Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-24-Speech-3-043"
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"en.20020424.3.3-043"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, you have remained here to follow this marathon debate, and my thanks go to the Council and the Commission for their statements on the Euro-Mediterranean meeting and the situation in the Middle East.
We in Parliament naturally wish to keep abreast of developments, and my own group supports all balanced attempts to achieve a state of peace in the Middle East. Simply to discuss this issue from one month or one week to the next, however, seems almost grotesque. We in Parliament cannot influence the situation in any concrete way. We come here to speak to whoever happens to be listening, but do we then go away feeling pleased with ourselves, having done so? I hope we do not.
It would appear that, just as the rescue and clearance work at the World Trade Centre finally reached ‘ground zero’ level, relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians are also at ground zero. An optimist would say, and I am one, that from here on things can and must get better. Commissioner Patten also suggested he hoped this was the case.
It seems clear that only through the joint efforts of what has been called the ‘quartet’ – the United Nations, the European Union, the United States of America and Russia – can progress be made. Solo endeavours, whether those of Colin Powell or the High Representative for the CFSP, Javier Solana, who are both held in high regard, do not produce results. One of the parties in the dispute always suspects the other of being biased. When a mission that seems as clear as the one Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent President Martti Ahtisaari on to investigate the devastation at Jenin and the number of human casualties there meets with suspicion on the part of the other party, we really are at ground zero point. President Ahtisaari, who I know well, could hardly be accused of prejudice.
The international community must unite to achieve the only possible solution: the Palestinians must have their own unified state, whose entire area they have complete sovereignty over, and not just the whole of the land area but also the waters that surround it and the airspace above it. The Israelis must be given an unconditional assurance that their children, their old people, and mothers and fathers can travel in absolute safety within the territory of their own state without the threat of continued, devious, terrorist bomb attacks. Only this can be the basis of a constructive common existence built on mutual respect.
Mr President, I do not believe in sanctions – pressure should suffice – but unless constructive, genuine and goal-conscious talks get under way soon and furthermore lead to a result there will definitely be a feeling of
. How long and how pointless were the talks in the former Yugoslavia before sanctions were imposed?"@en1
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