 The
European Parliament has enraged many Arabs by calling for a boycott of
Expo 2020 Dubai, taking place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between
October 2021 and March 2022. The timing of the resolution is
problematic. It implies that the European Parliament is seeking to
punish the UAE for signing a peace treaty with Israel. Pictured: The
Israel pavilion at Dubai Expo 2020, on September 27, 2021. (Photo by AFP
via Getty Images) |
The European Parliament, one of three legislative branches of the European Union, has enraged many Arabs by calling for a boycott of Expo 2020 Dubai, taking place in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) between October 2021 and March 2022.
The theme
of this year's Expo 2020 Dubai, one of the world's biggest events, is
"Connecting Minds, Creating the Future." The sub-themes are
"Sustainability, Opportunity and Mobility" with a focus on industries,
financial capital, governance, employment, education, and technology.
The European Parliament resolution calling on the EU member states
not to participate in the Dubai event, and for international companies
to withdraw their sponsorship, is based on the Gulf state's alleged
human rights violations.
The timing of the resolution is problematic and implies that the
European Parliament is seeking to punish the UAE for signing a peace
treaty with Israel. The resolution coincided with the first anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, the term used to refer to peace agreements between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain.
Israel is participating in Expo 2020 Dubai and visitors to the Israeli pavilion
"will be invited to take an emotional 'Journey for Tomorrow' combining
Israel's past, present and future that aims to forge significant
relationships, create new opportunities and build a better and brighter
future for all."
Shortly after the European Parliament issued its resolution against
the UAE, the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, which calls for the
elimination of Israel, condemned
the Abraham Accords, dubbing them "a Zionist-American project aiming at
promoting regional normalization with the Zionist entity and
integrating it into the region."
Like the European Parliament, Hamas has in the past called
for boycotting Expo 2020 Dubai event on the pretext that such
activities promote normalization between Israel and the Arab countries.
More recently, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second-largest
terrorist group in the Gaza Strip, condemned the UAE for opening an embassy in Israel.
The European Parliament resolution targeting the UAE is a valuable
gift from the Europeans to Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and all
those who oppose the Abraham Accords and any peace agreement between
Israel and the Arabs.
By singling out the UAE, the European Parliament has chosen to side
with the enemies of peace, cooperation and normalization between
Israelis and Arabs.
Worse, the European Parliament saw no reason to call out Hamas and
Palestinian Islamic Jihad for their daily human rights violations
against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
The European Parliament did not call for boycotting Hamas,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad or even the Palestinian Authority (PA), headed
by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, for their terrible human rights record,
including restrictions and assaults on freedom of speech and the media.
Resolutions such as the one taken by the European Parliament are the
kind that give the enemies of peace in the Middle East -- apparently
including the European Parliament -- ammunition to keep fighting to
achieve their goal of destroying Israel.
The enemies of peace are not only opposed to peace and cooperation
between Israel and the Arabs. They are opposed to the existence of
Israel. They do not want to see Israel in the Middle East. Most of them
want to replace Israel with an Islamist state. Additionally, they do not
want to see any Arab, especially those living in the Gulf, make peace
with Israel or host Israelis in their countries.
The European Parliament, by calling for boycotting the Dubai event,
has emboldened extremist Arabs and Muslims. It has also emboldened the
anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which followed
suit and joined
the call for boycotting the Dubai event and "escalating worldwide
pressure on the UAE dictatorship to end its support for Israel's
apartheid regime."
There is no doubt that the anti-Israel movement was inspired and
encouraged by the European Parliament's resolution when it employed this
scathing anti-Israel rhetoric in its call for boycotting the event.
The movement apparently sees the resolution as part of a European
effort to intimidate and deter Arabs from even thinking of making peace
with Israel -- all under the excuse of caring for "human rights
violations" in the Arab world.
Many Arabs, especially those living in the Gulf, have reacted with fury to the European Parliament resolution, highlighting the hypocrisy of the Europeans on human rights issues.
The Syrian writer Abdel Jalil Al-Saeed commented:
"The decision of the European Parliament ignored all the
important achievements of the UAE in the field of human rights, due to
the clear politicization of the work of a European legislative
institution... The Europeans need to take a look to see human rights
violations in their own countries, including prisons they built to house
refugees, and the large number of homeless people on the streets, for
whom rich Europe was unable to secure a decent living."
