Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-31-Speech-3-102"
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"en.20010131.5.3-102"2
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"Mr President, representatives of the Council Presidency and the Commission, High Representative, ladies and gentlemen, I have, of course, listened to all the speeches and I have also read the reports. In my view, the real nature of the problem, illustrated and interpreted against the backdrop of the Treaties establishing the European Union themselves, from the Treaty of Rome onwards, and against history and European law, has been wiped from all your minds, except for the odd refrain, muttered like a prayer, of human rights and so on and so forth.
The present situation places us in the same condition of complicity with the worst of the worst, with the murderers and torturers, those that abused the right to life and attempted to destroy the law, as we witnessed from 1985 onwards in what was to become the former Yugoslavia. There is no strategy, no awareness of the institutional objectives of our Union in our approach today, at least in terms of the abstract goals set forth in the human rights charters and in the charters of the rights of European citizens and others. There is none of this in what the High Representative, Mr Solana, happily, courageously and, most importantly, sincerely recommended as an EU foreign policy, a bureaucratic, ineffective operation with no added value in terms of practical implementation or foresight.
This is our problem: there you are, Mrs Morgantini and company, falling over yourselves to tell us about the woes and tragedies of the Palestinians, of Palestinian men and women, of Arab men and women, of the Middle East. You are so relentless, so implacable, with such clear, diligent consciences; you only acknowledge Arab or Palestinian men and women if they are on the wrong end of an Israeli bullet, in which case you give them the honour of a burial, the honour of your recognition. In the face of the Palestinian, Arab or Middle Eastern citizens, who die every day, assassinated by their Saudi or fundamentalist right- or left-wing regimes, assassinated by the firm, historic alliance of Sheikhs and Middle Eastern
rulers, who are allied with the great oil multinationals and with you, the more or less communist left; in the face of the situation of the Kurds, which is not just a Turkish problem but also an Iraqi problem and the problem of others as well; in the face of the everyday lives of the Saudi and Palestinian men and women, you are only concerned with them if Israel is involved, and it may have done them some serious damage. You only acknowledge the existence of the Palestinian people when they further your condemnation of your current permanent enemy, be it the United States of America, Israel or the European Union, which is acting to protect certain values, as it did in the case of Belgrade and Milosevic, as it did throughout the crisis in Yugoslavia.
Therefore, Mr President, this is the truth of the matter: the greatest threat to peace is Israel's real weakness. Israel might be prepared to take a risk – and this is why the Israeli people appear, surprisingly, to prefer the old warrior Sharon to the wise, sensible, courageous Barak – but it feels that any concession could turn out to be excessive compared to the peace to be gained. This is the problem: when there are 100, 150 kilometres of territory to cross, one more kilometre conceded might, in effect, represent one more trench to fight from in a war sparked off by an unfair peace agreement. This is what they fear. But who fears, exactly? The Israeli democracy is afraid of this, but you could not care less! For heaven's sake! What sort of Europe is this? If anything, the right to national and personal
independence is not to have 60% of your money spent on the armies of the local dictator, on consolidating corruption and class, bureaucratic, military and extreme right-wing control of men and women everywhere! Where is it laid down that the European Union must be the guarantor of the national states, of their independence
and self-determination? Nowhere in our hearts and culture does the nineteenth century right to the national state exist today: civil, political and human rights with regard to any state, central or centralised authority do exist, and you are unaware of all this!
Israel must become part of the European Union, one of our borders. Israel does not realise either that it cannot continue to defend itself as a national State, a small bridgehead of democracy but forced for 50 years, more so with each passing day, to risk its own life and peace and the peace of others. Therefore this, Mr President, is our hope: we are preparing a written statement, which has already been signed by 30 Members, calling for the full inclusion of Israel in our Union. A battle will have to be fought in Brussels and in Tel Aviv but it is an urgent matter. As radicals, this is our aim and we will make every effort to achieve it, for it is a wise course of action which will lead to freedom."@en1
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