Jobs, Markets and Human Rights for Palestinians

By Roy Skinner

The election of Ehud Barak as prime minister of Israel refocuses attention on the idea that peace between Israel and the new Palestine could be achieved. And soon, provided that no one is beguiled either about the definition of “soon” or “peace.”

However, the nations of Europe, collectively and individually, not only can but must play a major role in ensuring that both the economic and political support necessary to achieve peace is provided when and where it is needed.

The Oslo accords opened the way for the state of Israel to exploit the peace to create a role for itself as a dominant economic as well as military power in the region because it would be accepted by an increasing number of Arab and Muslim states. However, these states, too, can benefit through the new commercial opportunities, but only if there is international support for the development of the Palestinian as well as their own economies.

Since, to date, European nations have been slow to recognize and accept their moral and financial obligations for their own collective regional security, it may seem unrealistic to expect them, collectively or individually, to expend much economic or political effort on making the Middle East peace process a success.

But, hamstrung as it is in Congress by a rampant Israel lobby in Washington that finds unaceptable any financial encouragement, for whatever reason, to the Palestinians, the U.S. government is unable to fulfill even the limited economic pledges it has offered the Palestinians as incentive to carry out their obligations under Oslo. And the Barak government is hoping to evade fulfilling even the pledges made by its Likud predecessors to the Palestinians because of Israeli popular resistance to making territorial or economic concessions to the Palestinians as the price of peace.

All this creates a role for the European nations in the peacemaking as essential and necessary as the role many of them played in the past in halting or alleviating the destruction of the fighting. Without Norway, there would be no Oslo accords, whatever their defects. Without Europe, Norway and the rest of the Nordic countries, there would have been far less efficient international participation over the past 50 years in U.N. Middle East peacekeeping organizations and in educational and social assistance to the Palestinian refugees.

However, this did not balance the overall U.S. assistance given to the state of Israel. Nor did it halt the deepening Palestinian despair as Israel flouted one U.N. resolution after another.

European efforts must be both whole-hearted and sustained.

But the opportunity has arrived for European nations to further exercise a strong and balanced influence on the work for a sustainable peace. They can upgrade their concern for the exercise of human rights in both Israeli- and Palestinian-controlled areas.

And they can contribute to confidence-building among both Palestinian and European citizen-investors. To do so, however, European efforts must be both whole-hearted and sustained and not a repeat of the experience in Bosnia, where the British and French often seemed to be working at cross-purposes with Germany and Italy, to cite but one example.

Even as the Europeans continue to reform their own economies, and re-examine their own monetary, workplace and social welfare policies against the backdrop of high unemployment and unsustainable citizen benefits, the Palestinians face much greater problems that the Europeans can easily address.

Long deprived of an economy, or even the right to have one, the Palestinian communities need more support, and now. Whatever European and other aid has passed into the Palestinian economy in recent years has been negated by the frequent and sometimes arbitrary Israeli closures of crossings that prevent Palestinian laborers from working in Israel.

More investment is needed as the Palestinian Authority continues to work for a viable economy in its embryo state. As the former PLO reconstructs itself from an outlawed freedom-fighter organization to a government administration, a long-term process, a Palestinian government of, by, and for the people remains an elusive goal in the absence of an economy strong enough to sustain it.

The Europeans recently took a step in concert with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to create credible, efficient management. A study paper, Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions, was issued on June 28 by a team of some former European heads of state, cabinet ministers and bankers. The team, headed by former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard, had the backing of Norway and the European Union.

While presenting a positive statement of achievements to date, recommendations were made for the establishment of a transparent and leaner administration accountable to the people.

Not as We Do…

With an ironic twist, six days before the report from Rocard’s team was released, another team of European experts issued a special report on similar problems much closer to home and at the highest level. This was the second part of an investigation into the circumstances leading to the resignation in March of 20 European commissioners following substantiated reports of nepotism and corruption in various forms. But that is another story.

Even as they seek one voice, individual nations within Europe still must deal with their past involvement in the Middle East, not always positive, their own colonialism and rivalries there, and the horrors of European anti-Semitism, that provided the catalyst, or excuse depending upon one’s viewpoint, for subsequent Israeli injustices toward the Palestinians.

But as they work through such problems at home, Europeans can contribute to stability in the Middle East by encouraging private investment to tap into the vast range of talent amongst the Palestinians.

Despite, or perhaps because of the challenges they have faced over the past half-century, the Palestinians are a reservoir of well-educated technical, administrative and professional people. With a sound economic base they could establish stability and social unity free of the divisive ideological and religious biases that have made them relatively easy for the Israelis to dominate and control.

Increasing economic input into Palestine by European states is vital to the peace process and its objectives. This would have the added value of demonstrating the tangible benefits of providing jobs and markets and ensuring equal rights.

It’s a role only the Europeans can play. It’s an opportunity they must not ignore.

Roy Skinner, an Australian and former long-term senior U.N. official, observer and commentator on Middle East affairs, is the author of Jerusalem to Baghdad 1967-1992. He writes from his home in Switzerland.