There is no doubt – and it is an obvious thing to say – that the conflicts in the Middle East are becoming more tragic by the day. I truly believe, and I am not just copying what others have said, that we must have the courage to admit that much of the responsibility for these unresolved conflicts lies with the international community and, most of all, with the military policy of President Bush and anyone who has stood up for that policy alongside President Bush. We cannot evade this problem, and I agree with the President-in-Office of the Council and with Commissioner Patten, that the Palestine-Israel question is central and essential to it. I also think we should abandon our conformist position and stop saying that the Palestinians do not recognise the State of Israel: they recognised it in 1988. It is not true that the Palestinian Authority does not want to negotiate: it is continually saying that it is prepared to negotiate. The one who is rejecting negotiation, the one who really is following a different policy is Ariel Sharon. I believe we should assess the matter objectively. There is no doubt that the Palestinian Authority bears responsibility for its own inability to stop terrorist acts, but I also think we should clearly assess to what extent Ariel Sharon’s policy has brought on the growth in terrorism. Mr Patten is right: it does not mean that terrorist acts in themselves, irrespective of the policies that are being implemented, should be condemned and suppressed. Let us stop telling ourselves that they are all birds of a feather. There are differences, and these differences are the ban on and the failure to implement any international rights for the Palestinians. Let us now think about that great plan, rather than a working paper, that the United States has prepared for the G8 Summit in June. In fact it is an arrogant, imperialist project and, although it provides for the development of democracy, democratic processes, preambles, aid and support, it does so without any discussion with anybody. We cannot export democracy – apart from the fact that we should begin to think about our own democracies – since democracy is a continuous process in which we too are inadequate, in which we too sometimes have gaps and differences. As it has been put forward, the Greater Middle East initiative is a plan that will certainly not help the growth of democracy. It will probably help some accomplice or subservient regimes, but it will not contribute to the reconstruction of Arab countries that do in fact need to free themselves from oppressive regimes and really need democracy. Not with arrogance and imperialism, however, please! I think the European Union’s decision to opt for the long term and not to aim for immediate results by cutting the Gordian knot of old is the right one. We therefore need time to reflect and to build relationships. In this sense, the Parliamentary Assembly organised in Athens is important: we have seen the differences and the diversity of the Arab world as well, and not just its weaknesses. I should like to return for a moment to Ariel Sharon’s policy. In 1973, when Winston Churchill’s grandson asked him what was to become of the Palestinians, he answered that there was no need to worry: ‘We’ll make a pastrami sandwich of them.’ He would crush them in a sandwich. That is what he is doing by building the wall and preventing freedom of movement. Sheikh Yassin’s assassination was not the first: there have been 250 extrajudicial executions, and the first victim was Tabet Tabet, an Al Fatah pacifist who was working with Peace Now. Why, though, do we always have to keep repeating and reiterating these things? I sometimes get tired of repeating myself and feeling that everyone bears the same responsibility. There are various types of responsibility, and I think that, with this decision, Ariel Sharon did not just kill a leader, something that – for heaven’s sake – I as a woman regard as the utmost in evil, but his intention was in fact to transform a national conflict into a religious conflict. That is what is so terrible. Four days ago I was in the mountains of Kurdistan and saw demonstrations in Van for Sheikh Yassin. That is the risk we are running; that is what President Bush has done. Finally, I also agree with the proposals put forward by Mr Barón Crespo on Article 2 and the other items.

Political group: GUE-NGL