The EU has been insisting for years that “quickly learning to speak the language of power” is not an option but a necessity. The problem is that while in various parts of the globe that language is spoken with aircraft carriers, credible threats and deploying troops, in Brussels, too often, it is limited to semantic fights, to weeks of intense fighting literally just over an adjective or a comma..

What happened these days, and this Thursday on the first day of the European Council that brought together the heads of state and government of the 27 is a perfect example. After hesitant beginnings, a controversy over Ursula von der Leyen's desire for prominence and criticism for an attempt to rewrite the community position on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, a series of clear conclusions were reached in the middle of the month.. A unanimous, resounding condemnation, without nuances, of the massacre perpetrated by Hamas. An insistence on Israel's right to self-defense, but within international law. And the need to provide humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. From there, the problems.

The battle at the meeting of foreign ministers last Monday, and of ambassadors and Sherpas since then, has centered on a few words. At the summit they have talked or are going to talk about the EU's annual Budget and the need to increase contributions to face challenges that were impossible to anticipate when they were negotiated; of Ukraine and how support must be maintained even though the cameras and the planet's attention have gone back to the Middle East. From the Sahel and other regional concerns. But the important thing, where the power, politics, feelings, passions are, is the part of Israel and Gaza. That's where language, of power or powerlessness, transforms into something else..

Although from the outside it may seem incredible, ridiculous, embarrassing or pathetic, the bulk of the discussion has been centered around a few words and just a couple of ideas.. Everyone agrees that urgent help is needed (food, water, fuel, medicine) and that there cannot be bombings for the trucks to arrive every day.. But while some wanted a “ceasefire” request, others maintained that it was too much, an interference in Israel's plan and its right to defense.. That is why they advocate using only the expression “humanitarian pause”. But even there they disagree, because some capitals, including Washington, would prefer to talk about “pauses,” in the plural, which sounds, to their ears, more informal and vague.. The paroxysm reached its peak when Austria came to the room talking about “windows for humanitarian corridors to open”, something that no one really understands what it means..

Much of the debate has focused on something like this, which few can understand while so much is at stake and many people die. “Language matters, this is how agreements are reached, clarifying, polishing words, fighting commas. It matters, it is the way to position yourself in the European Union. We are a peace project that is based on rules, defending values, and the way to do it is like this. “Words are important if they serve to achieve the objectives,” a senior European source explained these days in the face of criticism for the feeling of importance..

The leaders, therefore, have dedicated their afternoon and night to it and in the end the agreement was something in between, a paragraph that begins by expressing “serious concern about the deterioration of the situation in Gaza”, a request for “humanitarian access to reach continuously, quickly and safely to those who need it”. And to do this, they defend, “all necessary measures, including humanitarian corridors and breaks for humanitarian needs”, a horrible, confusing expression, but acceptable in the end for everyone..

The day before, diplomats from the continent were confident that the document of conclusions would be “stabilized” enough so that the discussion could be freer, more substantial.. But it was not like that. In the room, Ireland and Spain were the two most combative countries. Both wanted a “ceasefire”, more forceful or an emphasis on the protection of civilians “at all times and in line with international law”, something that was ultimately achieved.. There was no force, however, to resurrect the reference to the United Nations and the role of Antonio Guterres, something that was in the first drafts of the draft conclusions and disappeared as the week began to get ugly..

Pedro Sánchez, also active this weekend at the conference held in Cairo, is the one who has most clearly defended the UN Secretary General and the one who has most requested a peace conference to recover dialogue and begin to build bridges.. Their insistence, which some delegations at the end of the afternoon almost blocked due to their insistence, was rewarded. The document speaks, in point 18, that the EU must “contribute to reviving the political process on the basis of the two-state solution” and says that the European Council “supports the holding of an international peace conference soon”. Something that Spain would like to host, just as it wants to use the next meeting of the Union Minister for the Mediterranean to promote that diplomatic moment.

There is a completely fair criticism of that feeling of division, of impotence, of wasting time for something that doesn't matter too much.. Because European countries can say what they want, ask for ceasefires, pauses or windows, but what the actors involved want to do is another matter.. But then there is another part of the criticism that does not take into account the functioning of the EU. Which is slow, bureaucratic, naive at times, but it has a method. It is the only way to understand each other, to coordinate, to move forward 27. “Unlike what we saw in Ukraine, here each country has a historical position, sympathies, inheritances, debts.. The Middle East is something else and that is why it is so important to establish a position down to the smallest detail,” explains a senior community source involved in this negotiation.. Only in this way, when everyone agrees on every comma, can there be a guide, a compass, and thus, when someone deviates, it rings the alarms.

It is frustrating, it is insufficient and it does not seem to be the most operational mechanism for a world that advances at breakneck speed, that demands or demands positioning in minutes, where sparks fly no matter what is done.. But it is, at least for the moment and as long as foreign policy always requires unanimity, the only and best thing there is.. Perhaps a community of values is not valid in a Hobbesian world, but it is a starting point on which to build and unite the wills, traumas and interests of 27 countries that until not long ago hated or fought against each other in zero-sum games..

