{"id":7228,"date":"2024-08-15T12:24:47","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T11:24:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/?p=7228"},"modified":"2024-08-15T12:36:53","modified_gmt":"2024-08-15T11:36:53","slug":"dilema-morale-e-kosoves-per-palestinen-koha-per-ta-thyer-heshtjen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/opinion\/dilema-morale-e-kosoves-per-palestinen-koha-per-ta-thyer-heshtjen\/","title":{"rendered":"Kosovo\u2019s Moral Dilemma on Palestine: Time to Break the Silence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hamas\u2019s attack on October 7, 2023, left around 1,200 people, mostly Israelis, dead. In response, Israel launched a full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip, which has, to date, claimed the lives of 40,000 Palestinians, half of them children. While most Western nations have been hesitant to strongly condemn Israel\u2019s strikes and attacks against innocent civilians, their response to Hamas has been unequivocally harsh.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Western community defended Israel\u2019s right to defend itself\u2014even, to this day, in disregard of international law\u2014the international condemnation of its ongoing attack on the Gaza Strip has been primarily led by voices from the global south, as illustrated by a <\/span>genocide case initiated by South Africa<\/span><\/a> and supported by Brazil, Indonesia, Algeria and Namibia, among others. In this context, one might expect nations that have previously endured similar tragedies to rise in the defense of humanity and freedom.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, over ten months into Israel\u2019s full-scale siege of Gaza, Kosovo\u2014neither through its government nor its president\u2014has failed to meet the challenge of honoring its own dignity as a state founded upon the debris of persecution and oppression.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Acknowledging the suffering of Palestinians, who have endured such calamities for decades, should be a moral imperative. Nevertheless, Kosovo government representatives and institutions have remained silent thus far.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mimicking a vast majority of Western countries, institutional signs of solidarity with Israel have prevailed across Kosovo\u2019s high leadership echelons\u2014in stark contrast to very poor public acknowledgments of the situation in Gaza, or of the Palestinian people for that matter.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since the October attack, Prime Minister Albin Kurti has majorly limited himself to <\/span>support Israel\u2019s right to self-defense<\/span><\/a> and hope for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, while President Vjosa Osmani has been equally discreet in her public remarks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Both figures are renowned in international fora for calling out Serbia\u2019s wrongdoings against Kosovo Albanians less than three decades ago and demanding justice following comparable massacres. They have also been very outspoken against Russia\u2019s current aggression in Ukraine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It feels particularly ironic, thus, that a leadership\u2014let alone a political party with the history and mission of Levizja Vet\u00ebvendosje\u2014which, for long, has campaigned on a nominally anti-colonial platform and has held self-determination as a core principle, fails to publicly recognize Israel\u2019s machinery of oppression and violence against Palestinians unfolding in plain sight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Acts of solidarity with Palestine in Kosovo have, for the most part, come from civil society. Citizen and activist groups, like the Collective for Feminist Thought and Action, have spearheaded the civil outcry against Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza, having convened some modestly-attended demonstrations and unfurling a <\/span>giant Palestinian flag<\/span><\/a> down the fa\u00e7ade of the iconic Hotel Grand in downtown Prishtina\u2014which was shortly thereafter removed, presumably by city authorities.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kosovo\u2019s political leadership, just like many in the Western world, is trapped in a self-imposed false dichotomy, where the mere acknowledgment of the carnage in Gaza is being pushed forward as opposing the right to self-defense and, even more concerningly, as full-on anti-semitic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In reality, however, it is simpler than that. International law, and international humanitarian law within it, shed no doubt that a condemnation of Israel\u2019s actions in Palestine is an international legal and moral imperative.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Internal and external factors can be argued to undermine Prishtina\u2019s capacity to speak up firmly against the actions of the Israeli government, yet only to a very limited extent\u2014including Israel\u2019s recognition of Kosovo in 2020 and a more than notorious dosage of soft power and diplomatic pressure from the United States, Israel\u2019s foremost ally. Kosovo was also graced in June by the visit of Moshe Arbel, Israel\u2019s Minister of the Interior, where a <\/span>visa waiver agreement<\/span><\/a> between the two countries was signed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At a structural level, the relatively subdued support for Palestine among Kosovo\u2019s population may be rooted in a rejection of the extreme forms of Islam often associated with Palestinians. Many Kosovo Muslims do not identify with this portrayal, instead sympathizing with the side perceived as more advanced, sophisticated and civilized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Whatever the reasons, nothing can justify not speaking out. Outright defense of the Palestinian struggle is a duty that must be made explicit by Kosovo\u2019s leadership\u2014with a view towards full-fledged recognition in the short to medium run. Recognition of a Palestinian State is a bold move that can surely face diplomatic retaliation, not least as a country that is particularly vulnerable to pressures from the United States and from bigger Western powers. However, Kosovo is also an independent and autonomous subject that can and must make its own foreign policy choices.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How can the government of a people whose self-determination was denied, a people that counted a death toll of thousands and that has built upon the trauma of ethnic cleansing as part and parcel of its story, barely stand up for the slow and painful revisitation of its own tragedy?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is Kosovo, if anyone, who must have the sensitivity to recognize acts of oppression, crimes against humanity and genocide, and it is Kosovo who must build up the courage to speak out against it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The refusal to publicly acknowledge Palestinian suffering makes the leadership in Prishtina hypocritical at best. However, it is never too late for Kosovo to help heal its own wounds and take a brave step forward to ultimately forgo an otherwise unnecessary dilemma: the choice between rewarding oppression or being on the right side of history.<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M\u00eb 7 tetor 2023, sulmi i Hamasit la t\u00eb vdekur 1,200 njer\u00ebz, shumica prej t\u00eb cil\u00ebve izraelit\u00eb. Si kund\u00ebrp\u00ebrgjigje, Izraeli nisi pushtimin e plot\u00eb t\u00eb Rripit t\u00eb Gaz\u00ebs, gj\u00eb q\u00eb, deri m\u00eb sot, ua ka marr\u00eb jet\u00ebn 40,000 palestinez\u00ebve, gjysma prej t\u00eb cil\u00ebve f\u00ebmij\u00eb. Ndon\u00ebse shumica e vendeve per\u00ebndimore nuk i kan\u00eb d\u00ebnuar fuqish\u00ebm sulmet […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":446,"featured_media":6868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1077,1076,972,624,666,1000,833],"ppma_author":[1030],"class_list":["post-7228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-gaza","tag-izrael","tag-kosove","tag-kryesore","tag-palestine","tag-politike-e-jashtme","tag-vv"],"authors":[{"term_id":1030,"user_id":446,"is_guest":0,"slug":"alejandro-perez","display_name":"Alejandro Esteso P\u00e9rez","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_2533.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_2533.webp"},"user_url":"","last_name":"Esteso P\u00e9rez","first_name":"Alejandro","description":"Alejandro Esteso P\u00e9rez is a political scientist and researcher specialising in EU enlargement and Western Balkan politics. He is a 2023 Fellow at the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) and an external lecturer on contemporary Western Balkan politics at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). He currently pursues doctoral studies at the University of Graz in Austria."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/446"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7228"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7229,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7228\/revisions\/7229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7228"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sbunker.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=7228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}