Aid for peace

“If a person sacrifices his own life for peace, that life is well spent”. MAHMOUD ABBAS knows that “his life is in danger”, but he intends to “expend himself to the last for the good of his people”. The President of the Palestinian National Authority made an official visit to the European Parliament on Tuesday 16 May. There he gave a long speech, repeatedly interrupted by applause. YES TO DEMOCRACY, NO TO TERRORISM. The meeting between the President of the Palestinian National Authority and the European Parliament was supposed to have taken place in March but no sooner had he arrived in Strasbourg than Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) had then decided to return immediately to his country to tackle the emergency due to the Israeli raid on the prison in Jericho. Presenting the guest, the President of the EP, JOSEP BORRELL , said that “the next few months will be decisive for the future of the Palestinian and Israeli populations”. “All of us – added the Spanish politician – ask for a sustainable peace process and are perfectly aware of the fact that, if we do not act in the right way, we run the risk of seeing the world embark on a period of wars of religion”. Speaking to the assembly, Abbas recalled the historic stages that have led to the current situation in the Holy Land; he cited the historic leader Yasser Arafat; he spoke especially of the “difficult relations with Israel”. “The Israelis have confiscated our land; they built a wall that closes off our hopes”. His speech pulled no punches. He declared that “democracy is debased if there is no freedom and if our own territory is occupied”. Abbas, considered by the European Union the Palestinian “guarantor” for the peaceful co-existence between Arabs and Israelis, then condemned “all the attacks on civilians” and “repudiated every form of terrorism”. He also explained that he is exerting “pressure on the Hamas-led government to persuade it to honour the commitments entered into with Israel and with the international community”. “MAY EUROPE HELP MY PEOPLE”. The head of the Palestinian State then asked the EU “to continue financially to support our people, to enable us to provide the minimum services to the population”. EU support for Palestine had been interrupted by the Council of Foreign Ministers of the 25 on 10 April, when it was ascertained that the new Palestinian government – that had emerged from the legislative elections in January and is led by the extremist front of Hamas – had failed to commit itself to honouring the three principles enunciated by the Quartet (UNO, EU, USA and Russia): renunciation of every form of violence; recognition of the right to existence of the State of Israel; and acceptance of the existing accords. On 9 May a resumption of EU aid had been prospected, de facto circumventing the Hamas government, in order to alleviate the humanitarian emergency that was being created in the Palestinian territories and to pay the wages of 160,000 state employees that had been blocked since March. THE SOCIAL EMERGENCY. On leaving the debating chamber, Abu Mazen showed no reluctance to answer the questions of journalists, even the most delicate. Are you scared of being killed in an assassination attempt? “I am a believing person – explained the President of the PNA – and am convinced that when death has to come, it will come. I’m not fatalistic, however, and the security service tries to prevent attacks. I’ve lived in this situation for 42 years; that’s how one lives in my country every day. Parents are afraid to send their children to school”. But don’t the terrorist attacks and violence against Israel – asked Gianni Borsa, SIR correspondent in Strasbourg – lead to the Palestinian cause losing its credibility? Does your Hamas-led government really want to abandon violent methods, isolating the terrorists in order to embark on the road of negotiations, and build peace in the Middle East? “Violence in our land has been reduced by 90% – replied Abbas – . We can say that the situation is being pacified. But there’s still a long way to go, and cooperation between both sides is needed. Israel too continues to use violent methods and to build the wall of separation to isolate us. We have faith that the positions adopted by the Quartet can help to alleviate tensions in the Middle East and are confident that the EU will find ways of concretely assisting us, as it has always done”. What might be the role of other Arab countries in this situation? “Some of them – Abbas told our correspondent -, such as Egypt and Jordan, both of which have recognized Israel, have a major role to build relations of peace and stable collaboration in our region. Other States are helping us financially, to prevent the humanitarian disaster with which we are threatened”, since we lack “the essential services, especially those of healthcare. But we also need aid to keep open our schools, and give security to our people. In this way we can prevent a social disaster and any popular sedition fomented by it”.