On Nov. 16 President Jacques Chirac of France crossed over the border to attend a summit with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in the Catalan city of Girona. At a news conference after their meeting Zapatero unveiled a joint five-point peace initiative on the Arab-Israel issue. Italy is also taking part.
Curiously, the British Foreign Office had no prior knowledge, and let it be known that it had first heard of it from the BBC.
President Chirac, Prime Minister Zapatero and Prime Minister Romano Prodi of Italy, all of whose countries border the Mediterranean and are long-standing members of the European Union, seem to have been spurred to action by a vote taken in the UN Security Council on Nov. 11. The council had been debating a resolution that condemned the Israel Army for the attack in Beit Hanoun, which had killed 19 sleeping people. As so often happens when Israel is concerned, the United States cast a veto. France supported the resolution and declared it was “balanced”. To my shame, I read the United Kingdom abstained, no doubt on the orders of Prime Minister Tony Blair, who never wishes to embarrass his friend President George Bush in anyway.
Prime Minister Zapatero said to the press:
“We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes. Violence has reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community. Someone has to take the first move.”
President Chirac explained:
“When I arrived, (Mr.) Zapatero said to me: ‘We have the same vision of problems and concerns over the Middle East and particularly Palestine. We should take a common initiative.’ Our three countries have the sensitivity, the same interests, and the same morals, and maybe we can play a part in working out a solution to the Palestinian problem and putting it into action.” The president’s remarks certainly suggest this was an off-the-cuff move: I would not condemn it for being so. Summits provide the opportunity for spontaneous reactions to events and personal preferences.
It is good that three such top and active people are deeply shocked by the brutality of the Israeli occupation and repression. In Rome Prime Minister Romano Prodi said the initiative was:
“A series of actions aimed at achieving concrete results in a situation where suffering has reached intolerable levels”. Significantly he added the initiative would use “as its starting point” the presence of international troops in the UN force in Lebanon.
According to Brian Whitaker in The Guardian (Nov. 17):
“The plan announced yesterday has five components: An immediate cease-fire; formation of a national unity government by the Palestinians that can gain international recognition; an exchange of prisoners, including the Israeli soldiers whose seizure sparked the war in Lebanon and fighting in Gaza this summer; talks between Israel’s prime minister and Palestinian president; and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a cease-fire.”
This seems to me to be an admirably professional list of headings.
France, together with the United States, took the leading role in obtaining a difficult international agreement on the fighting in Lebanon (UNSCR 1701 of Aug, 11). It commands the UN peacekeeping force and is dispatching some 2,000 soldiers to the Lebanon. (In October 1983, 58 French peacekeepers died in a suicide bombing in Beirut, which has acted as a brake on the French government in 2006.)
Both Spain and Italy have been prepared to put their shoulders to the wheel and have their troops as part of the UN contingent in the Lebanon. Britain excused itself on the grounds it is (hopelessly) overstretched in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Security Council has called for Hezbollah to be disarmed. France, Spain and Italy will have made it clear that this is impossible at present.
The next European Union summit is in December and Spain, France and Italy will be putting forward their plan and seeking support for it. On Nov. 16 the British Foreign Office said diplomatically “We look forward to discussing it with EU partners when it is put forward”. Germany, for historic reasons, is loath to upset Israel, and it will be important to obtain German support before the summit.
There will be a feeling within the 25-strong European Union that this is just the moment for the union to take a more positive role and attempt to reconstruct a peace process. Following the midterm election results in the United States, and President Bush’s very obvious failures in Iraq, and his problems with Iran, it is no good leaving matters to the White House.
However, if President Bush does not have a stern private talk with Prime Minster Ehud Olmert we shall not get very far.
