Middle East foes should join single market by 2005

Date: 12/06/03

By David Cronin

ISRAEL and a future Palestinian state should be in a single market with the EU by 2005 at the latest, a new European Parliament report urges.

Spanish Socialist MEP Emilio Menéndez del Valle, the report's author, believes a generous policy of sharing "everything but institutions" with the Union would help consolidate the peace which the recently published Middle East 'road-map' is designed to achieve.

His paper, considered by the Parliament's foreign affairs committee this week (10-11 June), says that as soon as a final peace treaty between the Israelis and Palestinians is signed, the two sides should have free trade and an open investment system with the Union. They should also use the euro, bring their laws into line with those of the EU, and, if both parties request it, take part in joint efforts against terrorism and organized crime.

Noting that international pressure has brought about reforms to the Palestinian Authority, he advocates that "if necessary, similar pressure be brought to bear on Israel" by the EU and other members of the Middle East 'quartet' (the US, UN and Russia) "to ensure that it meets its obligations under the road-map".

To create a viable Palestinian state, he urges that Israel should withdraw from the Golan Heights, West Bank, Gaza Strip and part of the old city in Jerusalem. The EU, he adds, should give technical assistance with the drafting of a constitution for a Palestinian state.

On the controversial issue of Jerusalem's future status, he urges that it be the dual capital of Israel and the Palestinian state, with an international legal statute giving the Israelis administrative power over areas historically having a Jewish majority and the Palestinians authority over areas originally hosting a Palestinian majority. Responsibility for the Christian, Jewish and Muslim places of worship in the city should be conferred to an international body appointed by the quartet, he argues, "if possible in agreement with the two parties in the conflict".

Menéndez del Valle calls on the Palestinian leadership to adopt a "realistic approach" to the future of the four-and-a-half million of their kinfolk living outside the Palestinian territories by acknowledging that not all refugees will be able to return if Israel's demographic concerns are to be addressed. Therefore, he urges that the EU and other members of the quartet provide assistance to those refugees willing to remain where they are at the moment.

The Spaniard gives a stark warning of what could happen if Israel and the quartet do not rally behind new Palestinian premier Mahmoud Abbas (widely known as Abu Mazen). Abbas, he points out, ranks fourth in popularity in Palestinian society - behind Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Authority president, Ahmed Yassin, spiritual leader of Hamas, and Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned head of the Fatah movement.

"The road-map is the West's last chance to gain credibility in the eyes of Arab and Islamic opinion," says Menéndez del Valle. "If it is brought down by the Israeli government's failure to meet its commitments, the chance for peace, dignity and stability in the region would be gone for a long time and in all likelihood Sheikh Yassin and Hamas would rise to the top of the popularity polls."