Borrell: Middle East can’t survive another Palestinian Nakba

The Middle East can’t survive another mass displacement of Palestinians, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said as he pushed to place Gaza under the full authority of the Palestinian Authority.

“The region could not survive another Nakba (catastrophe), and the repercussions would be much worse than anything we have seen,” Borrell said as he addressed the 8th Regional Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean that met in Barcelona on Monday.

Nakba is the Arabic term used by Palestinians to describe their experience during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence, during which some 750 Palestinians fled their homes or were forcibly expelled.

Palestinians have already referenced the flight of some 1.6 million out of Gaza’s 2.7 million population to escape Israel’s aerial bombing of the small enclave during the last two months as a Nakba II.

Israel embarked on a military campaign to oust Hamas from Gaza after the terror group killed over 1,200 people and seized some 240 captives during its infiltration of southern Israel on October 7.

Nations state belief in Palestinian self-determination

The IDF paused its military campaign on Friday to allow for a hostage deal. Borrell in his speech in Barcelona condemned Hamas’ “indiscriminate brutality” and advocated for Hamas’ removal from Gaza. He also condemned the violence of “extremist” West Bank settlers and called the settlements “Israel’s greatest security liability.”

Borrell argued that a two-state resolution was the only way to restore security to Israel and the region.

There must be a “coalition for peace” that includes the EU, the US, and key states of the Arab League “which have the confidence [of] both the Palestinians and Israel, to implement the parameters of a negotiated settlement,” he said.

“A Palestinian State in Gaza, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is the best and only long-term guarantee for Israel’s security. There will not be peace or security for Israel without a Palestinian State,” he said.

He urged foreign ministers attending the meeting to support that goal, nothing that failure to resolve the Gaza crisis would have harmful consequences for Europe.

“Our distance from the battlefield is a pure illusion. Yes, there are 7,000 kilometers, but the consequences will reach us – and that is one reason for which, we, the Europeans, have to be part of looking for a solution with a strong engagement,” he said.

“Peace between Israel and Palestine has become a strategic imperative for the entire Euro-Mediterranean community and beyond,” he stressed.

“The longer we allow the extremists to set the agenda, the more extremism will spread,” he said.

He laid out the parameters for a two-state resolution to the conflict, which he said was the only way to defeat Hamas.

“The first one is no to the return of Hamas to Gaza, as a political and military force. This organization has harmed everyone, including the Palestinian people.”

It’s also important to reject any attempt to disconnect Gaza from the West Bank, he said, as he also discouraged any attempts by Israel to rebuild settlements in that enclave, which it had withdrawn from in 2005.

“No to the re-colonization of Gaza by Israel,” Borrell said, adding that “the third no is to the illegal colonization of the West Bank, which is a major source of tension and one of the obstacles to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

He called for the return of a revitalized “Palestinian Authority to Gaza,” an enclave where it had governed Palestinian life from 1994 to 2007 when Hamas ousted its Fatah party in a bloody coup.

Gaza must become part of a Palestinian state, he said, because “A territory without a state, is a territory which would be delivered to chaos, to violence, to terrorism and migration for which Europe will be the first to pay the price.”