A moral duty

Wars have succeeded each other in the Middle East for the last 58 years. Will the time perhaps come when we will have to speak of a Hundred Years’ War? Everything seems to suggest so; the situation seems hopeless. Indeed, for so many years all the peace initiatives in the region have failed: the hawks have always vanquished the doves, and many men of peace, from Sadat to Rabin, have fallen to the assassins’ bullets. Today it is the very existence of Lebanon that is threatened. The whole international community seems paralysed, in the image of the UNO, and resigned to permanent conflict in this region. It thinks perhaps that it’s enough to circumscribe the fire without grasping that the conflict is a tumour that risks spreading to the whole world and is fuelling terrorism. Here lies the real source of the clash of civilizations so much hoped for or fomented by various protagonists..Should or could Europe play a role in this situation? Yes, because she has first of all a moral duty. Europe bears a heavy responsibility for the eruption of the conflict in the first place: the creation of the State of Israel is the result of its bad conscience of having nurtured the seeds within herself of anti-Semitism and the Shoah. Yes, because Europe is a friend of all sides in the conflict. Yes, because Europe embodies and promotes a humanistic and democratic project that guarantees the existence of everyone and respect for everyone. Yes, because Europe has, for historical reasons, an excellent understanding of the cultures present in the region, both of the Arab world – Moslem and Christian – and of the Jewish world, and because she knows what is meant by “co-existence”, both in terms of tensions and of positive exchanges and mutual enrichment, because the old Europe is a land of diversity and cohabitation.But can Europe intervene? Is she still able to act on the political level? The successive crises of the Middle East demonstrate, if this were still necessary, the disaster represented by the failure last year of the Constitutional Treaty that would have endowed Europe with real political power. But it would be cowardly and vile to use this failure as a pretext for not acting. Each European State is organizing itself to evacuate its own citizens caught up in the fighting. The decision to do so is undoubtedly right, but it also testifies to the persistence of national self-seeking. Who bothers about rescuing the unfortunate Lebanese, Israeli and Palestinian citizens who wish simply to live at peace, they too taken hostage by a conflict by which they are appalled? The new warlords, who exploit the fears of the one side and the humiliations suffered by the other, are fomenting that conflict. We remain trapped here in the logic of national selfishness: the ships are being sent to evacuate fellow-citizens, not to save or restore peace.Can we still hope in the reawakening of some European countries? Those that were the driving force of European construction since 1950 could unite their forces and their voices once again, as they did in the past, to stop condemning the one side or the other, or to emphasize their good or bad reasons: a position of impotence, and launch instead a cri de coeur to the belligerents and to the world: “ Basta!“. But at the head of these nations statesmen capable of speaking out in an eloquent and strong way would also be needed. Some signals are coming out of the UNO and the G8 but they are still weak and partial. On the other hand, now is no longer the time for diplomatic niceties that have demonstrated their inadequacy. Now is the time for Europe to speak out and clearly enunciate her political will to everyone.