European Parliament: East Jerusalem should be Palestinian capital
In a speech before the Knesset, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said he backs Obama's peace plan, and that negotiations are the 'only solution.'
By DPA Tags: 1967 borders Benjamin Netanyahu Gaza Knesset Jerusalem Jerusalem division East Jerusalem Israel settlementsThe European Parliament supports the creation of a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, its president said Wednesday. It embraced the vision for peace in the Middle East as outlined by U.S. President Barack Obama in a May 19 address in Washington, European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek said.
Addressing the Knesset in Jerusalem, Buzek however reiterated direct peace negotiations were the "only solution."
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European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek speaking in the Knesset, June 15 2011 |
| Photo by: AP |
In Ramallah on Tuesday, he said the parliament opposed Palestinian plans to seek United Nations recognition in September of their state in the West Bank and Gaza, without negotiating this with Israel.
The Palestinians have said negotiations with of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are conditional on a freeze of Israeli construction in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, fearing that settlements will continue to expand unchecked as talks crawl on indefinitely.
Washington and some European states, including Germany and Italy, are pressuring the Palestinians to put off the UN vote, and Israel to take steps that would help persuade them to do so.
"Israel has a fundamental right to exist," Buzek, who also devoted much of his speech to the Holocaust, told the Knesset. "Immediate progress in peace negotiations is more needed today than ever," he said. "We cannot afford the status quo."
But he backed the Palestinians on the issue of Jerusalem, explicitly saying East Jerusalem should become the capital of their state.
Netanyahu recently rejected dividing Jerusalem and an almost full Israeli withdrawal to the "indefensible" lines of before the 1967 war, when Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt.
Buzek, a 70-year-old Polish liberal-conservative, on Monday visited the Gaza Strip, where he urged Israel fully lift its blockade of the enclave.
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Action speaks louder than words!
No FU's or mass exodus of MK's? Why is there no word of his speech was received? LOL
The European Parliament is a mere yapping house without power. The members are bored and have then funny ideas. It is not a real Parliament like the one in Israel or the USA.
ROTFLMAO. On a more serious note, and without the hissy fits. "Buzek however reiterated direct peace negotiations were the "only solution." " I consider this to be a deceptive over simplification. Negotiation may be the preferred ultimate solution but the recognition of a Palestinian state by the UN in Sept is a sensible interim solution. Then and only then might that dunderhead Bibi understand that doing nothing is no longer an acceptable option. And there you have it impasse passed.
Israel's biggest trading partner says that it agrees with President Obama that a Palestinian State should be based on 1967 borders with agreed land swaps, with East Jerusalem as its capital. The EU is in a very good position to cause Israel severe economic difficulties if it doesn't comply with the wishes of the international community. Netanyahu and his ilk have not presented any peace initiatives and will leave Israel diplomatically isolated due to their intransigence. Israel deserves better, and contrary to the anti-semitic accusations leveled in some of these comments, the EU knows that and wll apply whatever pressure is necessary to save Israel from its own short-sightedness.
I am a white, mid-western, independent American. I have lost all respect for the nation of Israel. You bleed my country, you corrupt my congress. You have nuclear weapons. Please leave my country alone.
a capital which is the beating heart of Judaism and Israel for thousands of years. Trying to finish off what their parents started, eh?
The issue of Jerusalem as the eternal, indivisible capital of Israel, comprising the Arab-populated East Jerusalem as well, has always made me feel shy and inadequate. What is it that makes me incapable of understanding the big, lofty logic of this assertion? I love Israel, I love Jerusalem, I am as Jewish as you can be and feel, and yet, that idea always escaped me. But since it was declared so often and pompously, I imagined something must be very wrong with me. I must be an am haaretz (an ignoramous). I figured that since I never experienced the Jordanian siege, the misery of 1948 - 1967, when Jews couldn't reach the Old City with all its Jewish holy sites, it's my fault. But then, I thought, that tragic past doesn't have to return: Why does East Jerusalem, as the capital of Palestine, which is inhabited by Arabs, their markets and mosques, has to thwart Israel's every right to the Old City? Why does indivisible have to mean Israeli sovereignty over the 300 thousand Arabs (is the figure right?) as well? Why would Israel want to have an open gate for the terrorists into Israel, as opposed to the WAQF arrangement, and grant the Arab East Jerusalemites their being part of Palestine, not Israel? Isn't it what Lieberman outrageously wants for Umm-el-Fahm anyway? What about King David gets lost in such an arrangement? What is so terrible about Arabs being in the East and Jews in the West? Granted. It is complicated, and the line is blurred and snakes its way at best. Granted, Gilo, the Hebrew University and so on, are east. But what about the overwhelmingly Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem having contiguity with Palestine would be so terrible, devastating catastrophic? I study, I read, I have been in Jerusalem and seen it. But I still fail to see why? Can anybody tell me what's wrong with my understanding?
