Nearly 800 EU staffers slam bloc’s chief for siding with Israel, cease to support for Palestinian statehood
Nearly 800 staffers of the European Union across the world have denounced European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for being too partisan toward Israel and refraining from support for Palestinian statehood.
In a joint protest letter to von der Leyen, 798 EU staffers working in Brussels and in the bloc’s embassies around the world lashed out at the EU chief for neglecting to mention the EU’s support for Palestinian statehood in her public remarks on the Israeli war on the besieged Gaza Strip, the Politico magazine said in a report.
“We are concerned by the unconditional support by the Commission you represent for one of the two parties. This support is being expressed in an uncontrolled manner e.g. EC buildings lit up with the Israeli flag,” the signatories wrote, condemning what they called her unjustifiable bias toward the Israeli regime.
The joint text was written mainly in response to von der Leyen’s speech on Thursday at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington, where she prioritized the Tel Aviv regime’s right to defend itself rather than condemning its killing of more than 4,000 people, mostly women and children, in the coastal enclave during the past 15 days.
Following a trip to Tel Aviv last week, von der Leyen was heavily criticized by EU legislators for not calling on Israel to abide by international law with its harsh embargoes and bombings against Gaza, where shortages of food, water and medicine threaten the lives of Gazans and hospitals are overwhelmed amid incessant Israeli bombings.
Upday orders editors to play down Palestinian deaths
Upday, one of the largest media companies in Europe, began to push its initiative to limit online news about civilian casualties in Gaza, where Israel’s constant raid since October 7 have virtually eliminated internet access in the impoverished enclave, the American non-profit news organization The Intercept said in a report.
The new intuitive launched by Upday, which is an app owned by the German media giants Axel Springer, is instructing journalists to cover the war in Gaza with a pro-Israel bent.
“We can’t push anything involving Palestinian death tolls or casualties without information about Israel coming higher up in the story,” an employee told The Intercept, referring to push notifications, the alerts sent to millions of phones.
The United Nations says about half of Palestinians in Gaza have been rendered homeless while still trapped inside the enclave, which is known to be one of the most densely populated places on earth.
Health officials in Gaza say the Israeli bombardment has martyred at least 4,137 people since October 7, when fighters from the Hamas resistance movement launched an unprecedented large-scale attack against the Israeli regime. Another 13,162 individuals have also been injured.
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