestinian influencer from earlier in the week. Visiting the village his family was from he shows the olive trees that his jiddu, grandfather, had planted.
I look at those olive trees and I see home.
In another video he walks through some streets to visit the al-Aqsa compound, a holy site. A shot shows just his feet as they cross the pave-stones. I recognise them, they look like the ones in Malta and definitely hold onto the heat as fiercely as the paving in Valletta does.
As this influencer shares about his visit to his homeland in an American accent dropping words in Arabic, I try to catch the words that sound like Maltese. By the time they sound familiar the video has ended and I need to watch it again.
I find it inevitable as Mediterranean, as Maltese, to not recognise the humanity of Palestinians.
Malta, however, is no longer colonised by others. (We can theorise on the imperialism of neo-liberalism. But this is not the time nor space.) Colonisation is not a term that just exists in textbooks. It is a reality that limits and constrains the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
As we continue to watch from our western viewpoint the ongoing conflict in Israel-Palestine, I hope that we do not fall in the old narratives and traps.
I believe in our humanity and in our ability to hold true multiple complexities and emotions at the same time. As individuals with little power on foreign policy our main concern can be driven by human security not state security.
Update: on 12 October Mélanie Vogel and Thomas Waitz, co-chairs of the European Green Party, comment on the extremely worrying situation in Israel and Palestine.
This article was first sent as a newsletter on 8th October 2023, to subscribe go to: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/mina-jacks-newsletter
MJ Tolu 
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