What Palestine needs is for Europe to honour its own agreements
Op. What Palestine needs is for Europe to honour its own agreements
By Saeb Erekat/
In light of the latest developments in the diplomatic arena, including a Security Council Peace Initiative, the UN report on the 2014 Gaza aggression and Palestine’s first submission of information to the International Criminal Court, it is worth reminding ourselves of Europe’s role in and responsibility for solving the question of Palestine.
Internationally, it is often forgotten that the two-state solution is built on a huge concession of Palestinian land: 78% of what was Palestine before the creation of Israel in 1948. This painful decision came out of years of internal discussion and external dialogue, in an attempt to achieve the long-overdue recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people and ensure peace for everyone in the region. Europe stood with us at the centre of these discussions and committed itself to supporting a political process which would realise this common goal.
That was in 1988, almost three decades ago. Over time, the political process somehow became an end in itself, the only goal being to get the two parties to the table – nowadays an almost feverish obsession for some governments. It didn’t matter how many Palestinians were killed or imprisoned, or that the bulldozers continued to crush Palestinian homes or even projects funded by the EU, while the cranes built more illegal settlements for Israeli citizens. It hasn’t mattered that one party at the table does not even want the two-state solution, as Mr. Netanyahu openly announced on the eve of the election in March of this year. (He rowed back on the claim after winning reelection four days later, prompting a number of his apologists in Europe to play it down as mere ‘campaign rhetoric’.) It seems not to matter that the current reality is of a single state and two systems – one of privilege for Israeli Jews and one of discrimination for Palestinian Christians and Muslims.
