Israel yesterday condemned Baroness Ashton of Upholland for making remarks that appeared to liken the murders of Jewish children in Toulouse this week to the conditions suffered by Palestinian children in Gaza.
In a speech, the EU foreign policy chief cited recent tragedies that have afflicted the young, including the massacre of young Norwegians in July last year and 22 children who died in a Belgian bus crash in Switzerland last week.
Lady Ashton claimed that her words, which she delivered to a conference on Palestinian refugee youth in Brussels on Monday, had been misinterpreted and the European Union later issued a statement trying to calm the row.
The remarks that caused controversy were: “When we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances — the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world — we remember young people and children who lose their lives.”
Israel denounced the mention of Gaza as inappropriate and demanded a retraction.
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“The comparison made by Ashton between what is happening in Gaza to what happened in Toulouse, and what is going on in Syria every day, is outrageous and has absolutely no grounding in reality,” Ehud Barak, the Defence Minister, said.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, said: “What especially outrages me is the comparison between a targeted massacre of children and the surgical defensive actions of the IDF (Israel Defence Forces), intended to strike at terrorists using children as human shields.”
A spokesman for Lady Ashton, who serves as High Representative, or the EU’s foreign minister, said that her words had been grossly distorted.
“In her remarks, the High Representative referred to tragedies taking the lives of children around the world and drew no parallel whatsoever between the circumstances of the Toulouse attack and the situation in Gaza,” he said.
Brussels later sought to calm the waters with Israel with José Manuel Barroso, President of the Commission, and Herman Van Rompuy, President of the EU Council, issuing a joint statement condemning “recent violent attacks against a number of religious communities in Europe and outside Europe”.
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They added: “Any form of persecution and violent acts against religious communities have no place in Europe and, indeed, in the world.
“Europe has fought a long and painful battle to achieve freedom of thought, freedom of religion and belief and the respect for the individual.”