Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-24-Speech-3-032"
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"en.20020424.3.3-032"2
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"Mr President, I travelled with Mr Watts and others to Jenin yesterday. I have been in Palestine dozens of times since 1968 and have seen countless bombed Palestinian houses. I thought I was immune, but Jenin was worse than I had imagined. Mr Larsson is entirely right. Jenin can be called Palestine’s ground zero.
Jenin can also be called a new Deir Yassin. It was of course there that Sharon’s political forefathers within Irgun murdered as many as 250 Palestinian civilians in April 1948, an act that was the signal for the mass flight of Palestinians that lies behind the whole problem. It was the intention on that occasion too to cause the Palestinians to flee, and there is a lot to be said for the view that that is also the intention on this occasion. The aim is to try to frighten the Palestinians into moving and to force them to flee. Those who still remain are to be put in prison.
Last Sunday, the New York Times reported that a Berlin Wall is to be built around the whole of the West Bank. This is not to be a wall between Israel and Palestine, but a wall around the whole of the West Bank so that the whole area becomes one large concentration camp. When we were there the other night, 12 Palestinians were evicted from 12 flats in the middle of the city. According to the newspaper
this is a phase in the strategy of surrounding the Old Town with Jewish outposts. The Jerusalem Post says of Knesset member Ben Elon that ‘he promises Jewish continuity in Jerusalem’.
If we were to exchange the word ‘Jewish’ for ‘white’, ‘Swedish’, ‘Christian’ or any other ethnic or national designation, everyone would shout ‘racism!’.
Why are Mr Patten and Mr Pique I Camps so incredibly cautious? Certainly, they said a lot of good things, but why not look the truth in the eye and realise that the Israeli policy of occupation is the same kind of policy which eventually led to the boycotting of South Africa. It is the same kind of policy that finally led to the intervention in Kosovo to rescue the Kosovan Albanians.
Israel must therefore be treated in the same way as we treated Milosevic’s Serbia and apartheid in South Africa. The Sharon regime must be isolated.
Happily, there are many who realise this. One hundred and twenty researchers have published a letter in the
demanding that Israel be barred from cooperating on research with the EU. The Swedish and British Medical Associations have proposed that the Israeli Medical Association be excluded from the World Medical Association, and the football organisation FIFA is to adopt a position on Israel’s exclusion at the beginning of May.
In South Africa, the Jewish minister Mr Kasrils is demanding a boycott of Israel. It really is high time that we in the EU took a fairly tough line and at least fulfilled the pretty mild demand made by the European Parliament, namely that we suspend the Association Agreement with Israel. The least that can be asked is that the Council and the Commission ensure that the demand is carried out in practice."@en1
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