Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-09-Speech-2-179"
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"en.20020409.8.2-179"2
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". – Mr President, I should like to say at the outset how strongly I endorse what has been said by the High Representative and by the presidency of the Council.
... and I wish they would commit themselves to working more actively to prevent young people from taking such extreme action. No circumstances, I repeat, can justify such acts. I sympathise with all of those Israeli families who have lost their loved ones in such attacks, just as I grieve for all the Palestinian families who have also been bereaved.
It is clear that there are no easy solutions. In my view the only way to bring a definitive end to the wave of suicide-bombings is to tackle the source of the problems and to find a just and lasting peace. Without this there will be no guarantee of a cessation of violence. This is the only alternative, as has been pointed out by courageous people like the Speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, whom we all recall speaking from that podium a year or so ago. He has openly spoken out against entering into what he described as "this insane cycle of violence".
The current Israeli response of blockading an entire population, withholding tax revenues, extrajudicial killings, destruction of infrastructure, destruction of Arab land, is not in any sense the answer. This kind of behaviour seems not only to be aimed at the elimination of terror but also at the elimination of the Palestinian Authority and any achievements of the Oslo Accords.
Let me just give Parliament the latest report that I have received, which I cannot vouch for but it seems to me likely to be true. We have just heard that Israeli forces have broken into the Ministry of Industry, have broken into the Ministry of Education and into the Ministry of Civil Affairs. They have destroyed computers, they have destroyed files, they have destroyed office infrastructure. The expectation is that they will break into the Ministry of Economy tonight, and presumably do exactly the same thing.
I wonder what on earth this has to do with stopping suicide bombing?
It is a deliberate and targeted attack on the infrastructure of government in Palestine. It is a deliberate attempt to destroy the legitimate political ambitions of Palestinians to live in a viable state in their own land.
The European Union has made clear that it will continue to support the Palestinian Authority, that it will continue to support its elected president because, as the High Representative said, there is a need for organised structures to run the Palestinian territories and to represent the Palestinian people in peace talks and internationally. As I have said here before, and as others have said, what on earth is the alternative to the Palestinian Authority? The alternative to the Palestinian Authority is Palestinian anarchy. Is that what the leaders of Israel really want?
How have we come to this? Almost ten years ago Israel and the Palestinians laid the foundation for a peaceful settlement of the Arab/Israeli conflict by recognising each other's right to exist and by concluding the Oslo Accord which helped to establish a Palestinian governmental structure for the first time ever. It equally helped Israel to improve its diplomatic and economic standing in the international community. The Oslo Agreement also offered a precise time-line, at the end of which, in 1999, we should have been able to witness the final Israeli/Palestinian peace agreement.
In such circumstances, we Europeans, appalled by the daily deterioration in the situation, appalled by the horrific violence, must ask ourselves what we can do. We can in due course provide a minimum of humanitarian assistance if and when the situation allows. In this context we must implore Israel to uphold international humanitarian law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention. We must urge Israel to desist from denying medical services to those in need, to end the indiscriminate shelling of refugee camps, the humiliating treatment of prisoners and wanton destruction of public and private property. This will all only leave a legacy of bitterness and it will drag Israel's international reputation through the mire.
We must obviously support initiatives such as the proposed mission by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to look into the human rights situation and to recommend any appropriate action which may be necessary to protect human rights according to international standards. There is no question that sooner or later Israel will have to justify, as a democracy which takes pride in its pluralist traditions, the way it is behaving at the bar of world opinion.
We support the international community's call on Israel to stop its military operation in the West Bank and stop it now. We support the Saudi initiative, which led to the historic decision of the Arab Summit at the end of March. We also support the latest UN resolutions and we have expressed our agreement with President Bush's statement urging Israel to stop its military operation without delay. However, Israel does not appear to be listening to any outside advice. It should care about the damage its current policies are doing to its international reputation. Quite apart from the fact that a policy based on repression and force, as the High Representative said, will not achieve the aim of bringing lasting security to Israel's population. All it will do is to give a malign new impulse to a cult of violence and death.
The General Affairs Council next week will want to consider the gravity of the situation and to discuss how we can make our concern felt to Israel in the most effective way. We want to keep open the channels for dialogue with Israel. This is what President Prodi himself certainly had in mind. However, Israel has to show for once that it is listening, that it will respect the international standards of behaviour that we have all agreed to uphold and that it will explore all avenues to peace, not just stick to a military approach.
Just about the whole world is united in its calls for an Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territory and in the call for a return to the negotiating table. This is the only way to find an honourable and lasting peace which is so desired by the populations of the region and by the wider world. Unless we take that way, the only alternative will be more misery, more destruction and more death.
Alas, the promise of Oslo has not been delivered, partly because of what has happened on the Israeli side, with the rapid expansion of settlements and the non-implementation of agreed withdrawals from areas in the West Bank, and partly because of Palestinian violence perpetrated by extremist forces with the clear aim of sabotaging any Palestinian/Israeli peace deal. Subsequently, the meeting in Camp David in the summer of 2000 and the last-ditch attempts to find a negotiated solution at Taba in January 2001 also failed to bring a lasting peace.
Since then we have seen appalling destruction and misery. Israel – a democratic State that rightly takes pride in its democracy, rule of law and humanitarian principles, and which undeniably is threatened by horrendous suicide bombings – has, I fear, behaved in a way which contradicts much that it stands for.
Suicide bombings are totally unacceptable; they are horrendous acts of terrorism – and I say that without any qualification. They are wrong at every time in every place. Wrong always, wrong everywhere!
I have to say that I would have wished that Islamist leaders had been more outspoken in their condemnation of such attacks. Indeed, I wish they had been outspoken at all ..."@en1
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