December 11, 2009 at 10:48 am (Associate Post, Palestine)
The EU’s policy statement on a future Palestinian state now needs to be acted on, writes Khalid Amayreh from occupied Jerusalem
A watered-down, though still strongly worded policy statement issued by EU foreign ministers this week has drawn ambivalent reactions from both Israel and the Palestinians, with the latter urging the EU to act on the document and not allow it to sink into irrelevance.
Adopted by European foreign ministers in Brussels on 8 December, the document reasserts the two-state solution, urging Israel to allow for the creation of a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its future capital.
While begrudgingly recognising the “eventuality” of a Palestinian state of some sort, Israel insists that it will be subject to stringent limitations that the Palestinians say would drain it of any substance.
Reaffirming European non-recognition of the annexation by Israel of predominantly Arab East Jerusalem, the ministers agreed that genuine peace between the two sides required that the status of the city be resolved through negotiations. They rejected the mantra that East Jerusalem is Israel’s “united and undivided capital”.
“The EU will not recognise any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties,” read the ministers’ statement.
The statement also urged Israel to halt settlement building and end discriminatory treatment of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Palestinian leaders in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip reacted cautiously, if positively, to the EU statement. In Ramallah, Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Salam Fayyad even sounded a euphoric note.
“I believe it is a good day for international law, for international legitimacy, for justice, for our own people to begin to have a sense of hope about the future.”
Speaking to reporters, Fayyad voiced the hope that “this path is going to take us to freedom and allow us to be able to live like other people around the world, as a free people with dignity in a country of our own, on the territories occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem.”
Fayyad, who enjoys strong Western backing due to his reputation for fighting corruption and promoting transparent governance, described the EU stance as an “important juncture” towards realising Palestinian statehood.
He applauded the EU’s assertion that a final resolution of the conflict would have to be based on UN Security Council resolutions, the Arab Initiative and the land- for-peace formula.
Other Palestinian politicians showed more caution.
Abdullah Abdullah, a former director- general of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry and member of Fatah’s revolutionary council, described the statement as significant only “if acted on and translated into tangible policy”.
“It is a watered-down statement, much less than what we would like to see. But it is ten times better than earlier European positions, characterised by vacillation, ambiguity and indecisiveness.”
Abdullah pointed out that Europe appeared increasingly willing to adopt distinctive and independent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian question. This, he said, constituted a departure from earlier European subservience to Washington.
“The other thing is that the Obama administration seems to have refrained from exerting pressure on the EU to adopt a more pro-Israeli stand. This happened despite strong Israeli pressure on the US to do so.”
The veteran Palestinian diplomat nonetheless cautioned that transforming the EU policy statement into a tangible political reality will depend on what the Palestinian-Arab side does as much as on the EU’s own actions.
“We have to make tremendous efforts to get the EU, both as a bloc and also as individual states, to translate this important statement into a manual for action. Israel is not going to give a damn about statements and declarations not backed by action. Hence the urgent need for an immediate, pro-active implementation of this policy in the EU’s relations with Israel.”
One Fatah official, Tayib Abdel-Rahim, castigated French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for taking a “vague position” with regard to the borders of any future Palestinian position.
Abdel-Rahim was quoted by the local Maan news agency as saying that Kouchner’s position in Brussels was incompatible with France’s longstanding policy supporting the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.
Infuriated by the pro-Israeli French stance, PA chief negotiator Saeb Ureikat called on Arab states to take a stand against Paris for its opposition to unconditional EU recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
Israel, which had waged an extensive diplomatic campaign against the Swedish draft both in Brussels and Washington, insisted any “damage” caused by the EU statement would be limited and contained.
An unnamed senior Israeli official praised East European states which helped “moderate and weaken” the original Swedish draft.
“The EU’s only saving grace is that some of its members are responsible and moderate nations that didn’t support the Swedish draft, which looked like something taken from the Fatah platform at the Bethlehem conference.”
The same official was quoted as saying that “a group of [moderate] nations saved the EU from itself, since any other decision would have severely harmed relations between Jerusalem and Brussels, and would have prevented the EU from becoming an important partner in the peace process.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement deploring the EU’s policy statement, saying that Israel regretted that the EU chose to adopt a text that, although containing nothing new, did not contribute to the renewal of negotiations.
Lieberman, shunned in much of the world due to his racist attitudes, expressed partial satisfaction that the EU didn’t adopt the original Swedish proposal which called for EU recognition of East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
“In light of the extreme draft originally presented by the Swedish presidency at the start of discussions Israel does welcome the fact that at the end of the process the voice of the responsible and reasonable EU states prevailed, balancing and improving the text.”
Will the EU Favor Justice in Palestine?
Palestinians and Arabs Should Be More Responsible By Khalid Amayreh Foreign ministers of the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) have unanimously adopted a resolution or “policy statement”calling for the creation of a Palestinian state with East (Al-Quds) Jerusalem as its capital. Rejecting the Israeli annexation of the holy city, which took place soon after the Israeli army seized it from Jordan in June 1967, the statement said that the European Union would not recognize any changes to the pre-1967 borders, including East Al-Quds
Israel claims that Al-Quds Al-Sharif (Noble Jerusalem) is part of its “united and undivided” capital, a claim not recognized by the international community, including Israel’s guardian/ally, the United States, which maintains that the fate of the city must be decided through bilateral negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Palestinian officials reacted with a degree of ambivalence to the EU statement, with Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of the Western-backed government in Ramallah, describing the statement as a “landmark decision” and a “historical step toward the realization of Palestinian statehood.”