Only a small fraction – about 2.8% – of Israel's more than nine million inhabitants live on kibbutzim.. For their residents, they are more than just plots of land formerly used for agriculture and an example of cooperativism.. They are, as five relatives of Israelis kidnapped in Gaza explained this Thursday, rather “extended families”, being the “best and safest place to live for Jews”. That was, until Hamas arrived on October 7.

“The terrorists entered the kibbutz and massacred an entire community. They burned houses with people inside. They went house to house and kidnapped or killed neighbors,” explained Marev Mor Raviv, whose uncles, cousin and nephew were kidnapped in Nahal Oz on the morning of October 7.. The body of another cousin of his was found dead, riddled with bullets and with his hands tied, lying on the road 48 hours later. “My family has been in the kibbutz for more than 50 years, it is their home. My uncle Avraham has been helping children from Gaza for years to come to Israel to receive better medical treatment. We have always wanted peace, but what these people do…. I can't even call them people or animals.. They are something that we are not able to understand. Help us save our families,” he asked.

Mor Raviv was just one of five Israelis who traveled to Madrid this Thursday to demand the release of their loved ones held by the Islamist group and the help of the Spanish Government and to denounce the “war crimes” that Hamas has openly documented on social media.. In total, at least 224 people have been arrested and are believed to be held in the Gaza Strip.. The relatives made this request at a press conference held at the headquarters of the Jewish Community of Madrid after meeting with the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, where they also demanded the support of the Executive for the release of the hostages.

The event, which took place just a few minutes after Hamas announced the death of 50 kidnapped by Israeli bombings, was attended by the Israeli ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, who thanked her compatriots for “sharing their first-hand testimonies” and asked the Spanish people to “join” his requests for release.

“There is no precedent in the world for the criminal kidnapping of such a large mass of civilians, it is a clear war crime, with all the ethical, legal and international connotations. I have come here today to ask Spain and all democratic communities not to remain silent and demand the release of my relatives,” claimed Maayan Sigal-Koren.

This Israeli with Argentine nationality has five relatives in the hands of Hamas, including her mother, who live in the Nir Vitzhak kibbutz. He deduced that Hamas had not murdered his family after authorities visited the family home: “The army entered their house but found no trace of them.”. “The house was in disarray, but there were no signs of physical violence or blood.”. Later, the mobile phones of his mother, his stepfather, his uncles and his cousin were traced in Gaza.

“It's been 20 days now and there hasn't been a single day that my children haven't asked where my mother is and why can't we go to Gaza to bring her home. I just want help to bring them all safe and sound,” pleaded Maayan, who assured that they searched the videos released by Hamas but could not find them.

Wearing t-shirts with the phrase in English “Bring them home now” and photos of their parents Raz and Ohad, Yulie Ben Ami and her partner Roberto César Padrón Meyer cried when listening to the testimonies of their compatriots. Unlike the others, they experienced firsthand the entry of the Islamist group into the Be'eri kibbutz, one of the most massacred in the coordinated attack against Israel.

“I woke up at 6:20 in the morning and 10 minutes later I received a message saying that someone had entered the kibbutz. There were shouts in Arabic and many shots. At 7, I spoke to my mother on WhatsApp and she told me that she was already at the shelter, but that she had heard the terrorists outside,” explained Yulie.. Two hours later, Hamas had destroyed her parents' house, and around 11 a.m., Yulie received a photo of her father in pajamas in Gaza with two terrorists holding his hands.. It was not until almost 8:42 p.m. when the army rescued them, along with their sister: “We saw bodies lying on the ground. Even when we reached the safe place, the terrorists were still shooting.”

Several of the relatives, including Yulie, criticized the actions of the Red Cross, which is in Gaza, but does not provide help to the kidnapped: “My mother is sick, she needs medicine. We don't know if he is receiving them, or how long he will be able to survive without them.. “We want them to be given medicine so they can be well.”

With a broken voice, Naama Weinberg joined the requests for the release of her compatriots, regretting “the absolute ignorance” about her loved ones.. “This issue is not only an Israeli problem, but one for the entire world.”. We cannot remain silent, we need immediate help,” concluded the young woman, whose uncles were murdered in Be'eri and who has her cousin, Itai Sirvsky, 38, kidnapped.. “We ask that Spain speak with the only two countries that speak with Hamas [Qatar and Iran]. If we do not want the same thing that happened with ISIS to happen again, we have to act now. We beg you to help us free them.”

Elena Zaslavskaya – poet and author of children's stories – has changed her passport many times. He was born in the USSR, grew up in independent Ukraine, supported the struggle for the separation of Luhansk with the help of Moscow and already has a Russian passport, the country with which he identifies.. She is the poet of Luhansk and regularly goes to the front with other artists to harangue the troops fighting against kyiv. “We are a brigade of agitation, of traveling propaganda, through cities like Mariupol, Volnovaja or Donetsk,” he explains in a Moscow cafe during a short visit to the capital of his new (and old) country.

