“Gaza used to be considered the world’s largest prison because, for the past 17 years, Israel had cut it off from the rest of the world,” Bartolo said. “Now it has become a death row, that part of prison where prisoners sentenced to death are held before they are killed.”
After visiting Amman to address a security conference, Bartolo warned that anti-West sentiment among the people of Jordan is tangible, just as it is in other Arabic and Islamic nations.
“They are angry at the blind support that political leaders in the US and the EU are giving Netanyahu’s Israeli government to carry out its ferocious and hellish war in Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel on 7th October, killing 1,400 and taking 200 people hostage,” he said.
“Since 1948, Israel has been expanding its territory and kicking more and more Palestinians out of their homes. Over five million Palestinians now live in refugee camps, including in Gaza. They remain without a state that was promised to them back in 1948.”
“Over the past 75 years, the USA has given Israel $158 billion, most of it in military aid. The USA and the EU have allowed Israel to oppress the Palestinians and do what they please with them. They have allowed Israel to develop nuclear weapons without signing the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”
“In this current war in Gaza, the Israeli armed forces have killed over 10,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children. In Jordan and other Arabic and Islamic countries, composing a quarter of the world’s population, this sense of anger has grown when they see the hypocrisy from the US and EU.”
“They are accepting the killing of civilians in Gaza and the breach of laws, including by denying Palestinians of water, food, medicine and fuel for hospitals, many of which are being destroyed by Israel’s continuous bombing campaign.”
“They feel that their hands have been smeared with the blood of thousands of innocents. The credibility of the USA and the EU as the champions of democracy, human rights and the rule of law has taken a hammer blow among a quarter of the world’s population and it won’t be easy for them to bring it back.”
