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الأحد 27/05/2007 |
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الأحد 27/05/2007 |
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على
أوروبا أن تبقى على الحياد في
غزة بقلم:
ستيوارت ريجيلوث دايلي
ستار- 25/5/2007 لمنع الموقف من التفاقم فان على
الاتحاد الأوروبي أن يزيد ضغطه
الدبلوماسي من أجل تطبيق
الاتفاقيات المتعلقة بالحركة
والمعابر و التي بدورها سوف
تدعم الحل القائم على الدولتين Europe
must remain neutral in Gaza By
Stuart Reigeluth Commentary
by Friday,
May 25, 2007 On
May 24, the mandate of the European Union Border
Assistance Mission (EUBAM) at the Rafah crossing point
in the Gaza Strip was renewed for another year. The uncertainty about
the extension of the mandate was due to Israeli
hesitancy. According to the terms of the Agreement on
Movement and Access signed by Israel and the Palestinian
Authority (PA) in November 2005, shortly after the
Israeli disengagement from Gaza in August and September
of that year, both parties must agree to the
international monitoring force. The PA agreed to extend
the European presence, which it deemed preferable to
Israeli reoccupation. The final decision on the mandate,
however, was Israeli
hesitancy seemed at first a consequence of the crisis in
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government and the rift
between the Israeli armed forces and the Foreign
Ministry. The armed forces were reluctant to extend the
mandate and preferred to see the Europeans go home. Due
to recent skirmishes at Rafah, the army believed the
Europeans were not sufficiently fulfilling changing
security quotas and believed it could do a better job.
Since the inception of EUBAM, the Israelis have
supervised (via real-time cameras) the entry and exit of
Palestinians from the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing point
where Hamas militants killed two Israeli soldiers and
kidnapped another last June. Israeli
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni hoped the EUBAM mission
would remain in effect, but not without changes.
According to the daily Haaretz, these desired changes
included expanding EUBAM activities outside the
perimeters of the Rafah crossing, even though this runs
counter to its current mandate. These activities have
already been largely suspended since June 2006, with
only sporadic openings in recent weeks - three days on
average a week. Both
the Israeli Army and the Foreign Ministry seemed to agree on using
the threat of possible Israeli reengagement in parts of
the Gaza Strip as a means of pressuring the Europeans
into altering their mandate to become more
"executive." Political leverage and military
options were used to pressure the Europeans into
expanding their mission to patrolling the Philadelphi
corridor and detaining any dissident member of Hamas or
Islamic Jihad. As things stand today, EUBAM will not
adopt an "executive" mandate, but under the
annexes of the new arrangements, it will address the
problematic issues of money transfers, wanted persons
and the export of goods (apparently a new Egyptian
restriction). The
implications of rendering the EUBAM mandate more
"executive" would have been disastrous for a
perception of European impartiality. The suspended role
of EUBAM has already tarnished its image as a neutral
mission. If EUBAM had acquired an "executive"
mandate, the mission would have lost any remaining
legitimacy, and more importantly, would have lost an
essential component of third-party involvement:
neutrality. Yet
did EUBAM, particularly now that new conditions have
been added to its mandate, not already lose that
neutrality when it acquiesced to ensure the closure of
the Rafah crossing in June 2006? Or when the EU agreed
to impose an embargo on Hamas, even though EU observers
had deemed the elections democratic? After the elections
and the June operation, EUBAM implicitly changed its
mandate and the Europeans took sides Though
taking sides means losing the element of neutrality, no
foreign involvement in the Middle East has been impartial: Interests invite intervention.
However, in the EUBAM case, further acquiescence to
Israeli demands would have been counterproductive to
European short-term interests. If the EU had agreed to
expanding its physical mandate and assisting in imposing
order outside the perimeters of the Rafah crossing, the
Europeans would have acquired responsibility for
ensuring security measures and would have become direct
targets. As
an EU civilian "border assistance mission,"
EUBAM should not become a peacekeeping force. With the
official legitimacy provided by a United Nations
mandate, a possible European military mission could be
envisioned through the deployment of a 1,500-strong EU
"Battle Group" along the Gaza-Israel border to
ensure respect for a cease-fire. But is this a
responsibility the EU really wants? Considering that the
Better
for the Europeans to remain at Rafah and monitor
operations at the crossing point; better still for them
to transfer their headquarters from the beaches of If
the EU does not engage the Palestinians and Israelis
more persuasively, EUBAM could turn into another example
of a languishing foreign intervention, and the violence
in To
prevent the situation from getting worse, the EU could
exert more diplomatic pressure to implement the
Agreement on Movement and Access, which bolsters a
two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians. Will
the EU continue to take sides or will it try to rectify
the situation? What will the purpose of the EU monitors
at Rafah be if EUBAM continues to implement Stuart
Reigeluth works for the Africa and Middle East Program at the
Toledo International Center for Peace in Madrid, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=5&article_id=82501 ----------------- نشرنا
لهذه المقالات لا يعني أنها
تعبر عن وجهة نظر المركز كلياً
أو جزئياً
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من حق الزائر الكريم أن ينقل وأن ينشر كل ما يعجبه من موقعنا . معزواً إلينا ، أو غير معزو .ـ |
