This week Lovin Malta sought comments from Roberta Metsola on the situation in Gaza. It made sense. Over the past month, practically every major European leader has shifted their rhetoric. It’s as if they woke up one morning this May and finally realised Israel was committing war crimes. Given the context, I thought this time she might have a different response. Maybe it had been cowardice all along, and now that others had paved the way, she would follow suit.She didn’t. All she had to offer was a self-centred reminder that she was the first European leader to enter Gaza. In February. Accompanied by Israeli officials. At the Kerem Shalom crossing – where the Israelis were letting in food, at a trickle, to people they were actively starving.A Response That Says NothingHer full statement, published by this website, is a tone-deaf and clumsy attempt at political preservation masquerading as humanitarian concern. It is notable not for what it says, but for what it so meticulously avoids saying. Not once is the word “Israel” mentioned. Not once does she name the perpetrator of the suffering she claims to care about.“There has never been a moment where the European Parliament has not called for a two-State solution. It is difficult, but the best path to lasting peace.”This is how you open a statement during an active genocide? With a tired talking point about a two-state solution that even the most optimistic of observers will tell you is dead. Palestinians aren’t so much concerned about statehood right now as they are with not being wiped off the face of the earth – deliberately and systematically – by a state that has enjoyed near-total impunity. And that state is Israel.“The tragic situation is Gaza is horrific and catastrophic, too many children, women and men have died, far too many.”Died? Died how, exactly? In their sleep? Of natural causes? In a freak accident? This is not just a genocide. It is ethnic cleansing conducted with live-streamed sadism. They died because they were targeted by Israeli airstrikes, Israeli snipers, Israeli starvation, Israeli siege. Saying “too many have died” is a line you use for an earthquake, not for something a state is responsible for.We all know who is responsible. But Metsola can’t seem to say it. She resorts to the passive voice, as though these were deaths by misfortune—not by design.Selective Law, Strategic Silence“We have been doing everything we can to alleviate the suffering of innocents for the last 600 days.”No, you haven’t. The EU cut aid to UNRWA. It failed to sanction Israel. It provided diplomatic cover – and facilitated a genocide by supplying arms, in breach of every single treaty and convention conceived to prevent it.And Roberta Metsola remained silent. She repeated Israeli talking points, even as hospitals were bombed and entire neighbourhoods flattened. When the backlash came, she vanished. And now she returns with this:“We have always reiterated that respect for international and humanitarian law is paramount.”Except when Israel is the one violating it. Then, suddenly, the law becomes optional. The ICJ found that a plausible case of genocide exists. The ICC issued arrest warrants. Countries around the world are reassessing their ties. But not her. She’d rather remind us of her visit in February.“I was actually in Gaza, the first leader in more than a decade to enter, with humanitarian aid trucks in order to show what Europe is doing on the ground.”Let us be clear. She did not enter Gaza to bear witness to its suffering. She entered under the escort of the very people who were starving it, stood beside trucks, took a few pictures, and left. The only thing she did in Gaza was Israeli PR. She made sure to mention that the aid was entering “from the Israeli side”- as though there’s another. A subtle nod to Israeli generosity, even as it was the very state engineering the conditions of famine.Incidentally, just weeks after her visit, Israel tightened the blockade and stopped the aid entirely. That blockade remains in force to this day. It is a key reason why even some of Israel’s strongest allies have begun to shift their tone.Hamas and the Machinery of DispossessionThen there is the familiar deflection: Hamas.“The best way for [a two-state solution] to be done is if we find a way forward with real Palestinian leadership, without Hamas.”Every attempt to broker peace begins with a familiar demand: Hamas must disarm. On paper, it’s a condition for diplomacy. In practice, it’s a condemnation of Palestinians to a future with no leverage, no deterrent, and no guarantees.This framing is rooted in the post-war international order—the belief that peaceful resolution, not violence, is the legitimate path to justice. The same order Metsola and her peers have been entrusted with upholding.Around the world, even the most powerful states are expected to show restraint. When they breach international law, it’s treated as an exception—a scandal, a lapse. This is what sets this conflict apart.With Israel, there is no such pretence. Its excesses are not hidden or denied—they are broadcast, justified, and endorsed. It has committed unspeakable crimes against humanity all while enjoying unwavering Western support. Meanwhile, Palestinians are told that even peaceful resistance must be condemned or sanctioned.The past 19 months have laid this bare. Western leaders have not acted as honest brokers -they’ve revealed themselves as enablers. From the ICC to the UN, every mechanism supposedly built to protect civilians has been bypassed to accommodate Israeli aims. The international order has not failed – it has been dismantled.In that vacuum, resistance persists – not as ideology, but as necessity. That is the context Metsola refuses to acknowledge. That is the complexity her soundbites erase.If anything, there are two main lessons we should take from the past 19 months. The first is that Israel’s campaign is an expansionist one. It continues to illegally seize territory and has no intention of stopping. The second – and most relevant in relation to the Hamas question – is that nothing stands in the way of it pursuing these goals, whenever it chooses to. Israel has shown that there is no amount of international pressure, no diplomatic efforts, no military power that can restrain it.It is precisely because people like Metsola exist that Hamas is essential – not because they promise victory, but because they are the only force that slows the machinery of dispossession.Selective Solidarity, Strategic CowardiceHer defenders say she has no real power. That may be true – but it misses the point. She didn’t have power in Ukraine either. And yet she was among the first to rush to Kyiv. Later in the war, she returned, this time flanked by Maltese journalists she had invited so they could document how warmly she was received.The Ukrainians loved her. Not because she could end their suffering, but because, in the depth of their despair, she showed up and declared solidarity.In Gaza, she couldn’t even manage that.She wants praise. She wants her visit remembered. She wants to be on the right side of history – without ever taking the risk of standing there.Or maybe we should feel sorry for her too. Maybe, like the people of Gaza, Roberta Metsola is also being held hostage—by her ambition, by her handlers, or by whatever it is that’s convinced her silence is the price of power.What did you make of Roberta Metsola’s latest comments?•