Europe bears very serious responsibilities for the Middle East crisis. The degeneration of the peace process between Israel and Palestine is also due...

Europe bears very serious responsibilities for the Middle East crisis. The degeneration of the peace process between Israel and Palestine is also due to the lack of a European foreign policy, in particular in the Mediterranean area. A divided and impotent Europe has let the process degenerate up to the present open-war situation, where two peoples are fighting with unbelievable violence, as if their survival depends exclusively on the enemy's annihilation.

Since the beginning of the 1980s, the European Union recognized the necessity of creating a Palestinian state, guaranteeing, at the same time, safe borders for Israel. But such good intentions were not followed up by actual facts.
The lack of a true European government capable of speaking with one voice to the world has prevented Europe from developing an effectual foreign policy. As long as each national government runs its own foreign policy, by definition there is no European foreign policy. Appointing a European High Representative for foreign and security policy is a fig leaf covering the scandal of the European power vacuum. There is more. Some European governments even complained about the lack of an effectual European policy in the Mediterranean. National governments have a very simple way to allow Europe to speak with one voice to the world and provide itself with the means necessary to operate: renounce the veto right, the last mockup of national sovereignty, in the Council of Foreign Ministers and grant all powers in foreign policy to the European Commission, so that it can operate as the true European government.

The European power vacuum in the Mediterranean is generating a dangerous illusion: that the United States can play the role of the deus ex-machina. The USA is supposed to have the will and the capacity to impose a peace plan on the two parties. This assumption does have some elements of truth. The USA is providing Israel with the financial and
military means necessary for its security. This is the reason why Europe is sheepishly waiting for the Americans to pull the chestnuts out of the fire, as already happened with former Yugoslavia. But the situation in the Middle East is more complicated, because over there it is not just a matter of militarily toppling a regime -like Milosevic's- and then turn over the racked body of an unfortunate people to the relieving care of its wealthy neighbours. Former Yugoslavia was a turbulent country, but in prospect a possible candidate for entering the Union. A surgical operation solved the main problem, and now the convalescence has started.

The Middle East is a strategic region for the US world policy and for all the industrialized countries, because the USA, Europe and Japan depend on the Middle East oil. The political balance in the Middle East is an essential part of the world balance. In the framework of the American foreign policy the peace in the Middle East is considered an objective subordinate to the preservation of its world hegemony. World leadership has a cost. After the end of the cold war and after the September 11 attacks, the American foreign policy is based more and more on its technological and military primacy and on the new ideological perspectives that justify it. The crusade against the USSR as the empire of evil has been replaced by the one against international terror. Its commitment for building a new world order has been completely forgotten.

The American policy of maintaining the balance of power in the Middle East consisted in the past in interventions for controlling two possible dangers. On the one hand, it was a matter of blocking the attempts by the Arab-Islamic extremist front at "throwing back into the sea" the Israelis; this was done by entering into tighter alliances with the moderate Arab countries, like Egypt and Jordan, and by assuaging the ambitions of countries like Irak, Iran and Lybia. On the other, it was necessary to provide military aid to Israel, but at the same time to prevent it from attaining securitycounting only on military-type safety measures. In fact this policy, if pushed to its extreme consequences, would drive Israel to subjugate the Palestinian people, establishing some defacto form of protectorate. A peace within "safe" borders marked by barbed wire would be a short-lived illusion, because the Arab countries, even the moderate ones, could not accept a perpetual humiliation. That is why President Clinton's administration tried with every possible means to reach an acceptable compromise with the two parties.

After the September 11 attacks, the American foreign policy in the Middle East, notwithstanding President Bush's swift acknowledgment of the necessity of a Palestinian state in order to strengthen the worldwide anti-terror coalition, looks ever more oriented to pursue stability in the Middle East region by means of a military dominance over the Arab world, exercised directly by the US or indirectly by Israel. The American government has made it clear many times that its strategic priority is not the peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but the struggle against the axis of evil, of which Irak is supposed to be a clear representation. Richard Perle, number two at the Pentagon, said it very clearly: "An attack on Irak by us would not make much difference for the crisis in Israel; on the contrary, it would make a solution easier, because it would strengthen our influence in the Middle East" (Corriere della Sera, March 30, 2002). That is why Europe's initiatives for the recognition of a Palestinian state and for bringing peace are considered an obstacle or an inconvenience by both the USA and the Sharon government. A surgical operation in the Middle East, including the military eradication of terror, will solve only some particular problems. In the long run, only a peaceful coexistence, chosen by all concerned parties, is the appropriate remedy.

