Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-09-Speech-2-176"
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"en.20020409.8.2-176"2
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Ladies and gentlemen, since I took up my post, I have always tried to speak frankly, clearly and respectfully to the Members of this Parliament. I believe that this is one of the most difficult debates I have taken part in and we must approach it with our customary responsibility and political sense.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are aware of the enormous suffering of the civilian population, which does not want to take part in a war, which wants to live in peace, together, with two countries living side by side. To deprive whole populations of electricity and water are actions which are unjustifiable on security grounds. There is no doubt that this is taking place in violation of humanitarian law and military law, which we cannot ignore.
Mr President, the Israeli Government had the right and the obligation to protect its citizens. However, we do not believe that what we are seeing is going to serve this purpose. This is not just an anti-terrorist operation, but it leans dangerously towards war, and I am very sad to say this.
We have at least two clear, very clear, Security Council resolutions, which do not allow for differing interpretations, and the only possible interpretation of these resolutions is that the situation of the occupied territories at the moment must end. And these clear resolutions must be applied immediately. The military operation must end, and not in stages, and not city by city, but immediately and completely.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, international law must be respected by everybody, and this implies that it must also be respected by the citizens who live on the other side of the northern border. Israel must fulfil its obligations to the United Nations Security Council. We also condemn the attacks taking place from Israel’s northern border against Israeli citizens. I insist: we will always be in favour of respect for international law.
Mr President, these military actions are not the right way to put an end to terrorism. We can ask many questions about these operations and we can ask whether, when they end, the citizens of Israel will be better protected or not, whether their security will be increased or not, whether this operation is going to fight and reduce terrorism. Unfortunately we do not think that this will be the case, that these operations will achieve this end, and therefore, honestly, as the United Nations Security Council has done, we ask that they stop.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am very keen this afternoon to stress that one of the consequences of this military operation is the destruction of the Palestinian Authority. This is of immense concern to us, because if we have to achieve a ceasefire, with whom are we going to establish that ceasefire if there is going to be nobody amongst the Palestinian Authority’s people or institutions to speak to.
I have been able to do this on many occasions, on the many trips I have made in recent months – as the honourable Members know – with the security leaders of the Palestinian Authority. We worked with these people, together with Israel and the United States. Today some of them have lost their credibility and all means to act. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we must make an effort to recover the Palestinian Authority. Progress towards peace, after this military operation, is inconceivable with a ruined Palestinian Authority. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament, the European Union, must make a more serious and stronger appeal for the Palestinian Authority to be respected.
Ladies and gentlemen, we believe that the Tenet plan, the security plan, must be supported, but who on the Palestinian side can carry out the negotiation contained in that plan? Unfortunately we do not know, and therefore we will have to continue to insist that the Palestinian Authority should recover the status, the responsibility and the meaning established in the Oslo agreements.
Having said this, ladies and gentlemen, we must continue to act on all fronts. I honestly believe, and I will say this a thousand times, that President Arafat must be free to move and to meet with his colleagues.
The problem we are dealing with this afternoon, which involves a region that is close to us, is important. It relates to our values, but it also relates to our security and our interests. Therefore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe it is the obligation of all of us, of all the institutions present here this afternoon, to seek formulae to resolve the situation. We must not be part of the problem, but rather part of the solution to the problem.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are in a situation, a rather ridiculous situation, if you will pardon the expression, where after Mr Zinni met with Arafat to try to implement the security operation, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority who should have seen Arafat to subsequently negotiate that security agreement were not allowed to do so.
At 8 p.m. last night, the representative of all of us, Mr Moratinos, entered Ramallah for the first time and spoke to one of Arafat’s closest advisors, Abu Mazen. The latter’s only request, addressed to all of us, is that Arafat’s political colleagues and leaders be allowed to see him. Fortunately, thanks to pressure from various parties, this has been possible and we must be pleased about it.
Ladies and gentlemen, it has been said and written that Europe has been humiliated. Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to refute that argument, since I believe that it has not been Europe that has been humiliated. There has been one Prime Minister who has not had sufficient vision to take the correct decision and the humiliation has been for the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, who on the same day were forbidden from seeing their President, their political leader, Arafat. That is the real humiliation, the one which is being experienced by the Palestinian people. We are still working within the capacities and resources available to us, and with the will which we have all shown in trying to resolve this dramatic problem.
