Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-05-Speech-2-218"
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". – Madam President, Members of Parliament, Abu Ala, I am an optimist. I am not the kind of an optimist who, when once asked by somebody "are you an optimist or a pessimist", said "of course I am an optimist. Today is better than tomorrow". No, this is not the kind of optimism that I would like to share with you this morning. I would like to share with you a different kind of optimism, an optimism which says that tomorrow will be even better than today and today was a perfect morning.
I feel very pleased to be here with you this morning. After so many years when we Israelis felt that Europe did not fully understand us – and the other way around – I have the feeling that this is a different environment in which we are carrying on a dialogue.
Coming to this House after you passed the resolution on the memory of the Holocaust, first mooted in Stockholm and eventually embraced by the majority in this House; the kind of help you are giving openly and secretly, to Jews in need in distressed areas around the world; and of course your unequivocal commitment to peace encompassing various interpretations and schools of thought: all these things make me feel happy to be here this morning. When I am asked whether I am an optimist or a pessimist – well, of course I am an optimist because I prefer the frustrations of negotiation to the funerals of the wars.
Yes, we have frustration but it is a long way from the departure point. Look at history, look at the writing on the wall. In 1948 there were seven Arab parties engaged against the newly born state of Israel. In 1967 only three out of the seven – Egypt, Jordan and Syria – fought against us. In 1973 only two out of the three – Syria and Egypt – were against us. Now some 25 years later, we have peace with Egypt and are very close to peace with Syria. They say today the sun is rising in Syria. The Palestinians did not fight against us as a nation in 1948 or join the struggle against us as a belligerent in 1963, but all of a sudden – and unbelievably – we now find ourselves in the middle of negotiations. Thank God we are there. If I had told you ten years ago, before the Gulf War, that in the year 2000 the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council would have a debate with the Speaker of the Israeli Knesset before the European Parliament, you would have said that it would never happen. What if I had told you five years ago that the President of the United States would come to celebrate Christmas 2000 in Bethlehem, accompanied by the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, who would fly there in a Palestinian helicopter, and both would be protected by thousands of armed Palestinians? What if I had said that all this would happen only 300 metres from the southern part of Jerusalem? You would have told me that I was fantasising and it will never happen. But it will happen. And when we meet here again in five or ten years' time all the obstacles that today look like abysses that we cannot cross will be behind us. And this will happen because of this kind of partnership and because our people and their people in the Middle East understand where the modern world is going. It is moving towards acceptance, reconciliation and forgiveness for the past, whatever the past might have been. The negotiations today, difficult as they are, are very good negotiations. The situation is not easy and far from resolved, but nevertheless the world has changed.
All of us come from the political arena, and you know as well as I do that in politics there is no such thing as good timing. When you raise an issue and nothing happens, people say why raise it now, when nobody cares about it. At the height of a crisis they say why raise the issue at the height of a crisis, wait until it is over. Then, once it is over, everyone says "It is over – who cares about it?". The time is never right to do something. The Middle East has been no exception. There has always been an excuse not to raise an issue. For a long time the circumstances and the political environment were almost impossible. Now, all of a sudden, the world is not a bipolar world, and the Middle East is not being tugged apart by the Soviet bloc and the Western bloc. We are more or less alone and talking to each other. All of a sudden the rhetoric is getting down to pragmatic solutions. A world of pragmatic solutions is not an easy one.
Because Abu Ala yes, international law is very important. People who are living in the family of nations live by the law. If they did not it would be a wilderness, a desert, chaos. Many of us – and I do not know all of you, but I know some of you – have deeply-felt value systems which are at least as deep as our commitment to law and understanding and humanity. Mine is my religious belief. Yes, I know it is an oxymoron. I am a rational individual who believes in God; do not ask me how. But this is what I have tried to do, in my commitment to this region of the world, to the monotheistic idea, to the dialogue between religions, all because sometime in history, the founding father of my nation, Abraham, after whom I am named, came up with the concept that there is one God. Thank God, this one God is represented by five parties in our Knesset today, but that is a different story.
Therefore, when we are seeking practical political solutions, we have to understand that these are solutions for historical problems and people's faith and beliefs. It is not enough to say politically that it works when we have not prepared the spiritual background for acceptance of the compromises.
What do I mean? Practically, we have never been so close to each other, but what do we know about the icons, the symbols, the things that have been there for so many years? Abu Ala must come home, Yassar Arafat must come back home and say "I solved the problem of the refugees," and Ehud Barak must come back home and say "Yes, the problem of the refugees was solved, but not within the recognised international borders of the State of Israel". Yassar Arafat has to come home and say "I solved the problem of Jerusalem and we have a full presence and full sovereignty in Jerusalem". But on the other hand, no one can authorise Ehud Barak to compromise on King David's capital. How can he go home?
