Israel decided to ban the United Nations relief agency, UNRWA, from its territory. It is estimated that UNRWA provides relief services to 1.7 million Palestinian refugees. It has done so for the last 80 years. Denying refugees UNRWA’s assistance is expected to have a devastating effect on millions of women, children and men.
A leftist political group at the European Parliament requested a debate on this matter. It was shot down by the European People’s Party, of which the Nationalist Party is a member. PN MEPs David Casa and Peter Agius rejected the request.
Speaking to the press, Casa and Agius said they did so because the leftist group in question is “extremist” and that it placed the debate on parliament’s agenda at “short notice”.
In a nutshell, Casa and Agius put partisan politics before the needs of Fatima, a 10-year-old girl who lost her parents in an Israeli drone attack on their home, which left her two brothers dead too.
Casa and Agius turned their back on Salim, a 40-year-old man whose wife died in a rocket attack on their neighbourhood. Salim is now raising five children, aged 1 to 15 respectively.
They ignored the desperate calls for help of Samyah, a 60-year-old woman who lost her husband and sons in the conflict and is at the risk of famine.
The PN MEPs couldn’t be bothered about the latest attack on a Palestinian hospital, which deprived it of basic equipment and material needed for urgent surgical interventions.
Casa and Agius just don’t care. They don’t even want to discuss the issue.
The Nationalist Party has shown utter disregard towards the Palestinian cause from day one of the Israeli military operations in Gaza.
Roberta Metsola, in her capacity as EP president, rushed to Israel following the atrocious Hamas attacks and Israel’s retaliation – both instances left hundreds of children, women and men dead and injured – to express her support to Israel but not to the Palestinians.
Her insensitivity towards the Palestinians was met with a chorus of disapproval in the international press. Metsola couldn’t be bothered, she was busy planning how to employ her brother-in-law, Matthew Tabone, as her chief of staff, without a public call and with an extraordinary salary of €20,000 per month from taxpayer money.
Casa and Agius just don’t care. They don’t even want to discuss the issue- Amanda Spiteri Grech
Casa’s and Agius’s refusal to debate the Israeli UNRWA ban, let alone condemn it, was a horrible sight to watch.
Casa does not miss one occasion to debate Malta in the European Parliament, hoping to shame Malta and the Maltese. He is the only MEP who resorts to such tactics against his country. But he refuses to debate a humanitarian issue because the group that asked for the debate is leftist and “extremist”.
Needless to say, all this happened with the approval of PN leader Bernard Grech.
The day after this shameful episode at the European Parliament, Grech’s secretary general, Michael Piccinino, and PN candidate Beppe Galea, a close confidant of the PN leader, called the press in front of the PN headquarters in Pietà.
Many hoped that they would be apologising for Casa’s and Agius’s shameful behaviour. Instead, they defended their MEPs’ actions and went on to explain the logistical details of an EPP seminar being held in Malta in the coming days.
The late Prof. Guido de Marco, a stalwart of the Nationalist Party and a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, must be turning in his grave seeing how the PN turned its back to the Palestinian cause.
The PN’s lack of empathy is atrocious; it is the party that depicts itself as the ‘holier-than-thou and the I-know-it-all’ party. Double standards.
To Fatima, Salim and Samyah, the PN MEPs gave them the “let them eat cake” attitude that is often attributed to Marie Antoinette when told that peasants had no bread. It reflects her disregard for the starving peasants.
Casa and Agius care only about partisan politics and themselves.
Amanda Spiteri Grech is a Labour MP.
Correction November 27, 2024: A previous version misstated the acronym of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.