EU FOREIGN policy chief Cathy Ashton drew a hostile response from Israel over remarks she made about the Toulouse killings but she insisted her words were distorted.
Accused by Israeli leaders of drawing an inappropriate comparison between the Toulouse attack and the deaths of children in the Gaza Strip, Ms Ashton said she drew no parallel whatsoever between the shootings and events in the Middle East.
“I’m really saddened of the distortion of my remarks,” she told a committee of MEPs in Brussels last evening.
“I condemn unreservedly the terrible murders at the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse yesterday and extend my sympathies to the families and friends of the victims, to the people of France and to the Jewish community.”
Israeli criticism of Ms Ashton centred on comments she made on the tragic loss of young lives – in Toulouse and other places, including Gaza – when addressing a Brussels conference on Palestinian refugees on the day of the killings.
“And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances – the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and Sderot and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives,” she said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu led criticism of Ms Ashton and his remarks were echoed by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman, defence minister
Ehud Barak, interior minister Eli Yishai and opposition leader Tzipi Livni.
“What gets me especially incensed is the comparison between the targeted slaughter of children and the surgical, defensive activities of the Israel defence force that are meant to hit terrorists who use children for human shields,” Mr Netanyahu said.
Mr Lieberman said: “Israel is the most moral country in the world, despite having to fight terrorists operating from within a civilian population. The Israeli defence force is doing everything it can to not hurt that population even though it is defending terrorists.”
