The EU and Israel
Israel's disengagement - A huge challenge, a great opportunity
By Javier Solana
Aug 2005 - EU - Israel's disengagement from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank has now started. This is a momentous occasion, for both the Israeli and Palestinian people. For a long time, the quest for a Palestinian state seemed hopeless. Now the parties have a chance to do something about it.
It is manifestly in the interest of Palestinians, Israelis and indeed the rest of the world that this operation is a success, with both sides facing important elections next year. We therefore need responsible action and leadership by all concerned, including the wider international community. Disengagement is a huge challenge but also a great opportunity. If successful, it could revive the long-stalled peace process and enable a return to the negotiating track and the implementation of the road map plan.
The stakes in handling the political, security and socioeconomic dimensions of disengagement are high. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's determination to proceed in the face of significant opposition from within his own Likud party is striking enough. But seeing Israeli forces having to forcibly remove settler communities highlights the dramatic nature of the operation and underscores the support that the Israeli government deserves.
For the Palestinians disengagement is a chance to win over the skeptics, in Israel and elsewhere, and show that they can actually run their own affairs in a responsible manner. If they rise to the occasion, it could provide them with the much-needed hope and reassurance that they are on their way to full statehood across the occupied territories.
The security aspects of disengagement are essential for its success. For Israel, the logical priority is to ensure that Gaza will not become hostile territory from which terrorists launch attacks on neighboring communities and the rest of Israel. The Palestinian Authority faces tough decisions concerning improving its ability to maintain law and order. Statehood means, as PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has emphasized, respect for the rule of law and a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Both for the sake of disengagement, but also to promote a return to political negotiations afterward, the PA must move against those individuals and groups who continue to use violence. Then there is the challenge of handling the economics of disengagement. All parties have an interest in ensuring the economic viability of one of the most deprived, over-populated and ill-serviced areas of the Middle East.
Amid all this, one thing is clear: We simply cannot afford to fail. That was my clear message when I visited Israel and the Palestinian areas, including Gaza, a few weeks ago. I also stressed the European Union's willingness to do whatever it can to help, at the request of the parties. The EU is already strongly engaged, with the parties and on the ground, in support of disengagement and the peace process. And it will continue to be so in the weeks and months ahead, in a spirit of friendship and partnership with both peoples.
The EU and its member-states have long been by far the largest donor to the Palestinians, giving both 500 million euros annually in emergency support and medium-term assistance to institution-building projects. The European Commission has set aside 60 million euros especially for the disengagement process. Moreover, the EU backs and supports the efforts of Quartet envoy James
Wolfensohn, making sure that our efforts are coordinated carefully with other donors and spent to the greatest effect. In addition, the EU is ready, if asked by the parties, to play the role of third party in the area of customs management and border control. This would help to facilitate a free flow of goods and people between Gaza and the rest of the world, in a manner that addresses Israel's security concerns.
We are also helping the Palestinians to consolidate the various security organizations under a clear political chain of control.
Through training, equipment and financial support, the EU and the member-states are helping Palestinian police forces to increase their operational capacity and transform their organizational setup. A core unit of EU advisers is already deployed in Ramallah and Gaza city. Provided that benchmarks for performance and accountability are met, we are ready to expand our commitments in the area of security.
All these steps, coordinated closely with the United States and others in the Quartet, present tangible evidence that the EU does not just say it wants disengagement to succeed: We are prepared to step up our engagement to make that happen.
We know from experience that the search for peace in the Middle East is hard, and that the absence of peace hurts all of us, inside the region and beyond. That is why today and tomorrow our efforts should be focused on making disengagement work. But we should do so with the hope and commitment that soon after, we can build on a successful disengagement to restart the negotiating track and resume the road to a two-state settlement. In that context we will have to deal with post-Gaza issues including further withdrawals, the routing of the barrier and Jerusalem.
Windows of opportunity are rare enough in international politics and especially in the troubled Middle East. We cannot afford to simply let it close.
Javier Solana is the policy coordinator for foreign affairs and security for the
EU.
Story Here
Rewriting Germany's Nazi Past ?
Difficult Questions remain for those seeking Objectivity
- A Society in Moral Decline
JCPA- May 05 - The German postwar governments have made great efforts to reeducate the population. In recent years, however, there are increasing signs of shifts in German attitudes toward rewriting its past. Some of these involve the sanitizing of history, while others are reflected in an increasing lack of sensitivity among society's elites as well as the mainstream toward the use of concepts and semantics from the Hitler period.
Franz Muentefering, chairman of the German Socialist party, compared certain foreign investors to damaging insects. The weekly Stern listed seven "locust firms"; several were recognizably Jewish by their names. When historian Michael Wolffsohn pointed out the similarity to Nazi language, he was severely attacked by several prominent Socialists.
The program of the German Open tennis championships for women in 2005, sponsored by the Qatar Tennis Association, included an article about the organizers, LTTC Rot Weiss, which explained that the club had blossomed when it had expelled its Jewish members in 1936 and included a photo of Nazi leader Hermann Goering during a visit to the club.
Polls indicate that the majority of Germans consider Israel's attitude toward the Palestinians as similar to that of the Nazis toward the Jews. A profound process is underway involving anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israelism.
Germany's democratic postwar governments have made great efforts to make the country again acceptable in the civilized world. There are increasingly signs, however, of shifts in German attitudes toward rewriting its past under the Hitler regime. These express themselves both directly and indirectly. Some concern the sanitizing of history by stating that many others behaved or are behaving as the Germans did.
