G
gilliam
Guest
It is difficult to understand the European Union’s refusal, over the last five years, to hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for its terrorism and corruption – and in particular its willingness to embrace the late Yasir Arafat as a great statesman rather than reject him as an arch-terrorist.
Some point to Europe’s long-time indifference to the suffering of Israelis, which in turn has been attributed to a visceral anti-Israeli feeling within Europe due to guilt over the Holocaust and a belief that Israel is the last bastion of colonialism in the Middle East. Some go even further and blame anti-Semitism.
Others explain the European stance as an inevitable function of Europe’s post-1945 world-view, which places a premium on negotiation and non-confrontation as well as a commitment to finding economic solutions to political problems. Still others attribute the European position to the fact that the EU, the largest financial donor to the Palestinian Authority since its creation, simply cannot bring itself to acknowledge the PA’s failings.
But there is another possible explanation, which goes something like this: Despite its long-time public support for Palestinian statehood the EU is secretly committed to preventing the establishment of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. As part of this policy, it has turned a blind eye, and even excused, the worst excesses of the Palestinian leadership, knowing full well that in doing so it has not only diluted US efforts to stem Palestinian rejectionism, but has actually prolonged the conflict. It gives the Palestinian leadership little incentive to moderate its positions or meet its formal commitments.
As Benjamin Netanyahu put it during his time as Israeli prime minister in 1997, the Palestinian belief that Europe would “always line up behind all of their demands and violations and will overlook the facts” had led to the impasse in the peace process. During the Oslo era (between 1994 and 2000) European politicians completely ignored Arafat’s failure to “take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism”. Why? This, after all, was precisely what he was obliged to do under the terms of both the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994 and the Declaration of Principles (Oslo II) of 1995. And if he had done so, he would have gained his state.
Following the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the outbreak of the al Aqsa intifada in September 2000, until Arafat’s death last November, the EU’s determination to ignore the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish slanders in the PA-controlled media, its half-hearted efforts to push Arafat to reign in Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and its refusal to acknowledge the very real links between Fatah (the dominant constituent group within the PLO) and the Al Aqsa martyrs brigade have also prolonged Palestinian statelessness.
Europe’s refusal to hold the Palestinians accountable for their failings, which has only hurt Palestinian interests, can be traced back to the 1970s. In 1975, the US signed an agreement with Israel promising not to meet with, or recognize, the PLO until it renounced terrorism and accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 and Resolution 338 of 1973 as the basis for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. But during the same period the EU never adopted a similar policy of exclusion. In fact, the PLO’s leading role in international terror and its rejection of the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt has coincided with the growing acceptance of the organization within Europe.
Indeed, in 1979, the same year that the PLO denounced Camp David as “a wholly retrograde move”, Arafat met with Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and Germany’s Willy Brandt at the time chairman of the Socialist International, in Vienna. He also met the Spanish prime minister and the president, prime minister and foreign minister of Portugal.
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Some point to Europe’s long-time indifference to the suffering of Israelis, which in turn has been attributed to a visceral anti-Israeli feeling within Europe due to guilt over the Holocaust and a belief that Israel is the last bastion of colonialism in the Middle East. Some go even further and blame anti-Semitism.
Others explain the European stance as an inevitable function of Europe’s post-1945 world-view, which places a premium on negotiation and non-confrontation as well as a commitment to finding economic solutions to political problems. Still others attribute the European position to the fact that the EU, the largest financial donor to the Palestinian Authority since its creation, simply cannot bring itself to acknowledge the PA’s failings.
But there is another possible explanation, which goes something like this: Despite its long-time public support for Palestinian statehood the EU is secretly committed to preventing the establishment of a viable and sovereign Palestinian state. As part of this policy, it has turned a blind eye, and even excused, the worst excesses of the Palestinian leadership, knowing full well that in doing so it has not only diluted US efforts to stem Palestinian rejectionism, but has actually prolonged the conflict. It gives the Palestinian leadership little incentive to moderate its positions or meet its formal commitments.
As Benjamin Netanyahu put it during his time as Israeli prime minister in 1997, the Palestinian belief that Europe would “always line up behind all of their demands and violations and will overlook the facts” had led to the impasse in the peace process. During the Oslo era (between 1994 and 2000) European politicians completely ignored Arafat’s failure to “take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism”. Why? This, after all, was precisely what he was obliged to do under the terms of both the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of 1994 and the Declaration of Principles (Oslo II) of 1995. And if he had done so, he would have gained his state.
Following the collapse of the Oslo peace process and the outbreak of the al Aqsa intifada in September 2000, until Arafat’s death last November, the EU’s determination to ignore the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish slanders in the PA-controlled media, its half-hearted efforts to push Arafat to reign in Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and its refusal to acknowledge the very real links between Fatah (the dominant constituent group within the PLO) and the Al Aqsa martyrs brigade have also prolonged Palestinian statelessness.
Europe’s refusal to hold the Palestinians accountable for their failings, which has only hurt Palestinian interests, can be traced back to the 1970s. In 1975, the US signed an agreement with Israel promising not to meet with, or recognize, the PLO until it renounced terrorism and accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242 of 1967 and Resolution 338 of 1973 as the basis for a negotiated settlement of the conflict. But during the same period the EU never adopted a similar policy of exclusion. In fact, the PLO’s leading role in international terror and its rejection of the Camp David peace agreement between Israel and Egypt has coincided with the growing acceptance of the organization within Europe.
Indeed, in 1979, the same year that the PLO denounced Camp David as “a wholly retrograde move”, Arafat met with Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky and Germany’s Willy Brandt at the time chairman of the Socialist International, in Vienna. He also met the Spanish prime minister and the president, prime minister and foreign minister of Portugal.
read the rest:
techcentralstation.be/062305B.html
