Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-176"
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"en.20060405.17.3-176"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to remind honourable Members of Parliament that something very important has taken place in these elections. The elections in both Palestine and Israel have created a new political class. The political parties that have dominated life in Israel and Palestine over the last 20 years have disappeared or have come very low in the polls. New parties have appeared that were created only months ago. New people have appeared as leaders. What does that mean? It probably means many things, but at least for us it should mean something new, so far as the leadership is concerned. We have to invest some hope in this movement to see if we can take advantage of the situation to move the process forward.
I should also like to say that everybody has to be given the opportunity to change. Mr Cohn-Bendit has changed. I have changed. How many people in this chamber have changed? And I think we have all changed for the better. Why do we not think that people can change for the better?
Now we have to give this opportunity, but we have to be very tough until the moment they change. We have to tell them that if they change they will have the opportunity to be part of the team. But, if they do not change, unfortunately they will not be part of it. As I said before, it is very difficult to change the past. Nobody can change his past, only lighten his memories, as many people do. In the future, yes, we can change. We have to act to create the conditions so that people can behave differently in future.
I would like to see Hamas change and recognise Israel. It is impossible to negotiate if you do not recognise that the other has a right to exist. That has to be reciprocal too. It is impossible to negotiate if you do not want to negotiate and at the same time you want to have a pistol in your pocket. This is not negotiation. That is the type of message we have to get across.
We also have to push for plurality in Palestinian society. It has been the most secular society and continues to be secular, not subject to an imposed religious society as has been represented in some Hamas statements. It is a very important point and we have to think about it for the first time. A group that belongs to the Muslim Brothers has arrived in power democratically. We have to think about this because it has happened in Palestine. It may happen in other places, and we have to think about how we are we going to deal with it. I should very much like these elements to be considered not only by think tanks, but also by political players in the European Union.
I have hope in my heart and I would like you to have hope in your hearts. Together let us see whether we can fulfil the hopes that I am sure you have in your hearts.
I have the impression and the deep conviction that the result of these elections is a profound change in the social structure of both societies. On the part of the Palestinians there is probably no desire to have a non-secular government. I would very much like to insist on that. I do not believe that the majority of people in Palestine voted for Hamas because they wanted a religious government at the head of the Palestinian Authority. I believe they voted against other things that are more closely related to the tyrannies of not doing things properly, of corruption, of a lack of proper organisation.
We have to make the effort now to do our utmost to ensure that Palestine, which is probably the most secular part of the Middle East, does not revert to something that probably the majority of Palestinian people do not want. But at the same time there have to be people in government who are able to produce the results that the majority of people want: social services, no corruption, democracy, etc. This is where we have to make our most important impact.
It is the same in Jerusalem, the same in Israel. When you see that the Prime Minister is going to be Ehud Olmert and not Mr Sharon, it is really very impressive: what a profound change has taken place in such a short period of time. The person who led Kadima and Likud, the party that has been running affairs in Jerusalem for more than 20 years, is now suffering in hospital. There is a new party with a new leader whom nobody expected to be the leader today.
Now, does it open possibilities? Let me believe that it opens possibilities. Are we going to use those possibilities? I like to think that, yes, we are going to take advantage of those possibilities. When I talk to Mr Olmert, as I do frequently, I keep telling him unilateralism is not possible. We have seen that already. It was not possible to disengage from Gaza unilaterally. In the end, they first had to call on the international community and then they had to call the Palestinian side, because it is impossible to unravel a situation which is so united and do it unilaterally.
Mr Cohn-Bendit said that it is terrible that avian flu may spread from Israel to Palestine. There has been a statement today saying that we have to make sure that avian flu does not spread from one place to the other. The same person did not say that poverty cannot spread from one to the other; that suffering cannot spread from one to the other. Sometimes, it seems as though we are more concerned about the spread of avian flu and are not really concerned about the suffering, the misery and the tragedy that have existed there for years. The peoples are separated by a barrier, which may not stop avian flu but may stop people going from one place to the other.
That is something really sad. We have to be able to do both things – to cooperate so that avian flu does not spread, and ensure that people can move, workers can move, and progress can be made, and I think that is much more important.
In 1980 we said something very important, which has been upheld. Not long ago we said that we believe that the 1967 borders are the starting point for negotiations. I would like to repeat that today in this Parliament. We are ready to defend that; we are ready to accept changes to borders agreed by most people – by both parties. But we cannot imagine any other solution that does not take into consideration the premise that the negotiations have to start around the 1967 borders."@en1
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"High Representative for the CFSP"1
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