Story Here
ISRAEL CONCERNED EU MAY PUSH ROADMAP TOO FAST
Solana Pays Quick Visit in Wake of PA Elections
ICEJ - Jan 13/05 -This week's regional visit by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana so close on the heels of the Palestinian Authority election has Israel's new government concerned Europe wants to read too much into the recent PA ballot and skip past key initial phases of the roadmap to Palestinian statehood.
Solana joined newly elected PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday and described his victory Sunday as a "new page" for the Palestinians that is sure "to recuperate" the process of peace.
Solana called for an end to rocket attacks on Israel, AFP reported, but said the destruction left by IDF raids aimed at stopping rocket attacks was "disproportionate." He also urged Israel to lift closures on Palestinian areas as a confidence-building gesture to Abbas.
Solana - on the last leg of a four-day regional swing - has indicated on numerous occasions recently that with Abbas in place as PA chairman, it is time to speed up the roadmap.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, however, is still trying to firm up his new coalition to carry out disengagement and is reluctant to jump right into political negotiations with the Palestinians simply because Abbas was elected PA chairman. Israel's unease is that "speeding up" means jumping over the first phase of the road map, which calls for Palestinian reform and action against terror.
According to diplomatic sources in Jerusalem, Israel rather is urging the EU to "stay in sync" with the Israeli and US position that the PA elections are an important first step on the road to democracy but are not sufficient, and that there is still a need to get rid of the armed militias and create functioning and viable democratic institutions.
Israel is also expected to impress on Solana the need for Europe to lobby the Arab countries to contribute more to the PA's economic rehabilitation.
This comes as Ha'aretz reports European and moderate Arab officials have been warning the Bush Administration that if it does not change its strategy for handling the conflict after the Palestinian elections, Abbas would resign and a deadly civil war would ensue. Among other things, they urged Washington to appoint a special envoy to oversee mediating efforts, to ease demands that Abbas declare all-out war on the terror militias, and to press Israel for prisoner releases, including Marwan Barghouti.
Solana met with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom in Tel Aviv on Thursday and afterwards said that the smoothness of the PA elections, coupled with the cooperation received from Israel, feeds expectations that the two will begin talking and working together. "This is my dream," he concluded.
The EU and Israel
Four-Part Disharmony: The Quartet Maps Peace
On November 19, 2001, the EU welcomed the fact that "the European Union and the United States are adopting a common approach to the Middle East peace process."[13] The term "roadmap" was then in fashion in European circles with reference to an action plan to combat international terrorism and caught on for Middle East peace-making as well.[14] The Quartet came into its own in the spring of 2002, in the aftermath of Israel's counter-offensive on the West Bank. The United States, stung by criticism that its own diplomacy had failed, decided to bring the critics into the tent. Powell, at a Quartet news conference on May 2, 2002, announced that it was "important … for me to have this unified body of opinion and thought behind me" in working for peace. [15]
The Quartet marked a dramatic departure from past U.S. peacemaking. Rarely has the United States sought the active involvement of additional parties in its efforts at mediating the Arab-Israeli conflict. In Washington's most determined peace initiatives—the successful Egyptian-Israeli process of 1977-9 and the unsuccessful Israeli-PLO process of 1993-2000—Washington kept the U.N. out. It regarded the international body as disruptive, partisan, and deeply hostile to Israel. In the American view, the Europeans never had more than a facilitating role, mostly economic. And the United States always went to lengths to exclude the Soviet Union, predecessor of the Russian Federation.
On April 10, 2002, the Quartet produced its first fruit, a joint communiqué read at a Madrid press conference by U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, in the presence of representatives of all four parties. The communiqué affirmed that "there is no military solution to the conflict" and called for a two-state solution based on the relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for negotiations leading to Israeli withdrawals and Arab recognition of and peace with Israel (242, 338, 1397). It "warmly endorsed" Saudi crown prince Abdullah's peace initiative, in turn endorsed in Beirut by the Arab League (March 27-28, 2002) as a "significant contribution towards a comprehensive peace, including Syria and Lebanon."[16] (The Saudi plan calls for establishing "normal relations with Israel," but only within the context of complete Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines; Israeli withdrawal from "remaining occupied Lebanese territories"; confirmation of a Palestinian "right of return" to Israel proper; and rejection of "all forms of patriation [sic] which conflict with the special circumstances of the Arab host countries," thus foreclosing any alternative to a "right of return").[17]
In terms of immediate and concrete steps, the Quartet called on Israel to "halt immediately its military operations" and for an "immediate, meaningful cease-fire and an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian cities" to positions held on September 28, 2000. It required "an end to all [Israeli] settlement activity." It also called for the Palestinian Authority "to act decisively and take all possible steps within its capacity to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure, including terrorist financing, and to stop incitement to violence." To this end, it also urged the parties to agree to a cease-fire as proposed by then-U.S. envoy, Anthony Zinni, who at that time was in the region for this purpose. Lastly, it called upon Arab states to assist in rebuilding the PA and for international donors to contribute to a humanitarian relief effort.[18]
To be sure, Bush retained many of these elements in his subsequent June 24, 2002 speech. These elements included a two-state solution, an end to Israeli settlement activity, the Palestinian obligation to fight terror and dismantle its infrastructure, and an international relief effort.
Islam in Europe: Who is responsible ?
Lost in Multi-culturalism: The European Experience
THERE IS NOT ONE CHRISTIAN NATION ON EARTH WHERE MUSLIMS ARE PERSECUTED.
Yet in most nations where the majority of the population are Muslims, there is systematic government persecution of Christians.
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
--Article 18 of the Universal
Declaration of
Human
Rights--
Core Universal Rights
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief