The EU presidency gave Ireland the chance to advance the Arab cause and draw attention to Israel's crimes. Instead we did nothing, argues Raymond Deane.
It is time to consider what has been achieved on the Israel/ Palestine front during the six months of Ireland's EU presidency. Ireland has a reputation as being the most pro-Palestinian state within the EU, at least since Brian Lenihan defined Irish policy in this regard a generation ago: briefly, an insistence that the Israeli occupation is illegal, and that Israel's actions within the territories are governed by the fourth Geneva Convention.
This is a minimalist position, but one unpalatable to Israel and to countries such as Germany and Holland, bent on repaying their moral debt to the Jewish people by scapegoating the Palestinians.
While the hearts of most of our politicians may well be with the Palestinians, realpolitik rules. Our economy is dependent equally on the EU and the US. Within the EU, the UK, Germany and Holland push the American line. The US, far from being "an honest broker", is a co-belligerent on Israel's side.
A policy towards the Middle East maintaining the fiction that the US has any interest in a just peace has no foundation in reality. Early in the Irish EU presidency, pro-Palestinian NGOs from around Europe sought to enlist our Government to press its EU partners to suspend the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement.
This offers Israel trading privileges in return for compliance with Article 2, a "human rights clause" of which Israel is in flagrant breach.
At a meeting with NGO representatives on May 4th, the secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Dermot Gallagher, informed his guests that suspension of the agreement was inconceivable because "it would remove any possible influence we might have on Israel". However, the NGOs were assured that the so-called International Quartet (the UN, US, EU and Russia) would be issuing a statement that very day which would address many of their concerns.
The EU's alleged "influence" was graphically demonstrated a week later when Israel embarked upon Operation Rainbow, adding Rafah to the list of Palestinian massacre sites that includes Deir Yassin and Tantura, Sabra and Chatila, Jenin and Nablus, and which is unlikely to be closed in the near future.
The quartet's statement on May 4th reasserted the centrality of the "Road Map", and reiterated a call for the end of the Israeli occupation. However, the dominant "partner" in the quartet is the US. For this reason, it is hard to see the quartet as anything but a fig-leaf for US policy.
The "Road Map" itself suffers from the absence of any threat of enforcement of its terms should Israel choose (as it does) to violate them; and anyway, Israel has never fully accepted it in the first place.
The statement asserts the quartet's willingness "to engage with a responsible and accountable Palestinian leadership", calls for "a reorganised Palestinian Authority", and demands that "Palestinian security services should be restructured and retrained . . . under the auspices of an oversight committee led by the US", of all nations.
There is no concomitant call for "a responsible and accountable Israeli leadership" or "a reorganised Israeli government", or any suggestion that "an oversight committee" should ensure the restructuring and retraining of the Israeli army. Yet the regime in Israel is top-heavy with retired military men with little respect for democracy or human rights, primus inter pares being the convicted war criminal Ariel Sharon, while the Israeli army acts increasingly like a death squad.
This imbalance is the crux of the problem, and has its roots in the age-old colonial dualism that divides the world into Us and Them. Until comparatively recently, we Irish were similarly objectified by our colonial overlords and neighbours. It was this history that led many in the Third World to see us as an exception within the western consensus, and as natural allies. This undoubtedly explains the residual concern for Palestine manifest in our politicians' utterances.
However, we have made our choice: to become signed-up First-Worlders, to participate in the objectification and dehumanisation of the non-Western world. It is forgotten that whatever fragile peace reigns on this island at present is due to the implementation of an agreement that precludes the "politics of the latest atrocity" and the full-scale denial by one community of the rights and inherent humanity of another. That the UK and US should advocate such an agreement while backing Israel's crimes testifies to the perception that the Israelis, like the new Irish, are Us while the Palestinians are Them, hence bereft of the protection of international law.
Recently, the veteran Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery expressed outrage that the quartet accepted Mr Sharon's "revised disengagement plan", which includes the words: "Israel has come to the conclusion that at present, there is no Palestinian partner with whom it is possible to make progress."
"That is to say," writes Mr Avnery, "the international community has confirmed that the Palestinian people has no right to take part in the determination of its own fate . . . Now the quartet has accepted \, bringing shame on itself and obstructing the search for peace."
In pressing our EU partners to adopt policies that would actively defend these values, Ireland could have played a significant role in bringing peace to the Middle East. On this count, the Irish EU presidency was a disappointment.
Raymond Deane is chairman of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign