Hate speech: EU considers imposing sanctions on Israeli ministers

 

BRUSSELS – EU foreign policy chief and Vice President designate, Mr. Joseph Borrel Fontelles has proposed imposition of sanctions on Israeli ministers who have proved themselves as racist and extremists in their comments on the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza

The foreign policy chief who was speaking to journalists ahead of the EU foreign affairs ministers meeting Brussels said he initiated a procedure to ask members state to include radical Israeli ministers in sanctions for utterances considered as hate speech against Palestine.

“I initiated the procedure to ask the member states if they consider (it) appropriate to include in our list of sanctions some Israeli ministers (who) have been launching unacceptable hate messages against the Palestinians, and proposing things that clearly go against international law,” he told reporters ahead of a meeting with EU foreign affairs ministers in Brussels.

Some ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet have shown themselves to be extremist averse to the state of Palestine.

Among such ministers is National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir who has been proposing to build a synagogue inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque which Muslims consider to be a sacred place. This decision has generated dangerous reaction from Arabs and resistant forces  including Muslims in and outside  we Gaza.

Foreign Minister of Israel, Mr. Israel Katz  has been quoted as saying: We need to deal with threat in the West Bank exactly as we deal with infrastructures in Gaza including evacuation of Palestinian civilians and other step needed. This is a war in every sense he said.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has been reported for calling Palestinians ‘human animals’ or, as some misquoted, ‘inhuman animals’ in the speeches he made on 9 October 2023 few  days after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu was also reported to have suggested that one of Israel’s options in the war against Hamas could be to ‘drop a nuclear bomb on Gaza’.