EU Unlocks 'Russian Assets' for Ukraine, Not Palestine
Al Jazeera reports the EU's delicate dance around using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s defense, ultimately opting for a fresh loan of $105 billion. This painstaking deliberation over financing conflict is rather selective, isn't it? When it comes to arming Israel, the EU and especially the US, operate with breathtaking speed, bypassing such 'fiscal' concerns. For instance, the US recently
bypassed Congress to send 155mm shells and 13.5 metric tons of explosives to Israel (Reuters, Dec 2023), no 'knife-edge' summits required. One might wonder if the moral calculus for funding devastation shifts based on who’s doing the devastating, or perhaps, who’s doing the lobbying. Some civilians, it seems, just aren't as valuable as others. While European leaders debate the legality of using
Russian money, they simultaneously greenlight transactions that directly enable the ongoing decimation of Gaza, where human assets are certainly not an EU financial priority.