Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-06-Speech-3-091"
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"en.20070606.13.3-091"2
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"Mr President, at the time of the legislative elections in 2006, I asked a Palestinian: ‘Do you think that these elections will bring peace?’ He replied: ‘No, not peace, but democracy. And we are going to show the world that, even in the occupied territories, we are capable of holding free elections’.
Our response was pathetic. Our disregard for the aspirations of a people, including their right to make mistakes, introduced just a bit more chaos still into a region that is now in ferment. The establishment of a National Unity Government and the Mecca Agreement have not sufficiently altered the European Union’s hard line or its sanctions. Despite your efforts, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner – and I appreciate those efforts – in spite of what you have said to us, and it is encouraging, Mr Solana, I believe that we have not yet radically changed our policy towards the Middle East and that we have not properly understood that we are damaging the very notion of democracy with our response to these elections.
It is an attitude that has persisted for 40 years. I believe that we are partly responsible for having allowed, for 40 years, a situation of total lawlessness to take hold in Palestine, with extra-judicial executions, theft of land, kidnapping, now, of legitimately elected representatives and ministers, the existence of a wall considered illegal by the Court in The Hague and the Geneva Conventions flouted, Francis Wurtz spoke about it: more than 400 children still held in Israeli prisons, more than 400 young Palestinians. The United Nations Organisation (UNO) resolutions ignored the sealing off of territories and restrictions on movements. And what else?
Of course, Mr Tannock, we condemn violence, we condemn the firing of rockets, we condemn the kidnapping of the soldier, Shalit, but there is at present an imbalance. Look at the figures. They are, alas, dramatically unfavourable to the Palestinian people and, I repeat, there is no equidistance. International law – that is not equidistance.
Nothing today justifies our silence and I should like to salute, here, these new Just Men, those Jews who, in Israel and elsewhere, speak out and say ‘That must be stopped’. They say it amid the sniggering, the sarcasm, and sometimes the threats of their fellow citizens. I see myself as a supporter of all those people, as I see myself as a supporter of our Palestinian colleagues who, regardless of parliamentary immunity, have been imprisoned.
I should like to say to you that in Belgium, all the leaders of the political parties are to meet tomorrow, at 1 p.m. at Berlaymont, to make a chain for peace and to ask the European Union to take on its responsibilities, not only humanitarian responsibilities, but real political responsibilities which are a credit to the European Union."@en1
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