“This path is going to take us to freedom, which will make Palestinians] be able to live like all peoples around the world as a free people with dignity in a country of our own on the territories occupied in 1967, including East [Al-Quds],” said Fayyad.
Other Palestinian officials, however, were less euphoric and more circumspect in their reactions.
“We had hoped that the European Union would adopt the original Swedish draft,” said PA Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat. The Swedish draft called for the EU recognition of Al-Quds as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Erekat and other Palestinian official castigated French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner for currying favor with Israel by opposing the Swedish draft resolution.
Other Palestinian officials spoke of “French perfidy and betrayal”, calling on fellow Arab leaders to take a stance against French flabbiness with Israel.
During the EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on December 7, Kouchner reportedly warned his European colleagues that a European recognition of East Al-Quds as the capital of Palestine would alienate the Israeli government and make a negotiated settlement even more elusive.
Actions Speak Louder
There is no doubt that the European statement provides a certain booster to the enduring Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence from decades of Jewish colonialism.
However, unless acted upon, which should be done sooner than later, the EU resolution would remain a futile exercise in international power politics.
Indeed, this is exactly how the apartheid Israeli regime is viewing the latest European posture.
The Israeli media has quoted Danny Ayalon, the number-two man in the apartheid state’s foreign ministry, as saying that the EU statement was “nothing new”, and that the “EU had made similar declarations in the past”.
Ayalon went further in his insolence saying that he did not expect Israeli-EU relations to be affected by the European decision. “Our interests are what counts, even if there is criticism of us in the world.”
This shows that Israel, which relies on virtually limitless backing from the United States, does not really take the latest European stance very seriously, or at least seriously enough to make Israel rethink of its present policies which are based on ethnic cleansing and settlement expansion.
Skeptics, who are many, view the European policy statement as a monotonous repetition of platitudes long echoed by the European Union, both as an entity and individual states, but without having any tangible effect on the ground.
Indeed, even manifestly pro-Israeli EU member states, such as Germany, the Netherland, and now Italy, as well as the former East European states which joined the European Union fairly recently, have more or less maintained that any durable peace settlement in occupied Palestine would have to be based on UN resolutions 242 and 338 and the land-for-peace formula.
However, this did not prevent Israel from continuing to effectively liquidate the Palestinian cause by building Jewish-only settlements all over the West Bank, especially in East Al-Quds.
The Same Old Promises
Similarly, the unmitigated liquidation of the Palestinian cause has not really drawn a proactive European reaction that would force Israel to reconsider its brazen temerity and arrogance.Israel is actually stepping up an already rapid settlement drive aimed at “creating facts” and forestalling the possibility of establishing a viable and territorially contiguous Palestinian state.
The implications here are amply clear. Without meaningful efforts to transform EU policy into a manual for action, the EU statement would remain just an innocuous statement with little or no relevance on reality in the West Bank, especially in Al-Quds.
This reminds us of what one Israeli official once said about American criticisms of Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank: he said: ”Let the Americans say what they want, and we do what we want.”
The Israeli official tone is likely to be harsher when relating to the latest European step since Israel has always viewed Europe as a “toothless and gutless power” that talks too much and pays a lot of money, but does virtually nothing to affect reality on the ground.
As far as Israel is concerned, this role, affecting reality on the ground, is reserved for the United States, whose continued backing and support for the apartheid regime in Tel Aviv overrides and overshadows any European role.
Nonetheless, it is obvious that international politics are not charitable field of work where altruism looms large, which means that the European Union will not be more Palestinian and more Arab and Muslim than Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims themselves.
This is what Palestinian politician Abdullah Abdullah alluded to in an interview with IslamOnline.net following the adoption of the new EU declaration in Brussels on December 8.
He said that the responsibility for translating the EU declaration into tangible political realities does not solely rest with the Europeans, but also with Palestinians and the Arab world.
“We must constantly urge the European Union to act on this declaration; we must challenge them to be true to their own words. Otherwise the declaration would go into oblivion,” said Abdullah.
Recognizing that Arab and Muslim rights in Palestine will not be given back on a silver platter, Abdullah urges Arab states, in the strongest terms, to match their rhetorical support for Palestinian rights with aggressive diplomatic action in Europe, North America, and elsewhere.
“You want to support the Palestinians? Well, that is fine, but if you are really sincere about this, then make sure there is a constant linkage between vital Western interests in the Arab-Muslim world and Western positions and policies on the Palestinian question; otherwise, none will take us seriously,” assured Abdullah
To be sure, the most important part must be done by Palestinians themselves. If Palestinians do not help themselves, no power, Arab or any other one, would help them.
Hence, it is extremely important that Palestinians end their silly game of mutual recrimination and passing-the-buck game. Palestinians shall build a united, solid front against gluttonous Israeli rapacity which would not stop unless the Palestinian cause disappeared into the dustbin of history?
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