WHAT WE EXPECT FROM EUROPE

Brussels, 08/08/2006

In 1980, the European Council in Venice made big news by affirming the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. In 1995, the European Union again raised hopes by launching, in Barcelona, the “Euro-Mediterranean partnership”. Since then, many expectations have been disappointed among the friends of Europe in this region of the world, so close in geography and in history. However, the world needs the European Union to promote dialogue as opposed to arrogance, respect as opposed to contempt, right as opposed to might. It is today more vital than ever that Europe again expresses the will and possesses the means of playing this role. The Mediterranean is a mare nostrum for its inhabitants and not a testing field for the American goals.

In Lebanon as in Palestine, the Israeli army – and, through it, the most dangerous forces which hold power in the United States – is waging a war with devastating consequences for the people concerned and, beyond, for the future of the world. This war – as the Israeli military recognizes itself – was programmed a long time ago. Condoleezza Rice does not say otherwise when she dares assimilating the suffering of the Lebanese people with “the pain due to the birth of a new Middle East". Can Europe accept such a “construction” on the corpses of the innocent victims and the ruins of the cities and of the infrastructures that it itself, sometimes, contributed to building?

Can Europe accept the systematic torpedoing of the attempted integration into democratic structures of armed organizations brought to power by universal suffrage? Can it accept that a collective punishment is inflicted on a people which does not comply with this dominating claim? Can it accept the kidnapping and imprisonment of 40 democratically elected Palestinian ministers and parliamentarians among whom the very President of the Legislative council whose bad treatment resulted in his hospitalization? Can it accept that a state can violate with impunity all the resolutions of the UN Security Council concerning it and carry its contempt for the UN to the point “of aiming deliberately” - according to the terms of Kofi Annan – and killing observers of the international peacekeeping force? Can it agree to allow herself to be paralyzed to the point of not being able to demand an immediate and unconditional ceasefire after several weeks of such a bitter conflict? Can Europe, in a word, accept without reacting the return to a world order which establishes recourse to war as a conflict-regulation instrument?

Let us not allow strategy to develop can lead the world to the sort of dramatic impasse demonstrated by the American fiasco in Iraq! Let us not allow the 21st Century become that of the war between civilizations! In this respect, Europe is faced with historical responsibilities. The European Heads of State and Government must go way beyond their present commitment! What we expect from them is the following:

The call for a ceasefire, immediately and without condition, both in Lebanon and in Palestine, for the withdrawal of the Israeli army on the “blue line”, the lifting of the blockade imposed on the two peoples, as well as a help for people displaced because of the war to come back to their homes;
A clear condemnation – in the name of the law, equal for all – of the war waged by Israel against the Lebanese people as well as against the Palestinian people, and the war crimes such as that perpetrated at Qana;
A call to open discussions on the exchange of the prisoners between Lebanon and Israel, in the framework of the Geneva conventions, as requested by the Lebanese government, and the lasting halt to the firing of Hezbollah’s rockets into Israel; and, in parallel, to accept the proposal for dialogue from the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, with a view to the release of the detained “prisoners of war” by Israel and of the Israeli soldier captured by the Palestinians, and with a view to ending the shooting of missiles from Gaza at Israel;
Precise details on the nature of the mandate to be conferred on the multinational force envisaged in southern Lebanon, which under no circumstances should be transformed, in its turn, into an aggressive force, and which should be deployed on both sides of the frontier! Security is an inalienable right of all peoples in the region! The full implementation of resolution 1559 requires an appeased regional context, in which all UN decisions are taken into account.
A recapitulation of all the U.N. law on the Israeli-Arab conflict, in order to place each one of its special provisions in its overall context;
The call for the opening of negotiations on this basis, and under the aegis of the United Nations, with the participation of all the countries and Authorities of the region;
A solemn renunciation of any recourse to war as a means of regulating future conflicts.

We ask anybody who agrees with these principles to please sign our appeal because we still wish to believe that there can be a Euro-Mediterranean partnership based on generosity, co-development, and shared cultures and that Europe has a role in pursuit of a world of peace.

(Please send signatures to: Francis WURTZ
President of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left Group
in the European Parliament.
francis.wurtz@europarl.europa.eu)