Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-10-09-Speech-4-010"
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"en.20031009.1.4-010"2
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"Actually, Mr President, I would rather not have spoken this morning; I would rather have kept silent, just like the Israeli women in black who have been silently saying ‘Stop the Israeli occupation’ ever since 1988. I have too much love and respect, however, for my group’s chairman, Mr Wurtz, who has asked me to speak, and for my colleagues, but, most of all, a symbolic gesture might not work here and so I will have to use words. I must say, Mr Solana, that I feel frustrated, embittered and, above all, highly indignant. Indignation is a political concept, not a state of mind, and I am indignant because, every day, I feel caught up in a spider’s web in which the law, justice, freedom and the truth suffocate and die every day: they perish in the Dance of Death performed by the Sharon government, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. On the one hand – and it is not trite or futile to repeat this – there is an army that is militarily occupying a country; on the other, there is international law, which is constantly being flouted and which we now repeat like a litany. International law should be obeyed, but not a single resolution is being obeyed.
I have no hesitation in considering Hamas and Jihad to be enemies, even though, as I am non-violent, I have eliminated the concept of enemy. It is clearly criminal to send young people to kill themselves and others; those who do so are responsible for these deaths and I consider it a crime, but please let us also break out of this inertia, this diplomacy that causes more deaths every day and contributes to this crime. I feel responsible, together with you, all of you, for what is happening in that country, because it is not enough just to call for compliance with international law. Of course, it is a good thing to go there, and I, too, thank Mr Solana and I thank Mr Moratinos very much, although I have to say that, at the time of the Quartet, Marc Otte was, in fact, absent because of Ariel Sharon’s blackmail at the most sensitive moment when they were resuming talks on the Roadmap. We were not there at that moment, because we rightly recognised that Ariel Sharon had been legitimately elected. Yasser Arafat, too, was legitimately elected, and he cannot be accused of representing everything that is evil. He is not my leader – I am an autonomous, free-minded independent – but it must be admitted that Yasser Arafat has been a prisoner for the last three years, and that is no minor matter. Yasser Arafat has been a prisoner for the last three years and he certainly cannot be in military control of the Jenin area, where there are Israeli tanks, bulldozers and soldiers. He cannot. He can do what the government under Abu Mazen and now Abu Ala has been trying to do: to come to a political agreement with all the forces, including Hamas and Jihad, the moderate wing, let us say the wing that accepts peace or accepts a total cease-fire. Every time, however – it is not just a trivial thing to say: it really is true, and that is how it is – every time, some leaders get killed. This is of no small importance, and I am very grateful to Mr Poettering and I would not like him to feel embarrassed because the left likes him so much today or because I usually respond to problems in a cross-party way. I thought Mr Poettering’s speech was marvellous, to the point and perfect, even on the subject of the wall. Commissioner Monti, I think you should go and see the wall. As Mr Poettering said, the wall separates, destroys and kills freedom and the chance to communicate. That is not the state that people want to create for Palestinians and Israelis: we want a state in which Palestinians and Moslems communicate together. That wall is an obscenity, it is clear to everyone, I have seen it, I went to see it last Saturday. In Adudis, it cuts the whole village in half. An article in the Israeli newspaper
by Gideon Levi, who is an amazing journalist, tells of how, in order to cross the road, children have to squeeze through the gaps in the concrete: their thin bodies get through but their schoolbags do not and they throw them over to the other side. It is an obscenity that must be stopped.
Now, I am convinced that there are many things that can be done; I am also convinced that Parliament must take itself more seriously when it drafts and adopts resolutions. I am tired of writing resolutions and building bridges: the resolutions need to be enforced. We have been saying since time immemorial that we need to set up an arms embargo and that we need to verify the applicability of the association agreement; most importantly, we have decided on a high-level delegation (I have nearly finished) from Parliament. I believe we should do this; we should keep following the Roadmap, and there is a hope … I am sorry, Mr Cox; I am sorry, everyone; I have not written out my speech and so I have lost track of time, but I should like to say one more thing. There is a great hope in Palestine and in Israel: it is those thousands of Palestinians who endure every day and who do not agree with the bombs and the attacks, and those hundreds and thousands of Israelis who are fantastic, like the two pilots last week who were ordered to bomb Nablus and refused. They were over Nablus; the young men felt for the people and turned back; obviously they were suspended from duty. This is extremely important: it shows that a sense of humanity is growing, and we must make it grow within ourselves, in others and among Palestinians and Israelis."@en1
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