Tre amerikanske toppdiplomater har vært i Tyskland og diskutert en mulig NATO-intervensjon i Gaza a la Kosovo. USA frykter at Gaza kan ble “a failed state” der terror og lovløshet får herske uinnskrenket.
One of the former envoys, Martin Indyk, who was President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to Israel, told the Germans that Europe and the United States have to carry out a full intervention in Gaza similar to the interventions in Kosovo and East Timor, one with North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops in place to help the Palestinian Authority take power in Gaza, preventing Hamas from doing so instead. The objective would be to hold elections that would take power away from the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, and give it to a new Palestinian leadership that could then negotiate what is called the final status agreement with Israel. Without that, Indyk said, “there is a failed state-in-the-making in the West Bank and Gaza,” one led by a man who cannot make peace and yet is accorded the public respect and status due a head of state.
Ulike perspektiver
Amerikanerne blir frustrert over at europeerne lider av to vrangforestillinger: de tror USA kan tvinge Israel til en løsning. Samtidig tror de det finnes et palestinsk lederskap å forhandle med.
And that brought Indyk to one of several expressions of disappointment with Europe made by the visiting American former envoys.
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“My recent discussions in Europe suggest that the issue simply does not compute here,” he said in a talk at the American Academy in Berlin, which sponsored the visits of all three American diplomats. The conventional wisdom in Europe, he said, is that the United States can simply impose a settlement on Israel, but that notion, Indyk said, does not correspond to the reality that there is no Palestinian leadership to make peace with.
EU fortsetter å snakke om Arafat som om han var en person å regne med. Det samme gjør som kjent store deler av de toneangivende i Norge. Thorbjørn Jagland avslørte igår at det var skuffelsen over at USA foretok et linjeskift uten å snakke med sine allierte, som fikk ham til å foreslå at soldatene skal ut av Irak, og pengene gå til moderate palestinere. Bart Eide sa det samme tidligere på dagen da han ble bedt om å forklare Zapateros raske avgjørelse om soldatene i Irak: Det var en reaksjon på at Bush ensidig valgte å støtte Sharon i spørsmålet om vesentlige bosettinger og right of return. Bush valgte å overse sine allierte, og får som fortjent, sa Barth Eide.
Det er et stykke på vei forståelig. Men det er virkeligehtsforståelsen det er noe i veien med på europeisk/norsk hold. Man vil simplethen ikke se at Europa ser situasjonen fra et palestinsk perspektiv, og USA fra et israelsk.
Still, while Europeans and Americans agree on what an ultimate solution in the Middle East would be - namely two countries existing side by side- they haven’t forged a common policy because they are separated by fundamentally different emotions on the Middle East. Put most simply: Americans are pro-Israeli and identify with Israeli victims of terrorist violence; Europeans are pro-Palestinian and identify with the Palestinians as victims of a colonial-like oppression.
Europa: EU can be greater force for peace in Middle East
Richard Bernstein International Herald Tribune
