Palestine Think Tank

The 25th annual conference of the Arab medical doctors in Europe and the 21st annual conference of the Union of the Austro-Arab medical doctors and pharmacists, held at the Modul Hotel in Vienna, was turned to a political demonstration against the Israeli occupation and its criminal policies against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on its first day on October 30, 2009. The conference participants strongly criticized the deal of the European countries with the Israeli criminals and the lack of accountability of Israel in accordance with international laws and conventions which they all have signed.

This criticism against the EU came during a speech delivered by Fritz Edlinger, the Secretary General of the “Society for Austro-Arab Relations” in Vienna, who was present as a guest of honor at the conference. Edlinger documented with pictures and reports the crimes committed by the occupation in the Gaza Strip during his meetings with many Palestinian victims and families affected in Gaza. Edlinger saw the destruction of infrastructure of all vital projects, economic, agricultural, social institutions, health and education sectors, next to the Israeli crimes against humanity. The Israeli crimes in Gaza led to permanently disablement of thousands of Palestinians and killed thousands more of civilians, most of them were children, women, and elderly people.

Edlinger spoke about how the representatives of the European Union deal with the Israeli crimes against humanity. He exposed an official letter send by Human Rights Lawyers from the UK on the 1 September 2009 to Francisco Javier Solana, High Representative for the common Foreign and Security and Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union. The letter accused the European Union of complicity with the crimes of the Israeli occupation and violation of international laws and human rights and demanded the explanation of the negative attitude towards the Palestinian victims, most of whom were civilians. The letter also demanded explanations from Solana and at the same time asserted their right to sue the European Union in the case of failure to respond to their letter.

Edlinger criticized the answer of Solana to the letter of the lawyers. He said it was an irresponsible and stupid response which confirms the complicity of the European Union with the Israeli crimes, what in itself  is considered as a grave crime and a flagrant violation of the European laws and international treaties, agreements and laws.

Mr. Edlinger sent me a copy of the letters between the lawyers and Javier Solana. Please click on the pictures to make them bigger and read the correspondence as PDF files

Lawyer letter as PDF
Javier Solana response as PDF

See more photos.