SAN FRANCISCO: The European Union’s top diplomat has said that the United States is showing “fatigue” in its Middle East diplomacy and called for greater EU efforts toward a Palestinian state.
On a visit to California, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell again strongly criticized Israel’s war campaign, saying Gazans were “dying and starving and suffering in unimaginable proportions” and that it was a “man-made disaster.”
“I see a certain fatigue from the US side to continue engaging in looking for a solution,” Borrell said in a speech Monday at Stanford University that was publicly released on Tuesday.
“We are trying to push with the Arab people in order to build together, the Arabs and Europeans, to make this two-state solution a reality,” he said in English.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has made seven trips to the Middle East since the unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas which prompted a relentless Israeli military campaign in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
He has nudged Israel to allow in more aid, pushed against a regional escalation and pleaded for Israel to accept a two-state solution as part of a broader eventual deal that includes normalization with Saudi Arabia.
But the United States vetoed a Security Council bid to give Palestine full UN membership, arguing that statehood can only come though negotiations that address Israel’s security concerns.
The General Assembly last week passed a symbolic vote for Palestinian membership with the United States one of only nine countries to vote against.
The others opposed included two European Union members — the Czech Republic and Hungary. Among EU heavyweights, France voted in favor and Germany abstained.
Borrell acknowledged that the vote showed the European Union was “very much divided” over Gaza, unlike on the Ukraine war, and cited “historical reasons.”
“But it doesn’t mean that we don’t have to take a stronger part of responsibility because we have delegated (to) the US looking for a solution,” he said.
Borrell, a former Spanish foreign minister, in February sharply criticized the US arms flow for Israel, pointing to President Joe Biden’s own words that too many people were dying in Gaza.
Biden last week for the first time threatened to cut military aid to Israel, with one shipment of bombs already halted, if Israel defies US warnings and assaults the packed city of Rafah.
EU top diplomat sees US ‘fatigue’ in Mideast
https://arab.news/c7zmy
EU top diplomat sees US ‘fatigue’ in Mideast
- Josep Borrell strongly criticized Israel’s war campaign, saying Gazans were ‘dying and starving and suffering in unimaginable proportions’ and that it was a ‘man-made disaster’
- Josep Borrell: ‘I see a certain fatigue from the US side to continue engaging in looking for a solution’
Syrian refugee returns set to slow as donor support fades
- Some aid officials say Syria is one of the first crises to be hit by aid funding cuts because the end of the war means it no longer counts as an emergency, eligible for priority funding
GENEVA: More than 3 million Syrians have returned home since the collapse of Bashar Assad’s rule a year ago but a decline in global funding could deter others, the UN refugee agency said on Monday.
Some 1.2 million refugees in addition to 1.9 million internally displaced people have gone back home following the civil war that ended with Assad’s overthrow, but millions more are yet to return, according to UNHCR.
The agency said much more support was needed to ensure the trend continues.
“Syrians are ready to rebuild – the question is whether the world is ready to help them do it,” said UNHCR head Filippo Grandi. Over 5 million refugees remain outside Syria’s borders, mostly in neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon.
RISK OF REVERSALS
Grandi told donors in Geneva last week that there was a risk that those Syrians who are returning might even reverse their course and come back to host states.
“Returns continue in fairly large numbers but unless we step up broader efforts, the risk of (reversals) is very real,” he said.
Overall, Syria’s $3.19 billion humanitarian response is 29 percent funded this year, according to UN data, at a time when donors like the United States and others are making major cuts to foreign aid across the board.
The World Health Organization sees a gap emerging as aid money drops off before national systems can take over.
As of last month, only 58 percent of hospitals were fully functional and some are suffering power outages, affecting cold-chain storage for vaccines.
“Returnees are coming back to areas where medicines, staff and infrastructure are limited – adding pressure to already thin services,” Christina Bethke, Acting WHO Representative in Syria, told reporters.
The slow pace of removing unexploded ordnance is also a major obstacle to recovery, said the aid group Humanity & Inclusion, which reported over 1,500 deaths and injuries in the last year. Such efforts are just 13 percent funded, it said.
Some aid officials say Syria is one of the first crises to be hit by aid funding cuts because the end of the war means it no longer counts as an emergency, eligible for priority funding.
Others may have held back as they wait to see if authorities under President Ahmed Al-Sharaa make good on promises of reform and accountability, including for massacres of the Alawite minority in March, they say.