Ladies and gentlemen, not only do we have our representative, Mr Moratinos, permanently on the ground, but also representatives of this Parliament have also been there and have witnessed the situation and needs
with their own eyes. I have had the opportunity to speak to them. I thank them for their work, which has been useful and very positive for everybody, myself included.
I believe that what we have to do at the moment is not just concentrate on the possibility of a ceasefire. While a ceasefire is absolutely essential, we will not achieve a lasting ceasefire unless there is a political perspective for the future. Our desire must therefore be to start as soon as possible to go beyond a ceasefire and move towards the possibility of a lasting political relationship.
We will wonder what the parameters of this political agreement must be. Ladies and gentlemen, the agreements and the parameters of that political agreement are well known to everybody, we do not have to invent anything much. We want at the end of the day to have two States, an Israeli State with fully-recognised and secure borders and a Palestinian State with borders which are also secure and guaranteed, which can live together side by side. That has also been the offer made by the political leaders of the region in Beirut, where the European Union was present and I had the honour of working in the preceding days in order to reach that resolution. Therefore, we have the objective conditions for reaching the end of the process, but what we do not know is how to get out of the hole we are in at the moment.
Ladies and gentlemen, in a few hours time we will have the opportunity to meet in Madrid with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Secretary of State Powell, before he sets off for the Middle East, for Israel, with the Russian Foreign Minister, to see if we can jointly find a mechanism to end this situation. I believe that the only solution is correct, frank and intense coordination between the players I have just mentioned, in order to try to find a formula which will allow us to achieve that end.
I insist, however, that a formula allowing us out of this situation must not be strictly limited to the ceasefire, which is an essential first step, because if we are not capable of providing a political perspective, the ceasefire will be signed but not implemented by the parties. Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I humbly dare to suggest that the position we should take should be to have the willpower and courage to ask for more than a ceasefire, to ask for a political solution to be put on the table as soon as possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, I said at the beginning, and I would like to repeat, that this Parliament, the citizens of the European Union, everybody, is against terrorism, and Israel can always count on us to be a serious and responsible ally in the fight against terrorism.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that the current situation in the Middle East is dramatic, tragic and dangerous, given its consequences, not only for the people who live there, but also for the region. And we must face this stark reality with the sense of responsibility we Europeans have always had.
We believe that the current situation is mistaken and, as friends, we want to say that the sooner it ends the better. We will therefore do everything possible to ensure that the United Nations Security Council resolution is complied with and on this basis to seek a ceasefire that will allow us to begin a political process which leads to the goal of two States, two democratic States with secure borders, which can live together within the context of the countries of the region, which have already offered a contractual peace to Israel in Beirut.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is what I wanted to say this afternoon and I would also like to say, Mr President, on my return, when the honourable Members deem it appropriate – on the 24th, if you like – I will be very happy to come back here to explain the situation or give my impression of the development of the situation during this period.
I honestly believe that we have reached the limits of what is acceptable. The reality of what is going on on the ground leads nowhere; it does not lead to a solution to the problem and only leads to desperation and misery. I therefore believe that we must act on all possible fronts, not only to resolve the immediate crisis, but also to try to resolve its causes.
Mr President, I am going to make a few brief comments on these three points. I believe there is no doubt that everybody present in this House and all the citizens of Europe have condemned, do condemn and will condemn terrorism. I therefore believe that we can state, with the frankness with which we have always dealt with our Israeli friends, that we will condemn terrorism a thousand times, as many times as necessary, and that we will have nothing to do with it. With the same frankness, we can say to our friends that we do not agree with the activities they are engaged in.
I believe that today we are obliged to say what we think, from the point of view of friendship, and with a frankness which enables us to see how we have spoken on other occasions. To say it with the same simplicity, but with the same sense of responsibility.
Mr President, I honestly believe that the military response of the Israeli Government that we are witnessing in the occupied territories is intolerable and we must stop it immediately. It must stop immediately, ladies and gentlemen, because it takes us nowhere and it does not lead to the solution to the problem, which is, as has been said, to put an end to terrorism."@en1
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