Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-05-Speech-2-028"
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"en.20000905.2.2-028"2
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"Mr President, I arrived back yesterday from Palestine and Israel, where over a thousand Italians – representatives of district, provincial and regional councils – have been spending a week building peace bridges between Palestinians and Israelis and setting up projects for cooperation with the Palestinian people.
Jerusalem is at the centre of the conflict, and it is one of the key factors in the peace process. For the Palestinians it is a town to be shared with East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian State and West Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Israel. For the Israelis, before Camp David, no part of Jerusalem could be touched. Now the taboo has been broken. Yet the Israeli negotiators are still extremely uncompromising, for the problem is not that the Palestinians do not want to make concessions but that they have the right to the return of the territories occupied in 1967 which is enshrined in the UN resolutions. Since 1993, Jerusalem has been a closed city for the Palestinians.
As Commissioner Patten said, the Israeli Government has many times failed in its obligations following the Oslo negotiations: they have not adhered to the timetable laid down in the agreements for the withdrawal of troops from the occupied territories. For the Palestinians, the divided territories are a nightmare. There is no free movement and over a thousand prisoners arrested before 1993 have been held in prison as if they were hostages. Their imprisonment is a constant threat to the peace process.
However, a genuine tragedy for the peace process and the future of the Palestinian State is the continued increase in Israeli settlements: under the Barak Government, over 41 000 settlers moved into in the occupied territories. And I, together with the thousand Italians, saw these settlements expanding all over the place. This is a genuine crime against peace, but also against the environment and nature: just one example is the mountain of Jellab Edumin, a green hill outside Jerusalem which has been destroyed by bulldozers.
Another key factor are the refugees: they are not merchandise but human beings who want to realise their right or their dream to live in their own land or see it once again. It is makes no sense for them not to be able to go back: Palestinians, who were born there, are not even allowed to visit it.
Peace is necessary. It is on everyone's lips, but peace can only be achieved if each person is allowed to exercise his right of citizenship in his own free State. As Europeans, we must make every possible endeavour – over and above the economic efforts which we are already making, we must increase our political role – to ensure that the law prevails and that the Palestinians are able to live in their democratic State, which we must recognise as we recognise the Israeli State, so that Jerusalem becomes an open city, a city of the world, the capital city of two peoples and two States."@en1
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