Roberta Metsola - jingo?

Roberta Metsola has received a lot of flak of late. She is accused of being a war-monger locally - for political gain. But is she really a war-monger, or are we dealing with disinformation and misinformation?

The accusations started when she became one of the staunchest advocates for Ukraine, promising her support and that of the European Parliament. The main argument locally from the suldati tal-azzar being that as she's Maltese, her intervening in the matter might bring drag Malta into some kind of conflict with Russia.

First of all, Metsola was not acting as a representative of Malta, but of the European Parliament. Secondly, with Russia invading a country unprovoked, and furthermore that lies on the borders of the EU, supporting Ukraine's self-defence is both sensible, right and correct.

She was criticised for meeting with the Israeli President Isaac Herzog following the 7th October Hamas attack on Israel. She was accused of greenlighting a genocide of the Palestinian people in doing this. Of course, this is all disinformation. Her message was that the attack was barbaric, and that Israel has a right to defend itself against Hamas (not the Palestinian people as is portrayed) and terrorism. Throughout she has pushed for humanitarian aid to reach Gazans, and for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation to the extent that she was heckled at the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset. Moreover, the European Parliament MEPs passed a resolution where the Parliament reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself, but condemned its disproportionate military response in Gaza.

She was then attacked for supporting a defence strategy for Europe. She spoke of defence (which incidentally does not breach Malta's often touted neutrality clause, in fact even Malta's Prime Minister Robert Abela signed up to this). With war at our doorstep, it would be silly not to think of bolstering our capacity to defend ourselves. I also believe that with a war-crazed imperialist dictator attacking a country at Europe's doorstep and a USA presidential hopeful who is very prone to withdrawing the United States from NATO, it makes even more sense.

Roberta Metsola is no war-monger or jingo. She is one hell of a politician who does Malta proud.