It must be acknowledged that US interests and Europe's interests in the Middle East do diverge. The US is worrying in the first place (and being the world super-power it has good reasons to do so) about maintaining the military balance in the region, which hinges on Israel's superiority over the Arab world. The European Union has a vital interest in a lasting peace in the Mediterranean, both for coping with the immigration and development problems by the adoption of efficient cooperation policies, and because the worsening of the peace process would soon propagate terrorism, hatred among religions and anti-semitism towards Europe.

Presently the European Union does not have the means necessary for intervening adequately in the Middle East. The federalists therefore are calling on the Union's governments to convene urgently a meeting of the European Council and to declare the State of Emergency, granting the European Commission all the military and budgetary powers for solving the crisis in the Middle East. They ask the European Parliament to support this proposal. The European Convention shall translate as soon as possible these contingent indications into precise constitutional norms.The European Union can provide its own innovative contribution to the problem of building peace. It has the possibility to offer a positive model of peaceful coexistence to the countries of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Europe,after WWII, has started a journey of unification of national peoples, once enemies, who decided to share a common destiny in peace. What has been possible in Europe for France and Germany must become possible in the Middle East for Israel and Palestine.

The Commission, which will act in this instance as a provisional European government, shall immediately call for an international conference where, beside the US and Russia, the representatives of Israel, Palestine and the Arab League are invited. The European peace plan must be based on the following points: the first concerns security; the second economic and political integration.

1. The immediate recognition of the Palestinian state by part of all of the participants to the conference, together with, at the same time, the assurance of safe borders to Israel. The Oslo accords failed because they started a peace process which, step after step, with a painstaking negotiation on partial aspects, should have led to the recognition of the Palestinian state. Insofar as Israel opposed this process, the response on the Palestinian side has been to resort to terror.
Every recrimination and moralism on this matter is unproductive. There have been mistakes on both sides. The problem now is how to build the future. Israel cannot deceive itself in believing that it can fight terror by keeping under military boots an entire people.Therefore the starting point of the peace plan must be the immediate creation of the Palestinian state. Instituting a democratic government legitimated to hold the monopoly of military force is the only way for eliminating the anarchic and terroristic militias. In addition, there is to face and solve other problems, such as the Israeli settlements in Palestine, the return of the refugees and Jerusalem's status. All these are issues that can be solved, provided that Israel is willing to give to the Palestinian state (which has the right to a surface equal to 100% of that inhabited by Palestinians before 1967) a part of its territory, in exchange of any part of Palestine that Israel deems necessary to annex for security reasons. The Palestinians in turn must accept to settle most of the refugees on Palestinian territory. The US, the European Union and Russia shall ensure, finally, Israel's security with a military pact and an interposition force, until the coexistence of all peoples in the region will be founded on mutual trust and common institutions.

2. The European Union, unlike the USA and Russia, has an interest in proposing to all of the Middle East countries (and not just to Palestine) a Marshall Plan for development and peace. This shall not be based only on economic aids, but shall also indicate specific political goals and clear development objectives. The major political goal shall consist in creating common institutions, not only for managing together - Israelis, Palestinians and Arab countries- the aids, but also for gradually strengthening democracy inside each country and, in prospect, fostering integration and political unification of the region. The richer Arab states shall share their natural and financial resources with the poorer ones. The development objectives consist in creating major infrastructures for the joint management of natural resources (in particular water) and in fostering the material and cultural interchange among the peoples of the region. Finally, the economic and political integration between the European Union and the Middle East must be promoted, also with the aim to program and regulate the migratory flows. In such a prospect, the European Union and the Arab countries have a mutual interest in settling oil payments in euro, so as to stabilize in the long term both the price of this resource, essential to Europeans, and the income of the producing countries.

Peace in the Middle East will be possible if the United States and the European Union will act together. The USA is obliged to prevent the breaking-down of the old post-war international order. But this conservative policy is not enough. Europe must begin to build the new order founded on peace, cooperation and international justice. If Europe will not assume upon itself its responsibilities in foreign policy, sooner or later the world will fall a prey to disorder and anarchy.