And there's NOTHING wrong with your view, which is pragmatic and based on realities that exist, and will continue to exist.
But if you can't do that, no more mention of "counterproductivve" and "negotiations are only solution".
Left-wing keep denying that classical antisemitism is behind Europe. Yet there's only one possible reason for trying to force Israel out of Jerusalem: the "Wandering Jew" as a proof that deicide accusations are correct. Jerusalem being part of Israel symbolizes the fact that Jew have a state - contradicting this paradigm. But our left-wing will go blindly following antisemitic Europe, just to feel closer a major cultural center. Instead of developing their own culture and standing on their own literally, they fall in the antisemitic trap like often before. They might feel "in" but they are absolutely spineless.
Who needs a calculator ? The Arabs had ..... days and as many nights to establish their state and have East Jerusalem as their capital between 1948 and June 4 th.1967 but they did not! Why? because if they only dared utter the word independence the Egyptians and Jordanians would hang them !!! Poles ougt to establish Auschwitz as their eternal capital as a gesture of seeking forgiveness for the thousands upon thousands of Poles who helped the Germans wipe their Jewish neighboors out !!!
Forecast of September vote at the UN General Assembly: Palestine 187, Israel 5 (max). Let's see how many friends you have Netanyahu!
Why should Israeli PM take care of what Buzek says? You possibly believe that Europe is still a center of world entitled to give order to "inferior" nations.
It seems very likely that you are under illusion that United States/ Congress are the centre of the world who pussy footy on behalf of Israeli govt giving orders to other nations ( I wouldn't call them "inferior" nations) because no one is inferior in the eyes of GOD. For information those days have long gone when countries like the USA/ Israel gave orders to under developed countries. It's not Arab Awakening, but the World awakening from hypocrites.
If as you say European ' opinion' is not taken seriously by Israel or United States, then why may I ask has Israeli foreign ministry asked all of their Embassies abroad to seek urgent meetings with respective countries to oppose unilateral Palestinian move at the UN. It proves that Israel is taking their opinion seriously because of the fear of loosing the battle at the UN. Not Long before Israeli PM is humiliated at the UN
Israel cannot consent to the creation of a state whose declared purpose is the destruction of Israel. "All the rest is commentary".
It's as plain and simple as that.
Hmm...well Europe & America like to feel good about themselves, I think a huge problem they have no confronted is the fact that they, or should I say we, still believe we are the ones who do and must call the shots. Still the ones decided who gets a state, where, and why. Unfortunately, despite the good intentions of Obama and Buzek, they are still living in the 19th century paradigm. It's time to realize than the "other," non-European have just as much, nay, more say in the fate of the world than just the United States and the European Union. That is to say, mind your own business.
Europeans already showed how the treated Jews in their midst...Thank you but thank you.... Now the same twisted minds trying to dictate Israel how to develop their country and where to have their Capital. Open the Bible you moron and read that Jerusalem is the Capital of the Jewish State of Israel!!! Obama is a one term president anyhow. Soon he will move on and someone with more sense of reality will take over....
They say that if you don't study history to learn from past mistakes, these mistakes will simply be repeated over and over again. Didn't the Europeans learn anything from the division of Berlin?
They won't rest until they have destroyed the Jewish state, again.
That was a dividion between Germans and Germans. hardly an analogy ...