Therefore the problems are not just political but psychological as well. I would like to say something briefly about the way we see Jerusalem. I was born there, I studied there, my kids are there, I almost live there. I know and respect all the different beliefs and faiths of Jerusalem. I would be the last person in the world to belittle or disregard the holiness of Jerusalem for people of other faiths. It belongs to them with the same intensity that it belongs to me. I will defend till my last breath their right to worship.
On behalf of so many of us in the Middle East, especially so many of us in Israel, I should like to thank you for your efforts and the efforts of the entire distinguished gathering here this morning to push forward dialogue, understanding, and the process of listening to each other in the Middle East. Today we are here together sharing both sides of your chair – and, by the way, responding to your proposal to have a joint parliament in the Middle East. I have no problem with that, but would ask only one thing, namely that you should chair it. It would be a bit more complicated for us to run the show ourselves. Nevertheless the day will come.
I will defend all the rights of all these people to worship equally in Jerusalem, but I also demand from others no less respect for the holiness of Jerusalem for the millions of Jews who died and prayed and waited throughout 3,000 years of Jewish history. A peace formula has to be founded on the respect for the holy. I accept your beliefs, please accept mine. It is beyond politics or law, it is something deeper, something spiritual. Only this mutual respect will enable all of us to live as ordinary, honorary citizens in God's city on Earth.
I urge you Abu Ala, my friend, when you go back to your people tell them that Jerusalem is holy for the Muslims and Jerusalem is holy for the Christians, but it is no less holy for Jews. We need to find a political compromise but also a religious compromise.
I have a feeling that the challenge of Jerusalem is the biggest political challenge ever witnessed. Today I heard maybe the first ever official statement from a very high-ranking Palestinian delegate, saying that there is a possibility Jerusalem will not be the capital of the Palestinian State. It was a very interesting observation, as a fallback position I understand, and it is something that has to be studied. The late King Hussein, whose commitment to peace in the region no one would doubt, came up with a beautiful idea. He said that the problem of Jerusalem's sovereignty is almost insoluble; why not give the sovereignty of the city of God back to God? Between us we shall find enough practical solutions.
King Hussein's idea was presented to all our leaders and I am pleased to say that the sides have not rejected the idea. Let us explore it. We have a goal. We are going somewhere. I do not want peace in the Middle East to be a win-lose situation. Nor do I want me to win and him to lose. I do not want him to win and me to lose. I want it to be a win-win situation for both of us. I would like to see a Palestinian state declared on a basis of understanding and mutual acceptance and consent between the two sides, with Israel the first to recognise it in the international community.
That is what I wanted for many years before it became the official policy, not policy, the official mood in my country. I have no problem with the Palestinian state or Abu Ala. On the contrary, as soon as we have a Palestinian state, the dialogue between us will be a dialogue between equals. Any issues that are not resolved now, we can deal with later on and continue the dialogue between us. I know that many of the issues were resolved at Camp David but there are other issues that I hope we can solve. You raise the issue of refugees. It is not a unilateral issue. My mother was a refugee from Hebron. She was born some 80 years ago in Hebron and I am a Hebronite (that is not a compliment in the Middle East, it means a very stubborn, simple individual). Millions of Jews came from the Muslim countries in 1948, 1949, 1950 and up to the 1960s and there are problems. But I will make a compromise with my dream because my land comes to me from the biblical promise and your land comes to you from a religious commitment and a national presence in the Holy Land of Israel. Your first territorial compromise is with your dreams, and my first territorial compromise is with my dreams on the understanding that anyone who claims that the greater Israel is his, cannot be the partner of Abu Ala and anyone who claims that the greater Palestine is his, cannot be a partner to Avraham Burg. Only if you and I compromise our dreams can we seek a compromise between the two nations and if we make this emotional compromise all the rest will follow in due course.
I would like to conclude by talking about the future. Yesterday we were enemies, today we are (almost) friends and tomorrow we will be partners. Personally, of course, I admire him, although he does not admire me and rightly so, but the two of us can play a role in the regions. However, we need help and mediation from the rest of the world. Today Europe and the rest of the world are dealing with the local impact of the global economy, narrowing the gap between the haves and the have-nots, creating opportunities for the have-nots. Israel has a relatively good economy. The Palestinians have not yet had the chance to develop their own independent economy. We would like to see Europe and the rest of the world helping both of us to improve the economic level of the region so that there is a balance between the two economies. This will prevent frustration in the relationship between the two states and the individuals within those societies will not despair and take refuge in religious fundamentalism. I believe that is a crucial strategic need in the region today.