Al-Saeed pointed out that the European Parliament should have mentioned the efforts
of the UAE government and people to help Afghan refugees "at a time
when the Europeans, and their American ally, turned their backs on
Afghanistan and abandoned the Afghani people."
Calling out the hypocrisy of the Europeans, Al-Saeed said that the
European Parliament lacks fairness in its approach to a large number of
Middle Eastern issues, such as its silence on the terrorist crimes of
which the [Iranian-backed] Houthi militia in Yemen.
According to Emirati political analyst Dr. Amal Abdullah Al-Haddabi:
"The European Parliament decision will only harm the
image of those who approved and adopted it because it reveals the
ignorance of those who prepared it about the policies and positions of
the UAE... These lies and slanders will not affect the image of the UAE.
The resolution is based on unfounded and unreliable allegations driven
by special political agendas, especially since it was issued while the
whole world is waiting for the [Dubai] event, and as the UAE is working
hard to hold it in an honorable manner."
Al-Haddabi added that the European resolution is:
"not only biased and based on illusions, but completely
ignores all the important achievements of the UAE in the field of human
rights, both in terms of caring for residents and spreading the values
of tolerance and coexistence that made people from more than 200
nationalities live in the UAE in peace and coexistence, unlike anywhere
else in the world, including European countries where many suffer from
discrimination and racism."
She pointed out that the UAE has passed a strict law prohibiting
discrimination and hatred as part of a legal system that supports
tolerance and coexistence, as well as the adoption of policies and laws
to protect the rights of children, women, the elderly, and even
prisoners.
Mona Ali Al Motawa, a prominent writer from Bahrain, denounced the
European Parliament for its "worrying and suspicious" call for
boycotting the Dubai event.
The decision, she said,
"raises a question mark about the real reasons that led to this
hostility practiced by the European Parliament towards a country that
has achieved a lot on human rights issues."
"This resolution leads one to ask about the surprisingly
hostile background emanating from a parliament whose movement is
supposed to be towards supporting human rights issues and international
principles of peace, coexistence and tolerance. The European Parliament
is supposed to support these issues, not the exact opposite."
Al-Motawa said
that there are attempts led by parties within the European Parliament
to thwart the Dubai event, "which is considered the most important
global event and a platform for developing a sustainable future vision,
in which dozens of countries, companies and international organizations
participate."
"Targeting this global event does not mean targeting the
UAE as a country only, but also targeting aspects of development, the
international economy, and the interests of major international
companies and organizations. If the European Parliament had any
credibility, it would have issued a statement on the issue of foreign
workers or the issue of human rights violations in Iranian prisons."
Saudi columnist Dr. Ali Al-Kheshaiban wrote
that the European Parliament chose strange timing for its decision
regarding what it called the human rights situation in the UAE with the
launch of the largest global event in Dubai. "Does the expected success
of this event have something to do with issuing such crude decisions
that go against logic and reality?" Al-Kheshaiban asked.
The success of the UAE in organizing the event, he added, is a
foregone conclusion, and the UAE does not need "a certificate [of honor]
from malicious entities and will not be affected by desperate attempts
to disrupt its achievements. The best evidence of this is the huge
number of people from 200 nationalities, including Europeans and
Americans, who were received by the UAE and have never complained about
anything that the European Parliament falsely charges."
"The European Parliament's decision was based on incorrect
information, lacks credibility, and contradicts the remarkable
achievements of the United Arab Emirates in the field of human
development, preservation of human rights and the promotion of human
rights," Bahrain's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in response to the European Parliament decision.
In addition to Bahrain, the Arab Parliament, the legislative body of
the Arab League, also expressed its total rejection of the European
decision and stressed that it included incorrect information and
fallacies that are not based on facts or objective evidence.
"This decision is an extension of the non-objective and non-neutral
approach by which the European Parliament deals with the human rights
situation in the Arab world," the Arab Parliament said in a statement in which it also voiced full support for the UAE.
"The unacceptable language included in the European
Parliament's resolution represents an unacceptable interference in the
internal affairs of the UAE, and there is nothing in the dictionary of
international parliamentary work that authorizes a regional
parliamentary organization to assess the human rights situation in
countries outside its regional scope."
Some very vocal Arabs, in short, are loudly telling the Europeans to
mind their own business. The Arabs are also telling the Europeans that
if they have to meddle in the internal affairs of the Arab countries,
they should at least support those states, such as the UAE, that have
made real strides in human rights, rather than supporting and
emboldening terrorists through calls for the boycott of global
cooperation events.