Mr President, I would have liked to have said what Mr Menéndez del Valle said in his analysis but will say something else. Sister Dominique runs the Casa di Nostra Signora dei Dolori in Abu Dis, a village near Jerusalem, cut in two by the segregation and annexation wall, as it is known by Palestinians and peaceful Israelis, or by a security fence, as it is called by the Israeli authorities. This is Sister Dominique’s message: ‘On 11 January the construction of the new separation wall, nine metres high, was begun. It replaces another much lower wall built in August 2002 which people could climb over when they were no longer permitted to go to Jerusalem. Thousands of people have climbed over that first wall: children, students, mothers, old people; many have fallen, one person even died. Two months ago we had to call an ambulance for a 65 year-old man who fell and banged his head. The ambulance arrived much later. On the road the army searched the ambulance, made the injured man’s wife get out and on arrival at the hospital it was too late for him. The things that happen around this wall are intolerable. For months hundreds of people have passed through our property every day to avoid military controls because they do not have the required permits. People round about us live in fear of being arrested, beaten and humiliated, as too often happens. There is constant tension and living conditions are becoming increasingly miserable. Faced with general apathy we feel isolated and helpless. We want to speak out on behalf of those people without a voice who every day, for the last two years, have struggled to reach their place of work and their schools or die through lack of medical treatment. In attempting to carry out our mission, we have also encountered difficulties with soldiers when we have taken people in because the ambulance was forbidden to pass. The same problem arises when somebody dies: the cemetery is on the other side of the wall. Even the shops are on the other side. Many of our patients are alone, their families are no longer able to visit them. We do not know what will happen when the wall is finished. The majority of our old people and employees come from the West Bank. Only three of our eighteen employees have a Jerusalem identity card; for two years they have had to climb over the wall and change their route in order to avoid the checkpoints because, even with a pass, the soldiers would make them turn back. This nine metre high wall will make it necessary for us to sack most of our staff and refuse to accept old people from the West Bank, in other words those who are the poorest. We are worried and more isolated than before as a result of the wall and because the surrounding area has been turned into a military zone. Help us!’ Those are the words of Sister Dominique, but far worse, in fact, is the situation of the inhabitants of Qalqilya who are prevented by the wall even from seeing the sunrise. The sole exit from the city has an iron gate, for 50 000 people, which the Israeli army opens and closes as it pleases. At 5 p.m. it is locked and nobody can enter or leave the city after that time. In addition, what is to be said about the inhabitants of Budrus who have attempted, together with many Israeli pacifists, to use non-violent means to oppose the uprooting of their trees and the destruction of their homes? They have been brutally beaten by soldiers; one Israeli boy is still in hospital. The wall and the barriers under construction are, in fact, forcing the Palestinians to live in ghettoes. It is for security, says Sharon, it is to prevent terrorist activities, not wanting to understand that security cannot be based on the construction of a wall and camps, but on the Palestinians having the possibility of living in freedom in their State in coexistence with the State of Israel. The wall is not merely a prison: it amounts yet again to the confiscation of land, yet again it amounts to annexation. It does not follow the 1967 borders but instead penetrates into and divides Palestinian territory. Meanwhile, the propaganda to have the wall accepted has intensified. Concerned at the negative reaction of the international community, the Israeli authorities are attempting to make the wall appear less monstrous. The proposal published in the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv, made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs’ team responsible for public relations, stating that, ‘If the wall were painted in bright colours it would be more aesthetic reducing the damage to public relations’ is unfortunately not a joke. Parliament has condemned the construction of the wall calling for building to be halted. Walls, as we saw with the Berlin Wall, destroy freedom. The UN General Assembly has voted for the International Court of Justice in The Hague to deliver an opinion on its legitimacy. The President of the European Council of Ministers has stated, most inopportunely, that he considers the referral of the matter to the International Court of Justice ill-timed. Why is it, where the Israeli authorities are concerned, that international law and human rights violations must always be put to one side in the name of negotiations that do not exist, and the Quartet, instead of applying pressure in favour of the roadmap, allow time to pass by and the dying to continue in Palestine and Israel? This smacks of complicity because this wall is not about security; this wall amounts to territorial annexation, colonial conquest. The European Union cannot throw international law overboard. Let us take diplomatic action, relaunch the roadmap, do our utmost to prevent acts that can kill Israeli civilians, but let us also put economic and political pressure on Israel so that Sharon does not take unilateral action and returns to the negotiating table. As the President-in-Office of the Council said, the international community is heeding and giving its backing to the Geneva initiative, non-violent Palestinian resistance against military occupation, soldiers who refuse to carry out bombardments and be the instruments of repression in the occupied territories, the Palestinian and Israeli parents who have had their loved ones killed by the army, by Israeli settlers or by Palestinian assassins/suicide attackers and who reject the idea of vendetta. All those things prove that coexistence and security are possible whilst affirming the right of all to live in peace with dignity and justice.

Political group: GUE-NGL