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European Parliament, Brussels
12 October 2004
I imagine, provided there is no divine intervention, that this is the
last speech I will make in this house, certainly on the Middle East. I
have lost count of the number of debates that we have had on this
subject since I took office. On a sensitive issue like this, it is only
natural that our exchanges have sometimes been a little difficult – I
hope they might have been some use. I certainly hope they haven’t done
any more damage.
As I approach the end of my life as a Commissioner – I underline as a Commissioner, I have started going to the theatre again. And I went recently to a new interpretation by an admirable Irish playwright, Frank McGuiness, of Euripides' play Hecuba. Classicists among you, or theatre goers among you, may recall that it is a bleak and bloody drama of death and hate and revenge. And perhaps all too suitably in this production, the backdrop to the stage was a tall black wall inscribed with names. They were the names of the Israelis and the Palestinians who have died in the last few years. Hatred and revenge and blood.
And it’s certainly true that looking back, despite the heroic efforts of my friend and colleague, the High Representative, and others, we can alas report scant progress. We saw just the other day, as the High Representative pointed out, the dreadful massacre of Israeli tourists in Egypt. And time and again, one hope after another has been dashed. We had Camp David, we had Taba and the understandings there, we’ve heard from Mitchell, from Tenet, from Zinni... all to no avail. Indeed since the Camp David Meeting, since the outbreak of violence after Taba, the sombre balance is that 4,360 people have died on both sides, 1,026 Israelis and 3,334 Palestinians. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. As Gandhi said, after that everybody finishes up blind. Innocent children, for innocent children.
The latest initiative we have on the table is Prime Minister Sharon’s ideas for unilateral disengagement in Gaza. Obviously, any steps towards the withdrawal from occupied territory, albeit limited, is welcome. But there are, as the High Representative pointed out, many questions that need to be clarified, not least in the broader context of the Road Map. Although we have our reservations, this initiative does foresee the beginning of the removal of settlements, an important aspect and in line with what we have been saying for a long time. So, we are prepared to give it a try – though we have to be clear, as the High Representative said, that the parties will follow the five elements which the European Council has set for the plan to work (i.e. that the initiative takes place in the context of the Roadmap, is a step towards a two State solution, no transfer of settlement activity to the West Bank, a negotiated handover of responsibility to the Palestinian Authority, and facilitation of rehabilitation and reconstruction by Israel). We have to insist that those points are respected.
The scepticism which has undoubtedly existed about this initiative has been increased, as the High Representative said very diplomatically, by the recent extraordinary remarks of the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s chief of staff and senior adviser (Mr Dov Weisglass). I think those remarks have been deeply damaging. I think that regardless of them, the two-State solution remains recognized as the only hope for an end to the conflict. To be realistic, we should not expect too much - except alas more death and destruction – until after the US presidential elections. And even then I think it would be unwise to expect miracles. But at the very least the international community should move boldly with the Israeli government to establish its commitment to the two-State solution; and with the Palestinians to establish their commitment to security and reform. That is the only way to end the conflict.
The Road Map shows how to do it. So our challenge in the European Union is to steer the parties and others in the international community towards the roadmap - otherwise people may come to believe that Mr. Weisglass was right, and that his only mistake was to let the cat out of the bag.
Over the period of my mandate, I have tried, with I think the support of the majority of the Parliament, to build a reformed Palestinian Authority, capable of governing Palestine in due course, and capable of negotiating and reaching a settlement with Israel. During that period, the Israeli Government has been seeking to marginalize President Arafat himself. But at the end of the day, President Arafat is still there, while unfortunately the Palestinian Authority itself has been battered to pieces. I accept that President Arafat might be part of the problem, but he is not the only problem. What I’ve always been clear about is that a reformed Palestinian Authority is part of the solution. It is not clear whether the Palestinian Authority, under current circumstances both internal and external, is in much of a position to deliver on a two-State solution. The deadly combination of too little action on the Palestinian side and perhaps too much action on the Israeli has pretty successfully destroyed most of the authority that the Palestinian Authority might have had. So, we need to find a way to give the Palestinian Authority more political room and to do so in return for cast iron guarantees on security and reform.
The High Representative noted the work that we’ve done in general to support economic development, as well as institutional development, and humanitarian relief in Palestine. This Union has done far more than anyone else, this Parliament has voted for and supported far more assistance than anybody else has provided, and I guess this Parliament is going to start to ask itself some searching questions about the continuation of assistance on the present scale. Let me make one obvious point, we’re the biggest supporters of the World Bank Development Fund for Palestine. When I say we’re the biggest supporters, it’s an understatement – hardly anybody else is putting any money in at all. And what we want to see is that money used to lay the foundations for an economy in the Palestinian Territories, which can provide jobs, which can provide revenues, which can provide at least a modicum of economic growth so that people can live a better life with greater dignity and a greater chance of a job and so on. I think we are all entitled to set to ask whether that money will be nugatory expenditure, whether that money will be worthwhile. Unless we can get certain guarantees from Israel about its withdrawal from Gaza, about the way that’s going to be handled, and about its medium- and long-term prospects, I don’t think the Parliament would want to feel that we were simply paying the costs of the consequences of whatever the Israeli defence forces did. So I do think we have to make it clear that our role, the role we want to play, in helping to support reconstruction must be dependant on a real political dialogue with the Israeli authorities otherwise I’m afraid the money will simply be wasted as too much of what we’ve done already has been. I repeat, that working on the basis of the report by the Council on Foreign Relations, working on the basis of the work which was initiated by Mr. Rocard and his colleagues on that Council, we have done more than anyone else to put in place reformed institutions in Palestine, and I salute the work of people like Mr. Salam Fayyad, who has been bravely trying to ensure that Palestine has a decent and transparent government. But I have to say, that without political progress, without an improvement in the security situation, without a more effective dialogue with Israel, it’s going to be incredibly difficult to continue to justify that sort of help and that sort of expenditure.
I don’t think there’s a more important problem facing the international community than this one. Both because of the continuing bloodshed that it produces unresolved, but also because of the damage that it does to the relationship between the West and the Islamic world. Nobody should be in any doubt at all about the impact of the struggle between Israel and Palestine, the impact that that has on attitudes in the Islamic world. I think we have to work even harder to try to shape the parameters of a solution to this bloody conflict. If we don’t succeed in that, then to return to what I think is that last line of Euripides' Hecuba, “Fate compels and none can resist”. Bloodshed after bloodshed after bloodshed. Revenge after revenge after revenge. Unless people in Washington, in Europe, but above all in Israel and Palestine have the political courage to try to actually try to deliver what their people deserve and what the whole world requires.
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