Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale.israele
Titolo: Grandi cambiamenti in gestazione nella politica britannica

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/386840.html
1) Tony Blair in una conferenza stampa ha accusato i Palestinesi di aver
fatto fallire il processo di pace (ovviamente gli interessati hanno
replicato).
2) Qualche settimana fa il Foreign Office britannico ha organizzato un
seminario al Wilton Park Conference Center che ha consigliato, per
risolvere il conflitto israelo-palestinese, di avvicinare di più Israele
all'Unione Europea in modo che essa diventi la sua riserva strategica.
In una parola: Israele non dovrà più contare i centimetri che lo
separano dal possibile nemico arabo perché avrà alle spalle l'intera
Europa, e questo potrebbe renderlo più disponibile a concessioni.
3) L'idea è stata sostenuta in particolare dalla Dott.ssa Rosemary
Hollis, capo del Dipartimento Medio-orientale del Royal Institute of
International Affairs (Chatham House), un istituto che ha sempre avuto
la fama del filo-arabo. Dal suo punto di vista, fare d'Israele un membro
UE a pieno titolo è impossibile (qualcuno vuole abrogare la Legge del
Ritorno?), ma è possibile coinvolgerlo più strettamente nell'UE e magari
renderlo membro della Nato.
4) Il problema però non è solo strategico-militare, o di legittima
ricerca di un assetto pacifico per il Medio-Oriente: è anche una scelta
di civiltà per Israele, in quanto il punto focale, secondo la Dott.ssa
Hollis è che Israele deve riconoscere la propria estraneità dal Medio
Oriente e dal mondo arabo e riscoprire i suoi legami storici e culturali
con l'Europa.
5) Secondo la Dott.ssa Hollis, gli stessi governi arabi, che temono
Israele e gli USA anche dal punto di vista economico, e non solo
militare, potrebbero essere convinti ad aderire al piano, che dovrebbe
comprendere "le solite cose": due stati per due popoli, sui confini del
1967, salvo qualche modifichina. Più difficile sarà convincere
l'opinione pubblica araba, per la quale la causa palestinese fa tutt'uno
con quella nazionale araba.
6) Non vi perdete l'analisi della politica medio-orientale di Tony
Blair. Una volta il Foreign Office era un'incubatrice di filo-arabi, ma
ora anche lo stesso prestigio della lingua araba lì dentro sta scemando:
i bravi diplomatici inglesi o imparano il Cinese, oppure vanno in Europa
o negli USA. Blair è filoisraeliano (anche perché diversi suoi amici
sono ebrei, ma nessuno è arabo), e tratta il Foreign Office come la
Thatcher: ci sono questioni che il Primo Ministro segue molto da vicino,
e sono quella iraqena, quella saudita, quella israeliana. Se Blair non
si fa impallinare a causa di David Kelly, potrebbe fare quello che dice
la Dott.ssa Hollis.
Ciao.
      Withdrawing from the Arabs to the embrace of the Europeans
      By Sharon Sadeh
      LONDON - For the first time since the outbreak of the intifada,
British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week accused the Palestinians of
having caused the peace process to fail. At a press conference at 10,
Downing Street, he said that "it is impossible to get this process
restarted unless there is a credible security plan that allows people to
believe genuinely that every attempt is being made to stop the support
of terrorism, the flow of terrorists into either the Palestinian
Authority or into Israel, and to give a clear message that terrorism is
the enemy of progress for the Palestinian people."
      He added that terror attacks are no longer considered a legitimate
expression of the struggle for independence: "[T]errorists used to say -
without the terrorism people will never listen to our argument."
However, said Blair, "in today's world, particularly post-11 September,
terrorism is the obstacle to political progress, and it is the obstacle
to political progress whether it is in Northern Ireland, or it is in the
Middle East, or it is out in Kashmir, or it's in Chechnya, or it is any
of the difficult trouble spots of the world." The British prime minister
also said that "terrorism is the enemy of progress for the Palestinian
people."
      The Palestinian Authority was swift to deplore this statement:
According to the official news agency Wafa. "Finally, Blair has done it
by revealing himself in an unprecedented fashion. He is asking us to
provide security for the Israelis without taking into consideration our
security, which is being threatened and terrorized by Israel." The Arab
League also expressed its outrage, and its secretary general, Amr
Moussa, hastened to blame Israel for the stagnation of the peace
process, saying that as long as Israel enjoys international immunity and
continues to build Jewish settlements in the territories and the racist
