Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-09-04-Speech-2-025"
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"en.20010904.2.2-025"2
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"Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to express, on behalf of the Socialist Group, our condolences for today’s latest victims and begin by stating one fact: that we have returned in terms of rhetoric and actions to a situation which had begun to unravel after the Madrid Conference.
I am not going to give a lengthy description of what is happening. I do believe that we Europeans should consider ourselves committed to and involved in this process. I prefer to talk about this than about equidistances, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, because there is no total equidistance between a consolidated, sovereign and democratic State such as Israel, and a possible embryonic State for a people which do not yet have a homeland.
I believe that that is an important element to which we should add – as a message to Mr Sharon’s government – that the policy of ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ brings nothing but disaster. We Europeans know something about this, because it is precisely that policy which we have abandoned by means of the European Union. Furthermore, economic and human asphyxia is not the way to resolve the conflict and a policy of this type only serves to reinforce the extremists on both sides. I therefore believe that, from the position of friendship that we feel for Israel, we must express this clearly.
Secondly, Madam President, for the first time we Europeans are signatories of an agreement. We were at Sharm el-Sheik and the High Representative is currently in Jerusalem. Our Foreign Affairs Ministers, Mr Fischer, Mr Michel and Mr Ruggiero, are visiting the area and I believe that this also demonstrates our European will. I believe that we do not just have to express political will, but that Parliament has to help to find the light at the end of this tunnel. That is why I proposed to the Conference of Presidents – and it has been accepted – that, instead of producing a resolution today, in the heat of the moment, without knowing the result of the consultations, we use the weapon granted us by the Treaty of Maastricht and produce a recommendation so that the Committee on Foreign Affairs can assess whether or not there is any progress throughout this month.
I believe that in this game of lethal symbols which the Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in, we should also ask for positive symbols. One of them, which seems to me important, is that Orient House in Jerusalem be reopened, because it has always been a platform for peace. I must remind you that, as President of the European Parliament, I had the opportunity to visit Orient House. Nothing will be achieved by removing all the bridges to dialogue.
Lastly, Madam President, in the middle of this dramatic crisis, it is cause for hope that there are Israeli and Palestinian voices which have the civic and political courage to sign a joint manifesto. I am referring to the appeal made jointly by some of the protagonists of the peace processes of recent years, for example Mr Beilin and Mrs Ashraui, who have signed a manifesto – I have the original text in English – in which, under the title "No to bloodshed, no to occupation, yes to negotiation, yes to peace" they say something which the directorate of the Party of European Socialists decided to jointly support at its meeting on Sunday.
I will quote a section of this manifesto which, in my opinion, sums up the will which we have to apply to this process. It says the following: "We still believe in the humanity of the other side, that we have a partner for peace and that a negotiated solution to the conflict between our peoples is possible".
That is the approach which we Europeans have to support. We must ask the Americans to be more active and to try once again to guide the people of the region."@en1
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