One last word as to why I am an optimist. Coming from here, from Strasbourg, I have to tell my people how it was, I will tell you how it was. Eleven years ago I and my eldest son, who was then very young, were stuck in the middle of a traffic jam in Jerusalem because there was a bomb somewhere. They were talking about it on the news and my son who was very young then and so had no respect for his father, turned to me and said 'Daddy, are these the people you want to make peace with?', because at that time I was one of the leaders of the 'Peace Now' movement in Israel. I was lost for words, because how do you explain the complexities of these things to a seven or eight-year old boy? My father, who at the time was 80 years old, was in the back seat. In his 40 years as a member of the Knesset he served in every cabinet in Israel and he was the head of the Israeli-Egyptian team that negotiated autonomy for the Palestinians. My father was born in Dresden and lost his entire family in the Holocaust. He said to my son 'Listen, grandson, when I ran away from Germany forty years ago, I hated them. I could not believe that I would ever go back there. I could not believe that I would ever forgive them, but now I have forgiven them. Now Germany is different, the people are different, there is a powerful message of soul-searching, correcting the past and doing better for the future coming out of Germany'. Then he said to him ' If this can happen between us and our worst ever enemy, there is no reason in the world why it should not happen between you and the Palestinians in your generation because the rivalry is not that deep.' My father passed away last year, but his wisdom is almost prophetic. It is with me day in and day out and I believe there will be peace, not in my son's generation but in the generation of Abu Ala and myself: a permanent, solid, good peace for the betterment of the world.
A meeting such as the one we are having here on the very day that the leaders of our peoples are meeting each other again in the United States of America, trying to promote another step, one more centimetre towards a better future for our children, is a crucial moment. Not only do the leaders of our nations have the responsibility of making peace, but we, as elected representatives of our people, also bear the burden of responsibility for trying to enhance the people-to-people relationship in such a way that eventually, when peace is signed between the two sides, the people will be ready to accept the message. Therefore I am very happy to be here with you this morning.
More than this, for many of us in Israel, Europe is not just a continent. For many of us in Israel Europe is a value system. For many of us in Israel Europe is something wider than its worldly presence. Europe for us is democracy. Europe for us is enlightenment. Europe for us is parliamentarism. Europe for us is culture. Europe for us is social engineering, social responsibility and social sensitivities. Europe for us is responsibility for the environment. Europe for us is economy. So when we are negotiating peace in the Middle East, we feel every day that we are not just doing what is good for our people, but we try harder and double our efforts because we have a sense of responsibility to the extent that the stability of our region is the key to the stability of the rest of the world. What stands against this kind of dialogue is the worst sort of enemy we have ever witnessed. Against this kind of dialogue, with all the frustration, the caveats, possibilities, corruptions, paragraphs, and verses, etc, stands the enemy of peace, which is religious fundamentalism.
The Middle East is the key to the stability of the world. Will the stability of the world stem from the sovereign part of the former Soviet Union? Will it stem from Europe through the relationship between North Africa and southern Europe, eventually all Europe? Whatever happens in our little corner of the world – which is only 23 000 square kilometres, smaller than the Massif Central – will guarantee the future of the world. Will the Middle East be a black coalition of Khomenei mullahs in Iran, Shiites in Iraq, Muslim brothers in Jordan, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hammas in the Occupied Territories and Islamic fundamentalist organisations in North Africa or will it be a coalition of peace, oriented towards Europe and Western civilisation, consisting of Egypt as the linchpin of the peace, Jordan, Palestine as a state – I will come back to that in a minute – the state of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and the rest of the world? These are the two options of the Middle East, a black-oriented Middle East or a peace-oriented Middle East. Both of us, for all our disagreements, are fully committed to a peaceful Middle East for our own sake and the sake of our children and the rest of the world.
It is a very personal privilege for me to share this very important European podium this morning with Abu Ala. Look at this man. He was the architect of the Oslo Agreement. He is the man to whom my children and the children of his people owe so much on account of his courage, creativity, devotion and commitment to change the strategy of the Middle East from a strategy of conflict to a strategy of dialogue, understanding and acceptance of the other. I would like, Abu Ala, to tell you what I told you when you came as my guest to the Knesset, when I met you at my home – I hope that I shall not do you any political damage back home by mentioning these things – and in all other places where we have met, namely that the Middle East of our generation is privileged to have a great man like you leading your people."@en1
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"Avraham Burg,"1
"Speaker of the Knesset"1
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