separation wall, it will be impossible to get the peace process going.
      Blair is not the only one who has surprised the Arab world. A few
weeks ago, representatives from Israel, the United States, Britain and
key states in the Middle East, among them Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria,
met for a seminar sponsored by the British Foreign Office at the Wilton
Park Conference Center in Sussex on the implications of the war in Iraq.
At the final session of the conference, which dealt with proposals for
security reforms in the Middle East, those present were astounded to
hear a far-reaching proposal: the resolution of the conflict by bringing
Israel closer to the European Union and making Europe its strategic
backup. In other words: in addition to the planned detachment from the
Palestinians, Israel's detachment from the Arab Middle East altogether.
      No less surprising was the identity of the speaker on this issue:
Dr. Rosemary Hollis, the head of the Middle East department at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), a research institute
that has always had a pro-Arab image. The latest hostilities between the
Palestinians and Israel and the geopolitical changes in the Middle East
have brought about a change in the position upheld by Hollis, who has
headed the department since 1995.
      The Arabs have reason for resentment
      Israel, says Hollis in an interview to Haaretz, is dealing with
legitimate concerns in the area of security, and Europe, which has
historical responsibility for Israel's existence must extend a hand to
it to dispel its suspicions. She says that time after time she is
surprised to discover that key decision-makers in Europe are still
examining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the irrelevant prism
of the Oslo agreements. She proposes adopting an entirely different
approach. "The European Union, British included," she says, "expect the
Arabs and the Israelis to make the sacrifices for peace. It has not
occurred to them that there's something that they could contribute, that
requires some effort on their part. It seems to me that if they are
asking Israel to make a deal with the Palestinians that leaves Israel
feeling more naked in security terms, then their duty is to explain what
they are going to do to help with Israel's security. And I would suggest
that they embrace Israel and say: We will be your strategic depth,
instead of you having to regard the Arab world as your strategic depth,
come with us and be a member of NATO and integrate more closely into the
EU." Hollis says she is not suggesting that Israel be made a full member
of the EU - the European Commission has rejected the idea entirely and
it is also inapplicable because of the Law of Return and European
legislation that is not acceptable to Israel - but rather an upgrading
of Israel's status in the EU by means of agreements and understandings
based on a deep and binding relationship.
      "Insofar I noticed people saying, which they didn't use to say,
but now they have been saying for the last year or so, perhaps Israel
should have never been invented, but then I hear them say that the only
solution is for the Arabs to accept the existence of Israel, and
normalize with it," she says. "So I see them on the one hand
acknowledging that the Arabs have reason to resent the Europeans for
supporting something they find intrusive, but on the other hand
demanding the Arabs to put up with it, now that it has happened. And so
it would be more consistent for the Europeans, and the British included,
to say: Yes, we did want Israel to exist, and it is not a mistake, but
since Israel is more us than you, Israel's future will be more with us
than with you, the Arabs."
      The proposal is also likely to appeal to the Arab side because
this will be an opportunity to get rid of the idea of integrating Israel
into the Middle East. The Europeans, including the British, have for
years been upholding the idea of regional integration, i.e. free trade,
economic relations, and reciprocal visits. Hollis says she would suggest
to the Arabs that "we buy the separation idea, in other words, offer
Israel a deal that is attractive to separate from the Palestinian state,
and from the Arab Middle East and to bring Israel closer to the
Europeans. And if over time the Arabs and the Israelis want to do much
more business with each other, this is not precluded."
      The separation that Hollis is talking about is based on the
formula of two states for two peoples and includes an Israeli withdrawal
to the 1967 borders, with minor modifications. "Arab fears of Israeli
economic imperialism and Israeli disenchantment with the idea of
