Against all violence

“The Israeli military action must cease immediately. We have already suffered 1400 deaths, 80,000 people have been left homeless, and some 100,000 people wounded. The violence unleashed against us by Israel cannot in any way be justified”, declared Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), President of the Palestinian Authority, in his address to the European Parliament at Strasbourg on 4 February. His speech focused on the situation created in Palestine over the last few weeks. He denounced the “occupation that deprives our people of freedom and prevents peace”. He then asked for the intervention of the international community in the form of a buffer force and the opening of all the border crossings “to permit humanitarian aid and aid for reconstruction”. Promoting co-existence. The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, welcomed the Palestinian President, whom he called “a man of peace” and a “credible figure on the international scene”. Poettering’s thoughts went first of all, however, to the Palestinian people, who, he said, “are now in a difficult situation” and one of “grave suffering”. The German statesman hoped for an immediate cessation of hostilities, the end of missile strikes against Israeli towns and the end of Israel’s military offensive. “We need – he said – to do everything possible to promote peaceful co-existence”, and this also means overcoming the divisions between the Palestinians themselves and their political leaders. Mahmoud Abbas devoted a large part of his speech to the problems posed by the “Israeli occupation”, which he described as “one of the longest military occupations in modern history”. In recent weeks, he said, “we have suffered every kind of violence”; “we have seen the burnt bodies of babies, the tears of those who have lost their loved ones”. He cited cases that, thanks to the media, have reverberated round the world, such as “that of the young mother assassinated with two unborn children in her womb”. “The sufferings of my people”. “Hundreds of children have seen the roofs of their own homes collapsing, while forty innocent civilians were killed in a school”. According to the Palestinian President, we have “witnessed a darkening of the human conscience”; the war “has destroyed the work accomplished by the National Authority over so many years to build hospitals and infrastructures, which also benefited from European financial support”. “The Israeli settlement programme – added Abbas – has not stopped at all; it has increased seven-fold, while the construction of the wall of separation has continued”. This “aggression against the entire Palestinian people undermines prospects for peace and the oppression of Gaza is only the last link in a chain of events that are aimed at separating the Strip from the other Palestinian territories, and “preventing our people from attaining their ultimate goal: an end to occupation, gaining freedom and the right to self-determination and the establishment of an independent State within the frontiers prior to 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital”. Mahmoud Abbas, however, made no explicit mention in his speech of Hamas, the political divisions with the NPA, still less the rockets launched against Israel from Gaza.National Unity Government. “Israel – said Abbas – is violating the accords so far signed and is a prisoner of her belligerent and colonizing mentality”. He then declared that the international community must “stop treating the Jewish State as if it were above the law”. In the President’s view, it was also “essential to implement the 2005 agreement on the free circulation of goods and people and re-open the border crossings, not just that of Rafah, but also the security corridor between Gaza and the West Bank, to confirm the territorial and economic unity of Palestine”. As for internal policy, Abbas insisted on the need to install a national unity government that could tackle the emergency and negotiate a peace deal. He then called for the firm intervention of the European Union, the USA and the Quartet. He also devoted some remarks to the Arab peace initiative, which involves “57 Islamic countries and is based on the principle of the exchange of land for peace”. Based on this principle “the signatory countries would be willing to normalize their relations with Israel”. Queried by journalists after his address in the chamber, Abbas said: “I condemn the missiles launched by Hamas. But there is no proportion between these rockets, which injure no one, and the Israeli military invasion, which causes deaths, sufferings and the destruction of everything. There is no proportion in the military reaction we are suffering” and this “will once again stoke up the flames of extremists and play against a peace settlement”. Don’t you have anything to reproach yourself for? “We want peace – Abbas replied to SIR’s correspondent -. This is our first and final objective. We are against any violent action by either side; we are also against the missiles. There are rights and duties” that both Israelis and Palestinians “must respect. We are willing to play our part, but a future of peace and unity must be recognized to our people. The solution of ‘two peoples, two states’ is one to which we agree”.