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I promised you the speech that I held in Strasbourg, in the Assembly of Council of Europe. Here it comes. I also met mr. Abdullah and mr. Kreishe from the Palestinian Legislative Councel, who held a speech also.
\nWe had a good talk and agreed on many things.
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\n![070511verhuizing-354.jpg](\"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/070511verhuizing-354.jpg\")
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For the message on the international website of the Socialist Party, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The situation in the Middle East<\/p>\n Mister Chairman, dear friends,<\/p>\n I start with my conclusion. If the assembly of the Council of Europe wants to have a role in supporting a solution for the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, we should start by being scrupulously fair and just about the standards that we apply to both sides. As parliamentarians we should insist that the 41 Palestinian parlementarians – one third of the Legislative Council – who are now locked up ion Israeli prisons are released. Just imagine how we would react if one third of the members of the Knesset were abducted by Palestinians. <\/p>\n I speak for the Group of the Unified European Left, but most of all I speak as close observer of the situation. I have been working in the Gazastrip for twelve years. I work for an organisation for disabled people -the National Center for Community Regabilitation (NCCR) – and after the hopeful years following the Oslo accord I have seen with my own eyes how the situation in the Palestinian territories has worsened. Some 80% of the population is now living under the poverty line. The situation became more disastrous after the sanctions taken by the European governments, including unfortunately my own government. <\/p>\n We appreciate the effort of the rapporteur, mr. Margelov, and the Political Committee, to write a report that addresses both sides of the issue, but there is still room to become more even-handed. Let us take the well-known three demands that are repeated in the report for Palestinian leaders to renounce violence, recognize the state of Israel within secure internationally recognized borders and comply with past agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Apart from the fact that there is no agreement in Israel itself or internationally about where the borders of Israel are, do we ask Israel to recognize the rights of the Palestinians to self-determination and to a state that is economically independent and that has its own safe borders controlled by its own authorities? I do not see that in the report.<\/p>\n Do we ask only Palestine to comply with the past agreements?Have we forgotten that Israel has not for one moment stopped the illegal building of settlements and the appropriation af Palestinian land, until this day?<\/p>\n If we rightly condemn the shooting of Kassam rockets, why do we not condemn the military attacks that recently wiped out a family of 16 members in Beit Lahiya? Is the difference based on the fact that Kassam rockets are launched by amateurs and that the weapons that killed the family are used by an official army? Do we ask Israel to stop the daily violence against Palestinians and the illegal \u2018targetted’ killings that usually create many victims among civilians as well? <\/p>\n Let me state a few facts. During this last year, 27 Israelis were killed by Palestinians and most of them were soldiers. Some 583 Palestinian civilians, including children were killed, and this number does not include fighters. <\/p>\n The report asks for the release of one Israeli soldier who is kept in Gaza. It asks the other side only for the release of parliamentarians and Ministers. Why does the report not ask for the release of 11 000 political prisoners, including 500 children, who are held in Israeli prisons? Many of them under administrative detention, which means that they have not been charged, are not subject to legal process, and do not know when they will be released. Is it not our task to worry about torture, which has been well documented by the Israeli organisation Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) ? Palestinians are abducted daily. Last week, 29 Palestinians were abducted, including one child; the week before 37 Palestinians were abducted, including five children. This year, 860 Palestinians have so far been abducted, and it is only april. <\/p>\n It would take an hour to continue the list of serious violations against human rights, the treatment of prisoners, the collective punishments, the withholding of medical care, the destruction of houses and trees, and I could talk another hour about the traumatisation of most of the children in Gaza, or the people who have to live with a serious handicap \u2013 usually the dead are counted, the people with disabilities causes by military violence are not. I am very glad that the representative from Switzerland has already mentioned many aspects of the situation. We should work more closely with human righst organisations – Israeli, Palestinian and international. They can supply us with well documented reports on all the facts that should have been in this report to make it really even-handed.<\/p>\n Let me conclude by saying that it is high time that we acknowledge the unified national government of the Palestinians, which now represens almost 95% of the Palestinian population, and talk with them. It is not up to us to decide which part of this government we deem fit as a partner. We do not have to agree with Hamas to deal with them, as the chosen representatives of a large part of the Palestinian people. In fact, for people who have been observing the situation well, Hamas has changed their policy from armed resistance to working on a political strategy, working within the framework of a starting democracy that has to grow under very hard conditions. I salute the Norwegians who were the first to grasp the need for us to work with the Palestinian government, and I deplore the fact that the Dutch government is still of mixed feelings and drags its feet.<\/p>\n If we, of the Council of Europe, want to be taken seriously as defenders of human rights and democratic values by countries outside of Europe, the first thing we must do is take seriously the human rights of the Palestinian people. We should set the right example to all the countries in the world, including Israel and Palestine, by being completely fair, just and even-handed.<\/p>\n Thank you for your attention.`<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I promised you the speech that I held in Strasbourg, in the Assembly of Council of Europe. Here it comes. I also met mr. Abdullah and mr. Kreishe from the Palestinian Legislative Councel, who held a speech also. We had … Lees verder
\nApril 19, 2007
\nAnja Meulenbelt, Netherlands, Unified European Left (UEL)<\/p>\n![070511verhuizing-312.jpg](\"https:\/\/www.anjameulenbelt.nl\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/05\/070511verhuizing-312.jpg\")
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