economic integration suggest it is best kept apart," she says. She
believes that at this time the Arab world, which feels threatened by the
Americans, will pressure the Palestinians to accept this proposal, even
though this will not be easy. The younger generation in the Arab states,
she says, has adopted the Palestinian struggle as an expression of Arab
nationalism, which will make it difficult for the older leadership to
take the appropriate steps.
      According to Hollis, she has been mulling over this idea for
several months, and it ripened following meetings with Israeli and
European public figures and after she attended discussions with security
specialists in Brussels. In addition, she noted, during the past few
months there were events at which the question of whether Israel is a
Middle Eastern state at all came up. "Israel," she observed, "is also
predominantly Ashkenazi and Israelis desperately want separation from
the Arabs, especially the Palestinians."
      Hard to digest
      Hollis' idea is so revolutionary that both Israel and Britain, not
to mention some Arab figures, are having a hard time digesting it. Likud
MK Yuval Steinitz, the chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee, who was one of the participants in the seminar at
Wilton Park, says that the general idea surprised him for the good and
that it goes hand in hand with other sympathetic statements he heard
from European representatives. "The EU is sticking to a critical line
that has done more harm than good to bilateral relations; there is a
trend toward changing this approach," he says.
      Is there a real chance that Britain will lead a move to bring
Israel closer to Europe? Perhaps there is. Contrary to the prevailing
opinion in Israel, Hollis believes that Britain's foreign policy is
balanced and closer now to Israel than it has ever been. The Foreign
Office is no longer "a hotbed of Arabists," she says, noting that up
until the collapse of the Soviet Union the preferred specialization in
the foreign service was Russian or Arabic, but today that has changed.
"Absolutely; if you are a high-flyer in the foreign service you
certainly don't go to Arabic any more; you would go Chinese, or you
would go for Europe or Washington, or a combination of both. And that
will never coming back. Quite a lot has shifted."
      Another factor that has was weakened the Foreign Office was
Blair's decision to stick to former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's
approach and take the responsibility for dealing delicate foreign
affairs out of its hands. She says that Britain's foreign policy is not
of a single piece: "There are three issues," says Hollis, "on which you
cannot go very far with developing foreign policy without checking with
10 Downing Street. Number 10 has taken proprietary interest in Iraq
policy, Saudi Arabia policy and Israel policy."
      Blair has warm feelings toward Israel, says Hollis. "Tony Blair
personally has some close friends who are Jewish, and didn't have any
close friends who are Palestinians or Arabs. He didn't come to office
with a developed position on this but did see that the UK has regretted
this perception, that Britain is pro-Arab, and so number 10 is guarded
about Israel because they wanted to reverse that image. Under Blair's
auspices, the idea was that Britain is going to get along better with
Israel." Relations between the two countries reached their peak during
the period of Ehud Barak's government, but even after Ariel Sharon was
elected prime minister, Blair has taken care to maintain good relations
and to intervene personally in cases of disagreement. If Blair survives
the conclusions of the inquiry into the death of Defense Ministry
adviser David Kelly this week, perhaps he will be able to lead the move
that Hollis is proposing.
--
ICQ# 193805427 - bSanhedrin 34b - Gregorius Magnus (1:7:8)
Chaim Potok: "We offer ourselves grim consolation: all the wars have
cost us less than three days at Auschwitz".

S'Essere est su D%us meus wrote:
Mio D-o... allora sta per nevicare in Arabia Saudita!!!
GK


ROTFL!
Gavriel, mi hanno raccontato che nei garage dell'aeroporto del Cairo
tengono una flotta di spazzaneve per il caso imprevedibile che ...
Magari è finalmente arrivato il momento di usarli :-)
Ciao.

 tengono una flotta di spazzaneve per il caso imprevedibile che ...
ah sì?
Io all'aeroporto cairota c'ho visto solo una vecchia lavatrice rottamata
dentro al cui cestello avevano fatto il nido alcuni simpatici volatili che
cercavano casa....
Carino devo dire.
Mette allegria.
Non rassicura molto sulla modernità della manutenzione di locali, ma mette
di buon umore.
A.


Allora avevo ragione di dubitare.
Ciao.