EU: Irish MEPs Proinsias De Rossa of Labour and Bairbre de Brún of Sinn Féin have sharply criticised Israel, in separate statements, over the Jericho prison raid which resulted in the cancellation of yesterday's scheduled address by Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to the European Parliament.
Mr De Rossa said that, "The timing of this illegal military operation by Israel seems to be a blatant attempt to appeal to right-wing voters with an eye on the forthcoming elections there and to undermine President Abbas's visit to Europe."
Ms de Brún called on the EU to suspend "its controversial preferential trade agreement" with Israel. She also questioned the timing of the action as President Abbas travelled to Strasbourg to address MEPs.
"Today's visit to the European Parliament was due to be extremely significant. Mr Abbas would have addressed the parliament in solemn session on a par with many other national leaders in recent times," Ms de Brún said.
German MEP and chair of the parliament's foreign affairs committee, Elmar Brok, told journalists he had been due to meet Mr Abbas at 10am yesterday. "These are going to be remembered as very, very bad days," he said.
For the moment, at least, an "opportunity for peace has been lost". He was concerned that, "People are going back to the old models of taking action, there are certain forces that have not given up on violence."
Mr Brok expressed concern that the credibility of the Middle East Quartet, comprising the EU, UN, US and Russia, may have been damaged because of the withdrawal of US and British monitors from Jericho prison in advance of the Israeli raid.