january 2005

PALESTINE AND THE EU CONSTITUTION

Raymond Deane

For the Palestinians, the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion of July 9th 2004 was last year's most hopeful event. Not alone did the ICJ find that Israel's construction of a separation wall was illegal, but it opined that "all States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall..., not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction..., [and] to see to it that any impediment, resulting from the construction of the wall, to the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end."

Many pro-Palestinian campaigners believed that this decision would deprive the European Union of its last excuse for not suspending its Association Agreement with Israel, which grants that country substantial trading privileges supposedly contingent on its observance of human rights.

In the half year since the ICJ's advisory opinion and the subsequent UN General Assembly resolution supporting it, Israel has continued to construct its wall, "the illegal situation resulting from" this construction has worsened, and "the exercise by the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination" seems further away than ever. The Palestinian presidential election that was to have reasserted that right has been rendered meaningless by Israeli interference and gerrymandering, and by massive canvassing by the West on behalf of its favoured candidate.

The European Union's ineradicable hypocrisy may be gauged from an article in the Israeli paper Haaretz (21st December 2004) in which Benita Ferrero-Waldner, EU commissioner for External Relations, rejoices that "...we have managed to strike a deal that brings concrete benefits to us both, and draws Israel closer to the EU than ever before." This deal is the inclusion of Israel in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which strengthens the economic ties already embodied in the Association Agreement, and will enable Israel "to benefit more immediately than some of our other partners, since it has a functioning market economy". She omits to mention that, under the stewardship of finance minister Netanyahu, this model economy now entails such innovations as food parcels and soup kitchens for starving Israelis.

"The EU and Israel... " she continues, "will strengthen our cooperation... on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Since Israel is the only state in the region known to possess such weapons - in huge numbers - it is unclear just what form such cooperation will take, although we can be pretty sure Israel will continue to be exempted from the requirements of "non-proliferation". Lest we be in any doubt, we are reminded that "The EU and Israel... share the same values of democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law and basic freedoms", an assertion established by fiat, and requiring no facts to back it up.

At this point, let's refresh our memories. Israel is in violation of more UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country. It illegally occupies Palestinian territories, builds illegal colonies on them, and ignores the Fourth Geneva Convention which - as the ICJ advisory opinion re-emphasized - applies within them. It holds untold numbers of Palestinians, many of them children, under "administrative detention", i.e. internment without trial. Human rights organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch (USA) and B'tselem (Israel) regularly deplore Israel's continued use of torture and the indiscipline and impunity of its trigger-happy and occasionally intoxicated soldiers.

So was Ms Ferrero-Waldner engaging in diplomatic hyperbole, aimed at cajoling Israel into relaxing the merciless brutality with which it pursues its neo-colonial aims? I believe, on the contrary, that her words are to be taken entirely at face value, reflecting as they do a shared if tacit agreement on the subservience of human rights to power and profit.

The proposed EU constitution describes the Union as "an area of freedom, security and justice..., and an internal market where competition is free and undistorted" (article I-3/2). "In its relations with the wider world, the Union shall uphold and promote its values and interests. It shall contribute to peace, security,... free and fair trade..." (article 1-3/4). Significantly, "values" and "interests" are always juxtaposed, and "free trade" and "competition" never far away.

Israeli and US politicians tend to use similar language, the latter liking to add a reference to "freedom", the defence of which requires such "areas of security and justice" as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Germany's Chancellor Schroeder backs Vladimir Putin's excesses in Chechnya, mindful of Germany's massive gas imports from Russia. EU governments compete to deport undesirable aliens to countries where they will almost certainly be tortured or murdered. Tony Blair could not bring himself to lay a wreath at wicked Yasser Arafat's grave, but dismissed a British diplomat who dared criticize Blair's Uzbek ally Islam Karimov for boiling his opponents in oil. Tunisian president Ben-Ali, whose Association Agreement with the EU dates, like Israel's, from 1995, becomes yearly more despotic and yearly more accustomed to red carpet treatment in Paris and Washington.

Clearly our shared "respect for human rights" is highly selective. It is, furthermore, entirely illusory to believe that there exists a genuine - rather than merely stylistic - political difference on the question of Palestine between the EU and the USA.

As I write, preparations are under way for the fifth World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The Global Justice movement engendered by these forums is going from strength to strength. While the EU and the USA, with their worship of competition and so-called "free trade", seek to ally themselves ever more closely with Israel in the interests of turning the "greater Middle East" into a gigantic sweatshop, the Global Justice movement, with its emphasis on solidarity above competition, places justice for Palestine at the very centre of its concerns and sees its attainment as a precondition for a new worldwide social order free from apartheid walls and torture cells.

As yet there is a conspicuous imbalance of power between these opposing worldviews. By rejecting the proposed EU constitution if and when they are offered a referendum on the subject, European voters may play a small part in redressing that balance. In the meantime, it is up to ordinary citizens to remind governments of the obligations imposed upon them by the ICJ advisory opinion by supporting a comprehensive boycott - trading, academic, sporting and cultural - of the state of Israel. Ultimately, as in the case of South Africa, such public action may force EU governments to suspend Israel's trading privileges as a preliminary step towards imposing full sanctions. Otherwise, there will be no reason to doubt that "the European project", as Eurocrats love to describe it, is anything other than the latest avatar of European imperialism.

Raymond Deane is a composer, and chair of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.