Letter to Europe

With the enormous cultural revolutions and scientific developments of the nineteenth century, drastic changes took place in the world and in society. They can be summed up in a single word: globalization. Through globalization, mass communication (the mass media) and its mobilization at the world level, people may receive and transmit signals that create phenomenal instant communication in the world or in the small villages to which they belong. The rules of this global village depend on financial and economic superiority and on competition between the big powers that aim to impose their own political opinions and their own domination on the world.The European Union is one of the players in this contest, together with the major financial powers in the world, such as the USA and China. However, the EU has a particular interest and objective prospects in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its political influence in the world favours a solution of the question and can help broker an end to the Palestinian conflict, especially as we perceive that the EU is more neutral and, in this specific case, can put an end to the US/Israeli supremacy.The EU is also heavily engaged in humanitarian aid in the (occupied) Palestinian territories, a fact that is undoubtedly positive for the Palestinians, even if they have a need for something more, especially as regards their political role. Europe ought to exert greater pressure on the American government and on that of Israel to help liberate the Palestinians from their occupation, and to enable them to enjoy all the rights declared by the Council of the European Union in its Resolutions 338 and 242, i.e. a Palestinian State in the frontiers established in 1967 and without walls. The Israeli wall of separation snakes along a long stretch of the border, from the West Bank to the land occupied in 1948 and obviously the settlements that traverse the West Bank and that have transformed the Palestinian territories into small cantons in which the Palestinians seem to be living in a kind of large prison, especially due to the presence of over 400 checkpoints, which represent the only access to the Palestinian territories and humiliate the dignity of our people and make it intolerant of the occupation.The Palestinians think it would be good if the European Union were to play a role of mediation in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, so that they be not left alone with the Americans and the Israelis, even if – looking back at the Madrid and Oslo accords – we have to admit that the USA has been the country most engaged in the negotiations, while European countries like France, Germany and the UK have dealt exclusively with economic questions and development.Therefore, as a Palestinian of Ramallah, who has to live under the occupation, and in the conflict, and who asks for justice and peace, I think the EU should become an active mediator right from the start of the peace process and not leave us Palestinians alone with the Americans, under conditions dictated by Israel. The majority of us Palestinians were struck when the EU supported the embargo imposed on us by the whole world, a situation in which we felt ourselves alone in the world, without any hope of putting an end to the occupation.