Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-09-Speech-2-206"
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"en.20020409.8.2-206"2
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"Mr President, I met both Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat in the Middle East last summer. The situation was desperate then. There was a vicious circle of terrible violence but at the same time the recent knowledge that the ingredients for a solution had been on the table at Camp David and Taba.
Since then the security situation has deteriorated catastrophically. Terrorist extremists have committed the most vile acts and deliberately incited the emotions, prejudices, ignorance and anxieties of vulnerable peoples, particularly among the Islamic communities, and aroused the deepest fears among the Israelis. We should remember the strategic vulnerability of Israel, a tiny country whose people have been subjected to the most terrible terrorist attacks, at once unpredictable and random while organised and planned in order to have the most cruel and devastating effect.
I think of the Israeli mother who would not let her small children travel on the same school bus in case they should all be lost. I think of the parents of those teenagers and others murdered or maimed in countless terrorist suicide bomb attacks. There is no moral or political justification for such horrendous acts.
But I hold no brief for Ariel Sharon. In fact I am baffled and dismayed by his approach. On the one hand he has called for the Palestine authority to bear down on the terrorists in its midst but on the other he has crippled those very agencies which have the capacity to take such action. He has wanted to change the attitude of the Arab peoples to Israel, but by his own actions has helped stimulate primeval hatred in yet another generation of Palestinians and fuelled the martyr culture.
We must recognise the desperate plight of the Palestinian people, so many of them abandoned by their Arab brethren in refugee camps for generations, prey to extremists, so often lacking the quality of leadership at crucial moments that would help release them from their misery. These are the raw ingredients that we have to work with.
At this stage the European Union should not be self-interested, trying to promote some role for itself, but balanced, positive and constructive. It would certainly not be helpful for the EU to take one side in this matter by some policy of sanctions against Israel, for example. This would merely give comfort to extremists and sharpen the differences with the United States.
What is needed now is a bold, generous, urgent international initiative with the European countries, the United States, Russia and well-meaning Arab states, speaking with one voice. We need to come together with a clear offer of massive international assistance. There are other darker forces waiting in the wings of this conflict. Time is running out."@en1
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