Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-15-Speech-3-168"
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"en.20061115.14.3-168"2
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"Mr President, I have lost count of the number of times we have debated the Middle East in recent months, but I do know that, since our debate in September, 150 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, 70 in the last week alone. The atrocity in Beit Hanoun, where 18 Palestinian civilians were killed, is as indefensible as it is inexplicable.
In a spiral of violence where there is armed aggression on both sides, it is often hard to tell what is attack and what is retaliation, but there is no doubt in my mind that David Grossman was right when he said last week that the behaviour of Israel’s leaders is the conduct of scoundrels.
My colleague Mr Davies was recently in Gaza. He reports as others do that Gaza has become a prison, with daily reports of extrajudicial executions, of lives disrupted and rendered miserable, disproportionate retaliation – especially since Operation Summer Rains, the Qassam rockets have killed 14 civilians over two years. The IDF response has killed 126 people in the last month, of whom 63 were not involved in fighting.
The time is over. We cannot wait any longer. The international community cannot continue to condemn while waiting to solve the situation. It is a disastrous strategy that leaves the stage to others. We must relaunch the talks and the negotiations. We must waste no time in deploying international and military observers in Gaza. We must reinvigorate the commitment of the Quartet, and I hope that the US will reinforce its role by assisting in the negotiations as a test-case of a new multilateralism.
Palestinians must understand that the use of terror will never earn them the recognition they seek, and Israelis must understand that they are losing recognition by their incessant flouting of international law and disproportionate military action against civil targets.
At Yitzhak Rabin’s memorial service, Mr Grossman spoke of a country hypnotised by insanity, rudeness, violence and racism, of a state squandering its goodwill, squandering its own people, especially its young. The same Israel has recently used army bulldozers to destroy the graves of British soldiers killed in Gaza in 1917 and on 31 October sent F-15 fighter planes to dive at French soldiers serving with the UNIFIL force in Lebanon. How many enemies do the Israelis want? How long do they believe they can sustain themselves in a state of unresolved conflict?
It is time for reasonable people on both sides to come together, perhaps to relaunch the Geneva Process, and it is time for the European Union to do what it can to promote, encourage and support that process."@en1
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