The European General Court recently issued a ruling removing Hamas from the EU list of terror organizations. EU diplomats insist that this ruling will not affect policy. But the ruling, writes Gerald Steinberg, points to the deep-seated problems in the EU’s conduct toward Israel, and its foreign policy in general:
Even a cursory examination of these EU policies [on Israel and the Palestinians] exposes the degree to which slogans and myths, as repeated by journalists and officials of non-govermental organizations (NGOs), form the basis for decisions on crucial issues of war and peace. And the NGO input is, in turn, recycled through ready-to-print press releases, and quoted by the government officials. The result is an EU echo chamber, easily manipulated and cut off from the real world. . . .
The failure of the EU to dedicate serious resources to the independent collection of data and analysis is endemic across many issues. Many of the EU’s policies regarding Israel and the conflict are made by cutting and pasting the publications and tracts of political advocacy groups, including on such complex and sensitive issues as Jerusalem, borders, human rights, Bedouin land claims in the Negev, and the status of other Israeli minority groups. The claims of these groups, in turn, are usually based on hearsay (“Palestinian eyewitness testimony”) . . ., media reports, and “the Internet.”
Read more on Times of Israel: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-eus-hamas-fiasco-exposes-broken-system/