IRELAND: Terrorist attacks are being prevented and the security barrier is achieving its purpose, Israel's Foreign Minister tells Deaglán de Bréadún
It takes two to tango. This was the message of Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Silvan Shalom, speaking at the Israeli Embassy in Dublin yesterday.
It was now more than four months since a meeting had first been mooted between Israel's Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon and his Palestinian counterpart Mr Ahmed Qurie/Abu Ala. But still the encounter had not taken place.
When I interviewed the Palestinian Prime Minister during his Dublin visit earlier this month he said he was not prepared to hold a meeting with Mr Sharon until the agenda was agreed. He did not want the two sides to emerge afterwards criticising each other.
Mr Shalom is not impressed by this argument. "We can't achieve a peace treaty in one meeting," he says. He questions Mr Abu Ala's commitment to the process and claims the Palestinian Prime Minister is trying to "abandon" the Roadmap for a settlement proposed by the international community, particularly the commitment to dismantle the infrastructure of the Palestinian terrorist organisations.
"It doesn't look like he is willing to take the strategic decision, that is why he doesn't want to resume the negotiations. He believes that if we will do it, he will be under pressure from the international community to implement their commitments. That's what he is not willing to do."
He accuses Mr Abu Ala of being determined to please President Yasser Arafat, at the expense of the peace process: "I personally think for a long time now that while Arafat is there, there is no chance for a moderate Palestinian leadership to emerge. I believe it exists, but they are frightened, they are afraid to find themselves dead in one of the caves."
Readers will not be surprised that Mr Shalom does not hold the Palestinian President in high esteem: "I believe Arafat is the only Palestinian in the world who is not willing to have an independent Palestinian state. He believes that if he will end this conflict there will be no reason for the Palestinians to leave him in his position as their leader. He's only the leader of the struggle, not the leader of the peace.
"He would like to be mentioned in the Palestinian history as the one that was never willing to compromise."
He claims that inaction by the Palestinian Authority leaders acts a "green light" to terrorists to attack Israel.
Israel's critics want it to pull down the barrier it has built, ostensibly to prevent terrorist attacks. Some call it a wall, but to Mr Shalom it is simply a fence and he is quite clear where the responsibility lies.
The fence was built in response to a total of 19,000 terrorist attacks since the start of the latest intifada in September 2000: "No other country would act differently." He knows where he wants to point the finger of blame: "The architect of the fence is the terror." When his Palestinian counterpart Dr Nabil Shaath was here last month he said there would be no problem with the fence if it were built within the 1967 border.
"It's a security fence, not a political fence," says Mr Shalom. The purpose of the fence was to prevent terrorist attacks and it was achieving that purpose: "The fence works. Every place we build this fence, there is a huge decline in the number of terrorist attacks."
Israel is unhappy that the UN General Assembly has referred the issue of the barrier to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. "It is not the appropriate place."
He was "very encouraged" to find out that over 32 democratic countries were against this procedure, including the US, Russia, Britain and France."
Ireland's national position is somewhat more critical of Israel than the stance taken by the EU as a whole, but Mr Shalom plays down the issue: "Among friends, we can agree to disagree." Mr Shalom had just come from a "very good" breakfast meeting with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, representing Ireland's EU presidency.
"Europe should play a key role," says Mr Shalom. "I believe they should be involved and play a key role in the peace process. I feel they are trying to have a more balanced attitude."
At a press conference after yesterday's meeting, Mr Cowen said: "I stressed the urgent need for action by both sides, starting with small, concrete and visible steps drawn from the Roadmap. An early meeting between the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers should also take place."
Diplomatic sources said Mr Cowen urged the Israeli Government to revive the work of the joint security committees established between the two sides, as these had been used before to monitor the implementation of mutual undertakings. He told Mr Shalom in the meeting: "We need a process to test the willingness to engage." The Middle East will be on the agenda when Mr Cowen travels to Washington at the head of an EU delegation for a meeting with the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell.