EU ready to play major part in restarting peace process


May 20, 2015
Sarah Benton

Rami Khouri’s observations are followed by an extract from Federica Mogherini’s remarks on the EU and the MidEast.


European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on a previous visit to the area, at a media conference with Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2014. Photo by Jim Hollander / Reuters

Europe can reverse the U.S. failures on Palestine

By Rami G. Khouri, The Daily Star [Lebanon]
May 20, 2015

The European Union’s desire to play a more active role in promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace, as its foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday as she set out on her first visit to the region, is one of the few areas where one could imagine some positive movement in this moribund arena.

Europe probably will not use its immense power – as Israel’s biggest trade partner and the main financial donor to Palestine – to pressure or threaten either side. “The European Union is ready and willing to play a major role in a relaunching of this process on the basis of the two-state solution Mogherini said on Monday, but she must find a practical way to put those good thoughts into action. Presumably she will use her visit to explore how to move ahead in a manner that is more effective than the United States’ serial failures during the past 20 years. Several ideas come to mind.

If Europe genuinely supports a two-state solution – and I believe it does – then it can individually and collectively affirm that by recognizing the “state of Palestine,” even though the Palestinians do not enjoy full control of the territory of their anticipated state in the Israeli-occupied or – besieged West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Highlighting formal recognition of a Palestinian state and then activating that status through issues such as recognizing passports, trade accords and other means will hasten the day when a majority of Israelis comes to its senses and lives peacefully with the Palestinians in contiguous states.

Seventeen of the 28 EU states voted last year to admit Palestine into the United Nations as a nonmember observer state. This allows Palestine to use existing U.N.-related political mechanisms to adjudicate disputes with Israel and ultimately achieve statehood. A handful of European states have bilaterally recognized the state of Palestine, on the basis of that state living peacefully with Israel, which is the Palestinian intent. Getting all 28 European states to do this would be a powerful first step in Europe’s playing a dynamic role in promoting Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy for peace and justice. Last week’s Vatican recognition of the state of Palestine in a treaty gives added impetus to this line of action.

Another arena where Europe has already started to move is to clarify through law and administrative measures that Europe supports Israel in its pre-June 1967 borders, but opposes Israel’s colonization, annexation, subjugation, siege, mass arrests, collective punishments and other such harsh activities in occupied Palestinian lands. Cutting out European engagement or trade with, or support for, Israeli actions in the occupied territories is a logical step that would highlight the legitimacy of pre-1967 Israel and the criminality of post-1967 Israel.

At the same time, Europe could join forces with Arab powers to prod the Palestinians to play their diplomatic role more effectively in two areas: bridging the internal Fatah-Hamas divide and reconstituting a single, unified Palestinian national leadership under the Palestine Liberation Organization, which represents Palestinians everywhere; and, reviving and clarifying the 2002 Arab Peace Plan that remains the most promising outline for a potential permanent peace agreement that addresses the key demands of both sides. The Palestinians cannot expect anyone to step in and hand them their rights, simply because they feel that they deserve their rights. Dysfunctional and often amateurish Palestinian leadership has been a problem for years, and must be overcome for meaningful peacemaking progress to occur.

None of this will be easy or speedy, but breakthroughs will require movement toward meeting the bottom line needs of both sides, simultaneously. Prioritizing Israeli concerns and relegating the Palestinians’ rights to picking diplomatic crumbs off the floor, as the U.S. has done, has been a catastrophe for all concerned. Mogherini should review all American mediating efforts during the past 20 years, and focus on not repeating any of Washington’s pro-Israel structural biases or logistical mediating mistakes.

Another important area for her to probe would be to speak directly to Arab and Israeli public opinion, offering honourable, equitable peace proposals that reasonable majorities of Arabs and Israelis would support, despite the dysfunctional or extreme nature of their governments. This is the moment to break the decadeslong diplomatic cycle that has been defined by American bias, Israeli colonial aggression, European disengagement, and Arab lassitude.

We need to do our part on the Arab side to help Mogherini succeed, rather than demand justice and passively watch TV to see how no progress occurs on this front. A strong Palestinian statement supporting the EU initiative and offering constructive breakthrough proposals, with explicit Arab backing, would be a welcomed first move this week.

Rami G. Khouri is published twice weekly by THE DAILY STAR. He can be followed on Twitter @RamiKhouri.


Remarks by High Representative Federica Mogherini following the Defence and Foreign Affairs Council

EU External Action Service
May 18, 2015

EXTRACT from following press Q&A

Q. A number of your former colleagues, Foreign Affairs Ministers of many Members States, your colleague Mr Solana and others, asked you to review the approach towards the region, mainly to set a mandatory deadline for the agreement to establish the two-state solution, and also a kind of equivalence between Israel as a state, and Palestine to be a state also, so that on the negotiation table they could negotiate with each other. Ahead of your visit, what is your message to the Israeli Government? And what is your view on the need for a new European approach towards the Middle East Peace Process?

Ms Mogherini: Thank you for the question. First of all, the main request of that letter, of that group of eminent people as they signed themselves, is to have a European Union focus on this. I would say, protagonism of the European Union on the Middle East Peace Process as such is something that I think we are already putting in place.

You will remember that my first visit after taking office was to Jerusalem, Ramallah, Tel Aviv and Gaza, and I think I will be the first one to visit the new Israeli Government, being there on Wednesday and Thursday. I am not completely sure, because I don’t have the official schedule of the meetings of the Israeli Government, but in any case my very early visit has a political meaning. And the political meaning is that the European Union as such is ready and willing to play a major role in re-launching a Peace Process on the basis of the two-state solution.

So my main message to the region, to the interlocutors there will be – obviously now we will discuss it with the Foreign Ministers, so I will also listen to their views – this: count on the European Union to work with our partners in the region and the international community to support a re-start of the Peace Process, working closely with the US, with the UN, with Russia, in the Quartet, but also with the actors of in the region. And listening to their perspectives, to their intentions on how to overcome the status quo. Because I believe that one thing is clear to everybody in the region -that the status quo is not an option.

My message will be: European Union is there to play a role. The second message is: tell me what is your idea to overcome the status quo that in itself will not solve the situation, it might actually lead to further deterioration of the situation on the ground. I will be there to listen and to understand how we can help re-launching the process.

I will also be accompanied by our new EU Special Representative Fernando Gentilini, who will travel with me with a one-way ticket and stay in Jerusalem to continue the work.

© Copyright JFJFP 2024