Opinion: Why I resigned from my European crisis-response role

In a column for Middle East Eye, Omar Sabbour explains why he resigned from a role advising European government's on crisis response in conflict zones. 

He wrote: "Over the past few years, I have worked in the humanitarian and developmental sector as a lead analyst in a team of external consultants advising European donor governments on their crisis response in conflict zones. I recently handed in my resignation due to the EU’s continued refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. 

I can no longer work on a donor’s crisis response in one country, while they enable a crisis in another. With an imminent disastrous offensive on Rafah in the offing, there is an urgency for members of NGOs with donor partnerships to take immediate action.

Rarely in modern history have explicit war crimes been given backing by supposed democracies. But in attempting to provide a pretence of deniability to a disinterested ally, whose intention to commit war crimes and collective punishment has been explicitly and repeatedly declared, leading western governments - including the EU, which cited Israel’s right to self-defence without condemning its policy of indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinians - have proven almost more defensive of Israel than Tel Aviv has itself.

In any other context, such statements would be assessed as the type of rhetoric that typically accompanies genocide."

You can read the full column below. 

Opinion: Why I resigned from my European crisis-response role