It is time to give peace a chance

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17.10.2024 Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the European Commission

HRVP Blog - A new cycle of violence has engulfed the entire Middle East. Despite the major repercussions of these wars for the EU, we have largely been unable to influence the course of events in the region due to our lack of unity. But Europe has a responsibility - and interest - to help Palestinians and Israelis move from mutual rejection to mutual recognition.

© European Union, 2024

The anniversary of the 7 October terrorist attack on Israel took place in the context of an ongoing escalation on several fronts and the region is on the brink of an all-out war. A new cycle of violence, hatred, and revenge is increasingly engulfing the entire Middle East. Despite these events having enormous repercussions for the European Union, we have unfortunately been largely unable to influence the course of events due to our lack of unity.

In discussions with Members of the European Parliament, I have outlined the five dimensions within which EU foreign policy currently has to navigate:

1. Israel has a right and duty to protect its citizens

As former Defence Minister Gantz recently wrote, Israel's trauma extends beyond the events of 7 October 2023. It covers not only the 1,200 dead and 250 hostages, of whom around 100 are still held captive, but also the immediate Hezbollah attack on northern Israel, forcing 70,000 Israelis to leave their homes.
Additionally there were also Iran's attacks - first on 13 April and then on 1 October, forcing millions of Israelis into bomb shelters. We have immediately, and repeatedly condemned these attacks in the strongest possible terms and recognised Israel's right and duty to defend and protect its citizens against terrorist attacks. Israel cannot look to its future without ensuring that 7 October will never be repeated.

2. Every right has its limits

However, like any right, the inherent right to defend oneself against attacks has its limits. We cannot ignore the fact that 7 October was also the beginning of other tragedies and horrors. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the course of Israel's military retaliation; almost 100,000 Palestinians have been injured, 60 % of the buildings in the enclave destroyed.

Kamala Harris recently stated that "no food has entered northern Gaza in nearly 2 week". Almost the entire population of Gaza is displaced and malnourished, humanitarian access has reached a new low, famine and disease are spreading. Almost everything that makes a society function has been reduced to rubble. There is a right to self-defence, but there is no right to revenge.

We are now increasingly seeing Israel replicating this conduct of war in the West Bank and Lebanon. In the West Bank, which is under illegal occupation and where illegal settlers have been spreading terror among local communities with total impunity, we are now witnessing Israeli airstrikes and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

The bombing of the Tulkarem refugee camp, killing 18 people, was the deadliest in the occupied West Bank in two decades. The disproportionate manner in which Israel has been operating in Gaza does not bode well for the protection of civilians in the West Bank and Lebanon. It has to stop.

3. Delivering humanitarian assistance

The European Union has been providing over € 330 million humanitarian assistance to Gaza in 2023 and 2024. We have sent more than 60 flights in our humanitarian airlift and have activated our Civil Protection Unit more than ten times since 7 October. Together with the Member States, we are the largest donors of humanitarian aid to Gaza.

However, this humanitarian aid must be distributed on the ground. UNRWA is the only UN agency able to provide essential services to millions of Palestinians in Gaza at the required scale. Across the region, it delivers food, shelter, and healthcare to a majority of Gaza's population and over 650,000 children attend its schools.

The draft bill on banning UNRWA, currently discussed in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, is very alarming. If passed, it may bring down the humanitarian response in Gaza and would have disastrous consequences for the civilian population of the enclave and of the West Bank.

Banning the very organisation that ensures that Palestine refugees receive quality education and healthcare will only worsen an already tense situation, with negative consequences not only for Palestinians, but also for Israel and eventually Europe.

4. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict needs a political solution

What we need most urgently now is a ceasefire and the return of a political process, in Gaza as well as in Lebanon. No military action alone can bring a safe future to the people of the region. No military action can be legitimate in the absence of any attempt at finding a political solution to the conflict that caused it. Only a political settlement will bring security and peace.

However, never before has been so little prospect for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We all know the parameters for resolving this conflict. The international community has backed it many times, overwhelmingly: it is the establishment of a state for each of the two peoples. One state already exists, a strong state with immense military and economic capacity. The other does not.

Unfortunately, this solution - the only one we know that could bring peace - does not have the support of one of the most critical parties to the conflict: the current Israeli government.

Yet, this should not stop us from preparing a better future. This is why, in September, on the sidelines of the last UN General Assembly, I launched together with Prince Faisal from Saudi Arabia and Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide from Norway a Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. A total of 90 UN Member States and intergovernmental organisations and almost 60 foreign ministers from around the world attended.

This Global Alliance will serve as an umbrella, under which each participant will contribute to incentivise the implementation of the two-state solution. This ranges from the 'unprecedented package of political, economic and security support' that the EU promised already eleven years ago, to support for Palestinian state-building, contributions to regional security, or a concrete plan for regional cooperation. We will organise in coming weeks a series of working meetings, starting in Riyadh and Brussels.

We also need to foster dialogue between the civil societies of Israel, Palestine, and Europe. We have already convened three such meetings. On 27 October, we will do so again in Barcelona, within the framework of the Union for the Mediterranean.

It may seem naïve to think that, after so much confrontation, so much pain, and so much hatred, it might be possible to build bridges between these two peoples. But as Yitzhak Rabin told us, "You don't make peace with friends. You make it with your enemies". I believe it is Europe's responsibility - and interest - to help both peoples move from mutual rejection to mutual recognition.

5. We must avoid further regional escalation

We cannot abandon Lebanon. It was already a deeply destabilized country. Additionally, the Israeli ground invasion already killed 2,500 Lebanese and has displaced 20% of the population, a total of 1,2 million people. Lebanon has been threatened to be "turned into a second Gaza". This new war has already created tremendous human suffering and could at any moment spread in the whole region.

The EU has already mobilised €40 million in humanitarian aid to assist those affected and will continue to work relentless towards a ceasefire, supporting the mediation efforts led by France and the United States. However, without a strong commitment to political reform from the Lebanese political class there is no long-term solution for Lebanon. It is on them to take control of the state and lead. This must begin with the election of a President of the Republic, a process, which has been stalled for more than two years.

The Lebanese army must return to southern Lebanon. The UNSC Resolution 1701 provides the legal framework for this redeployment. Through the European Peace Facility, we are currently helping the Lebanese Army build the capacity it needs to protect the country's borders.

With the shelling of UNFIL units - and wounding of four soldiers - the Israel Defence Forces have crossed a red line. All 27 EU Member States have condemned it, nobody is asking for UNFIL to withdraw. In the future, UNIFIL should be given a stronger mandate to ensure peace at the border.
Israel needs to withdraw from Lebanese territory. Israel has already invaded Lebanon three times: in 1978, from 1982 to 2000, and in 2006. Each time, these tactical victories have evolved at the end of the day in strategic defeats for Israel.

Even within Israel's own security establishment, some have argued that these invasions not only failed to make Israel safer, they destabilised Israel's northern border and strengthened Hezbollah. What would make anybody believe that another military occupation will yield largely different results?
History has shown that there are no military solutions to the deeply rooted conflicts in the Middle East - not in Gaza, not in the West Bank, not in Lebanon. Peace is the only long-term security guarantee.

Israel's peace agreements with Jordan and Egypt have demonstrated this for decades. They should serve as blueprints, including with a Palestinian state. It is time to give peace a chance.