For Zaslavskaya, rhyming alongside the front is “a bittersweet experience”. Remember “the exhausted faces of the doctors, the pain of the wounded”. But “songs and poems lift people's spirits.”. “They are war poems, but not only: also love poems.”. His work has been translated into German, French, Spanish, English, Lithuanian and Bulgarian.

“My first poetry are Russian and Ukrainian lullabies”. Instead, his last 10 years of life have been an earthquake of blood and flags. It was in 2014 when he encountered the opposite of poetry: war. According to her point of view, Ukraine adopted a series of laws that she considers “discriminatory against the Russian language and population” and launched “a punitive operation against Donbas.”. In Luhansk, some did not support kyiv's policy, and the war hit almost every family.

Zaslavskaya supported the self-proclaimed republics of Lugansk and Donetsk with her art. Each of your trips is an adventure. “Sometimes there are no supports for the microphone and they screw it directly to the handle of a shovel, other times we run out of gas in the field and we have to ask the military for help; in the middle of the night we get lost on the road and then we go to at full speed in our car through a field where they are shooting,” he explains.

His poems were read for the first time in Spanish in 2015, with the conflict already underway: “In our wild fields / gray with ashes. / The prince's feather stalks turned black. / Together with us our enemies will fall. / To our plains, to the land of Donbas.”

“My work as a poet changed with the war. Before I never wrote about the conflict, because I couldn't imagine it. “Now I write about war and love.”. Her next project is Thirteen Secrets by Elena Zaslavskaya, illustrated by artist Olga Volkova and translated by Spanish students.

Elena is “sure” that if Russia had not launched its Special Military Operation, kyiv would have taken Donbas. “We had no alternative.”

He traveled to Mariupol in May. He admits that, although “a lot has been rebuilt, in the area where the Azov [fighters] were, there is still a lot to do.”. Some days the sky thunders; Others, you can only hear the Lugán River passing by. And Elena continues making poetry. “You sleep, my dear… / My soul flies towards you / In a dandelion / And it is distant and white / This subtle vision / The night is around / Longing steals the heart / On a parachute / I fly through the skies / To kiss your eyes / And say: 'I love you.'”

Israel and Gaza threaten to create a fracture in the Labor Party and blow up opposition leader Keir Starmer's strategy in the midst of the countdown to the 2024 UK general election. More than 40 Labor MPs and 250 Muslim councilors have written to Starmer this week criticizing his response to the conflict and calling for an “immediate ceasefire.”

The Labor leader has been harshly criticized in recent hours for apparently justifying the cutting of water and electricity to Gaza as part of Israel's right to self-defense. Starmer was forced to qualify his statements to the LBC radio station, widely disseminated on social networks, and assure that they cannot be interpreted as support “for the siege of two million Palestinians.”

The Labor leader recalled that since the beginning of the conflict he has stressed that Israel “must respect international laws”. On his Twitter/X account he insisted on Wednesday “the need for humanitarian aid, electricity and water to urgently reach Gaza.”

But the rebellion in their ranks is growing, with threats of up to four resignations in their own shadow cabinet, starting with the head of equality Yasmin Qureshi, daughter of Pakistani immigrants.. Qureshi apparently broke party discipline when he spoke in the House of Commons on Wednesday, defying his own leader and calling for “a ceasefire in Gaza, where people are being subjected to collective punishment for crimes they have not committed.”

Other deputies on his team, such as Rachel Hopkins and Sarah Owen, have also distanced themselves from their leader due to his position on the conflict, according to The Times.. “There is great concern because if there is a resignation in the shadow government, everyone else will suffer great pressure,” revealed sources from the Labor Party, who assured that internal divisions are as strong as those that arose before the Iraq war. during the Blair era.

The notorious resignation of Amna Abdullatif, Manchester's first Muslim councillor, led to the resignation last week of around twenty local politicians, who condemned Keir Starmer's unilateral side taking over Israel since the conflict began.

Zero tolerance for anti-Semitism

Starmer, who in his three years as leader imposed zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, tried to appease the anger of the far left wing and Muslim representatives with a visit to a mosque in Wales last Sunday that ended in a fiasco. On Wednesday, together with the number two, Angela Rayner, he again attempted a rapprochement with a meeting with a dozen Muslim Labor politicians that also did not achieve its purpose.

Labor maintains an average lead of 20 points over Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party, but Starmer's controversial response and the presence of local Labor politicians at recent pro-Palestine demonstrations in British cities (including former party leader Jeremy Corbyn ) threaten to reopen old fissures and lead to a decline in popular support for Labour.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has, meanwhile, managed to take advantage of his tour of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where he met with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.. Sunak was in favor in Parliament of a “pause” in the Israeli offensive to allow the arrival of humanitarian aid to Gaza, but he has not expressly called for a “ceasefire” and has unequivocally defended “Israel's right to self defense”.

Despite the presence of prominent Muslims among its members, the Conservative Party has mostly closed ranks with Israel, despite critical voices such as that of Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who has directly accused Sunak of having joined a wave in the media to “silence , stereotyping and stigmatizing British Muslims.