In the wake of the bombing which killed three Americans in Gaza, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told Yasser Arafat that “condemnations and excuses will not do.”
Regular readers of Harry’s Place know how I feel about Arafat, but even I would understand if he doesn’t take Solana seriously. For at least the past three years, Arafat’s condemnations and excuses have done just fine as far as the EU is concerned. After each act of terror against Israelis, the EU issues a boilerplate denunciation of the “cycle of violence” and the aid to the PA– surprisingly little of which seems to help ordinary Palestinians– keeps flowing.
Because the latest attack was directed not at Israelis but at Americans– and because Europeans could be the next target– maybe the EU response this time will actually have some substance to it.
