Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-12-19-Speech-4-144"
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"en.20021219.8.4-144"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in a few days’ time it will be Christmas and we are calling in our resolution for worshippers to be allowed to visit the Church of the Nativity at Christmas. Things really have come to a pretty pass, all as the result of indifference or negligence or fanaticism. A few part-sessions ago we were passing resolutions to protect infrastructures in Palestine, because they were infrastructures built with European Union money. Now we are passing resolutions to protect the cultural heritage because nowhere on earth does the cultural heritage belong to the Sharons or Arafats of this world; it belongs to history and to the people.
In this sense, we now need to realise that the resolution system is too limited to bring in results. In Copenhagen a few days ago, the European Union showed that it can act decisively and intervene when it has to. This being so, it makes no sense to stand and watch the machinations going on in the Middle East, the clashes, the destruction, the loss of human life on all sides. We now need to apply a different policy, a different sort of decisiveness, in order to stop this endless, stalemate of a crisis. Settlement policies, terrorist policies – not that terrorism qualifies as a policy – offer no prospects or framework for a solution of any kind.
Ladies and gentlemen, when a few months or rather a couple of years ago, we watched the destruction of the Buddha statues by the Taliban on our televisions, we said, who do they think they are, destroying the history of mankind? Today the same is happening on our very doorstep. And we just stand and watch. It is not our job in these circumstances to stand and watch. It is not our job to complain. Our job is to intervene. An end to settlements! They get us nowhere. An end to destruction! It gets us nowhere. And an end to terrorist action! It gets us nowhere. We need to keep to the policy decided years ago by Arafat and Prime Minister Rabin, God rest his soul. Therein lies the way forward, therein lies the solution. No other policy makes sense.
Having said which, a European Union of the twenty-five which wants to play a political role and intervene in international affairs needs to change its tactics on this issue. It is no good being in the audience. It needs to play the lead role and now it has the chance to play the role which it should have been playing for years.
Thank you for listening and Merry Christmas."@en1
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