EU foreign policy chief compares French victims to children in Gaza

EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Monday condemned the shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse that left a rabbi and three children dead, but also reportedly made a connection between the children killed in the rampage with those killed in the Gaza Strip and Syria. Ashton’s remarks elicited outrage from Israeli leaders, who urged her to retract her comments. On Tuesday, Ashton's office released a statment which said that the foreign policy chief's words "were grossly distorted by one of the wire services. I drew no parallel between the Toulouse attack and Gaza."

On Monday, Ashton spoke in Brussels at the Engaging Youth -- Palestinian Refugees conference, an event sponsored by the government of Belgium and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which assists Palestinian refugees.

“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 [in a bus accident last week in Switzerland], 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 in different parts of the world -- we remember young people and children who lose their lives,” Ashton said.

Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Eli Yishai unleashed perhaps the harshest criticism toward Ashton on Tuesday, saying that “A person who compares killing terrorists to killing children would be best served just blushing and not adding insult to injury with their one-sided views about Israel. Ms. Ashton’s comments further weaken the European Union’s ability to be a fair, unbiased mediator between us and the Palestinians.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman also criticized Ashton’s comments on Tuesday, calling them “inappropriate” and saying he hoped that Ashton reconsidered her remarks.

“Israel is the most moral country in the world,” Lieberman said from China, where he held meetings with the Chinese vice president and foreign minister. “Despite the fact that it has to fight terrorists who operate in civilian populated areas, the IDF does its utmost to avoid harming that population, even if it shields the terrorists.”

The children that Ashton should put her in thoughts are “the children in southern Israel who live in perpetual fear of rockets fired at them from the Gaza Strip,” Lieberman said.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday joined in the criticism of Ashton’s comments, saying, “The comparison Ashton made between what is happening in Gaza, Toulouse and Syria is outrageous and far from reality. The IDF operates in Gaza with utmost caution in order to avoid harming innocent people. I hope the EU foreign policy chief quickly comes to understand her mistake and retracts her statement.”

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