By Lucy Komisar
June 12, 2025
Roberta Metsola, from Malta, the president of the European Parliament, spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations June 9th and talked effusively about the Parliament’s support for “the values of liberal democracy.” She dismissed the Parliament’s failure to act to stop the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
Her printed bio said “she has led the Parliament’s support for Ukraine,” which includes repeated sanctions against Russia. No mention of sanctions against Israel. It was all performance. I don’t think it fooled anybody who didn’t want to be fooled.
LK question at 34:50 to 35:50 minutes. RM answer 36:50 to 39 minutes.
My question: “My name is Lucy Komisar, I’m a journalist. I’m from a Jewish family. My grandparents came to this country over 100 years ago, separately, from Eastern Europe and Russia. [You have to acknowledge heritage so you don’t get accused of being anti-Semitic!]
“My question is how you can talk about “values” and “humanity” when you are supporting Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, on its way to killing 2 million Palestinians. When you talk about Hamas hostages, you don’t mention thousands of Palestinians that are hostage in Israeli prisons with no charges. Israelis sometimes brag about torturing some of them anally with pipes.
“How can you talk about giving food to Gaza when you are supporting Israel which is carrying out the deliberate starvation of Gaza? How can anybody take seriously your claim to support values and humanity?”
Metsola’s reply:
“Thank you for the question. Thank you for the openness and thank you for giving me the possibility to expand on what I said and what we’ve done. So, we were the first ones to support for an immediate ceasefire where I come from a country that is very close to the region.
“I have visited Israel and the West Bank multiple times and I have been in situations where we were the ones that look at two states solution the only way forward how we can do it.
“I believe also in dialogue. So, I’m in constant contact with the authorities of both countries where we, I think it was one example of the moment there is a a a flotilla that has just arrived. There is a member of the parliament on that boat that I have been speaking constantly to ensure her safety and her security.
“We fund the EU border resistance mission. It hasn’t been so easy. I visited it during the ceasefire. Now it’s harder because we need it to make sure for two things. that the humanitarian aid that we were actually voting for, so we’re the ones who actually paid for it, make sure it’s sent via our national governments, but also from an EU level gets in to whoever needs it most.
“There was also besides the immediate and dire humanitarian aid, a lot of help that needs to be given to the sick people. So, we have an operation whereby sick children are taken out in order for them to be provided, to give you one example, with chemotherapy. We sometimes manage, bring them into Israel, sometimes manage to bring them into Egypt.
“The situation is making no mistake catastrophic, and it needs to end. And the bombing needs to end. The killing needs to stop. And the European Parliament has been extremely vocal on this. We have been clear sometimes with opposing views coming at us because we have been so clear. But when we say we’re on the side of humanity, just like we spoke on the 7th October, we will be on the side of humanity today.”
Metsola will be remembered in history as supporting the genocide. Yes, she is “vocal.” She calls for dialogue with the Israeli Nazis, for a cease fire while doing nothing to make it happen and supports removal of a few sick children while being silent about the destruction of Palestinian hospitals and targeting of doctors. Where are the sanctions? Where is the recognition of a Palestinian state and the rejection of apartheid Israel?
At this and other recent Council meetings I have been the only one raising the issue of Israeli genocide. Moderator Jane Hartley, former U.S. ambassador to the UK and France, obviously would not stray from the Washington line. But a member came up to me after the meeting and said she was glad I asked the question. And I wondered, why didn’t you? And why didn’t any of the nearly 100 others in the room?
I ask these questions at the Council not because I think it will make a difference, but because people like Metsola should know that others, including those who write history, will consider her complicit in the genocide. We critics are in the tradition of the students of the White Rose who passed out leaflets against the Nazis. Easy for us; they were captured and executed. What excuse do the silent or complicit in the U.S. or Europe have?
Lucy Komisar has been a Council member since 1994.