Is it that it's unjust to build a separation in Jerusalem dividing the West-Jerusalem Jews and the ... ehhh... East Jerusalem Jews, right? You will learn anything from history when you will learn a thing about method: discern parallels.
Gilad - first!
How about the East Wing of the Vatican forming part of Israel's acquisition ? My advice to the Europeans is: to stick their noses in their butts.
Go to Northern Ireland Michael, it's full of the Irish.
Prior to 1947 Trans Jordon controlled Eastern Jerusalem but never ever referred to it as their capital city. The ancient capital city was Petra and today Amman. During the war of independence Jordon attempted to take all of Jerusalem but failed. Eastern Jerusalem became a wasteland and was used as a garbage dump for the Jordanians/Palestinians. It was not their capital as they would have taken pride in it . THEY DID NOT. It is only because Israel recaptured all of Jerusalem that the Palestinians want it. the same way they want Haifa,Tel Aviv, etc etc.
Way back on March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee member Za-hir Muh-sein. Here’s what he said: The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. Palestinian people do not exist For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan. So why is it again the Eu wants to give away jerusalem to a people that do not exist
It was the capital of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. How about that?
Let´s divide and be happy. What´s the big deal?
There used to be a wall dividing Jerusalem, during the period of the illegal Jordanian occupation. Jordanian snipers used to target ordinary civilians in West Jerusalem going about their lawful occasions. I suppose this deal makes you happy, Alterman.
Jews living in Arab lands? Like the settlements in the West Bank?
who is he to say and what does he know?! how dare he stand before the knesset and talk against a clear policy stated by the israeli gov.
Just like Netanyahu stood before the American Congress and told American NO five times.
Are you talking about the palestinian houses they now live in ?
Is tell the Palestinians to stop playing silly and childish games and to start talking to Israel.
About what. Please enlighten as Netanyahu the transparent joke he is has made it clear there is absolutely nothing of substance to be negotiated.
No one would be able to convince you of anything other than your opinion. But as committed you are to your opinion, there is considerable factual evidence that points to Palestinian obstruction to negotiations. The 10 month settlement freeze that Israel initiated led nowhere. Only at the end of the 10 months did the Palestinians demand a further freeze but still wouldn't talk. It is so easy for you to sit and complain and think of yourself as an expert, but their are facts and realities that contradict your outlook on life.
Jerusalem is not up for grabs. When you realise that, eventually the Arabs will.
Next, they'll ask for Tel Aviv (Jaffa, of course!) and Haifa. You can't randomly determine that East Jerusalem - whatever one considers to be East Jerusalem - to be a Palestinian capital. Rammallah's been functioning as their capital quite well over the past decade, thank you.
there is the difference between the two. Palestinians ask, Israelis take, then cry foul at any criticism.
greetings from europe !
Europe has a proven history of mismanaging conflict and being completely inept. 2 World Wars, Balkan Conflict, Turkish Occupation of Northern Cyrpus, Russian Invasion of Georgia, the list goes on. Europe should put its own house in order, it is not at all experienced in conflict resolution among its own members, let alone in the Middle East where treaties mean nothing if they contradict allegiances to tribes and clans
And you do cite Georgia and "Northern Cyrpus". Are you putting to the same pocket also the "2 world wars" when the European states were no more linked than EU and the US today? Did you do geography and history in American public school? Are you taking credit for the US because of its military doctrine according to which the American wars should (and in fact have been) fought overseas? Forget the American management of the conflicts, talk about the post-WWII conflicts around the globe which the US simply instigated, perpetrated or supported. Check out Cipora's posts, she takes credit for the Americans for having zero antisemitism during the pre-Columbian times. May the Manifest Destiny Force be with you, you space cad.
It's easy to make these statements.
Gibraltar to the Spanish, British forces withdraw from their unwanted presence in Cyrus, somehow or other boot the Turkish off of Northern Cyprus, oh yes, and give the Scottish people their complete independence from hundreds of years of colonial occupation and exploitation by the English !
But if made by Europe or by Israel still carries a different weight - and besides, all inhabitants of said territories have full civil rights, which makes the most important difference.
And Tibet, may the Chinese keep it?