As Arab leaders renew the peace plan of 2002 and, in a notable departure from the general indifference to the seminal issues of the Middle East during the last six years of the Bush presidency, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visits the region at shorter and shorter intervals, one thinks of the role of the Quartet as another potential instrument of removing hurdles in the path of peace and security. More specifically, one wonders about the contribution that the European Union (EU) should make by virtue of its historical ties and future plans.
The EU has had a complex interaction between those who prioritize a collective commercial policy and those who believe that time has come also for a unified foreign policy. Regardless of the hierarchy of objectives, the fact remains that EU aims at a free trading area by 2010 with the Mediterranean region “including the Arab countries around the southern and eastern Mediterranean plus Israel and the Palestinian territories”. The candid question is if the EU has lived up to its high calling and if it would, in the days ahead, show greater resolve to dispel the misgivings that it does not even have the desire to act as an independent partner of the United States in the Middle East. In other words, is the EU ready to assume a global role that has been visualized in a string of high-level conferences in search of a European security and defence policy? As far back as 1974, a declaration stated that “Europe must unite and increasingly speak with one voice if it wants to make itself heard and play its proper role in the world”.
The European Union sustains an economic, political and cultural project of immense importance. At 450 million, the population of the EU exceeds the combined population of the United States and Russia. EU produces one fourth of the global wealth. Trade and investment flow across the Atlantic at the average rate of a billion euros per day. These and numerous other statistics alone entitle it a pre-eminent role in world affairs.
No less important, there has been an expectation within the EU and outside it that its distinctive voice should strengthen the normative basis of international affairs.
Its great civilization has taken a millennium to overcome its own internecine conflicts; the lessons drawn by it from two horrific world wars both of which began in Europe should make it the torchbearer of international law and legitimacy of state conduct. In the specific context of the core problem of the Middle East, the EU is globally expected to be less constrained than the United States by the powerful pro-Israel lobbies.
The creation of the State of Israel, its refusal to fix its frontiers, four decades (1967-2007) of Jewish colonization of the West Bank, and the concurrent Judaization of Jerusalem constitute a seamless whole the roots of which are buried in the past policies of Great Britain and France. This historical background translates not only into a moral responsibility but also into superior insights required to put together a just and viable solution. Regrettably the last two years or so have seen only a feeble expression of EU’s collective wisdom; it has so far failed to leave a clearer and stronger stamp on strategic decision-making on the regional issues.
Opinions were and would eternally remain divided on the Western refusal to accept the outcome of a free election that brought Hamas to power. Much of the world has not endorsed the sustained campaign to make it collapse under the weight of measures that caused immense suffering to ordinary Palestinians. Be it as it may, Arab pragmatism and statesmanship, manifest in the Makkah accord between Fatah and Hamas and in the Riyadh summit, have eliminated the pretexts by which Israel stalls resumption of the peace process and by which the “international community” tolerates the siege of the Palestinian people.
The Arab initiative has clarity and finality; it does not, like the Quartet documents, dissolve in vague, misty formulations. It provides a solid basis for a two-state solution. Israel cannot pretend that it has no negotiating partner; the national unity government is a perfect interlocutor. Hamas has pledged to show respect for past agreements. International law, conventions and the art of international negotiations all uphold the view that Israel has no right to coerce the Palestinians or Syrians into meeting aims of its various wars prior to a dialogue for a final settlement.
History decrees that Europe should recognize this moment as the point of departure from a monolithic repudiation of the Palestinian right of self-determination. Henceforth, it should speak with a united voice to the United States and Israel to bring about a just settlement. Given the opportunity, Israel will protest for a long time to come that the Middle East disputes are not ripe for solution. The international community cannot continue to show indulgence of the wild fantasies of the Israeli extremists. The European Union should not use the putative internal strain between a new Europe led by a dogmatic Atlanticist UK and the old Europe wedded to more intrinsic continental value systems as an alibi. It is time to stand up and be counted.
There is no doubt that once Europe rediscover itself and realizes that its destiny is not just to be an adjunct to a global empire, Europe will effortlessly become a global player.
— Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary and ambassador of Pakistan.
