Speech given at the People’s Peace Summit in Jerusalem on 9 May.
It was in 2006 in Switzerland. Former negotiators of the Oslo agreement, Israeli and Palestinian, had organised a meeting with international personalities to propose a new peace plan. Lech Wałęsa, the leader of the Polish Solidarność, was there and I was very anxious that he could make a fool of himself because he did not know anything about Israel, Palestine and the Middle East.
But…
But he takes the floor and says: “I don’t know the Middle East. I know almost nothing about your conflict but, when we started our fight for freedom, everybody was telling us that we were utopians. Indeed, we were.” This is precisely the reason why we won and you too, you will win because you are utopians.
The entire attendance exploded in applause and, today, I want to call on you to keep your faith in the utopia because this is the only way to be realistic.
Is Mr Trump’s plan for a “Gaza Riviera” realistic? Certainly not. It is both a barbarian idea and impossible to implement.
Is the idea of one state for two people realistic? Ask the people of Serbia and Kosovo.
Are the ideas of pushing the Jews into the sea or pushing the Palestinians into the desert realistic? It would be completely unrealistic and simply criminal.
There is only one solution, the one which is deemed foolish, unrealistic, utopian, impossible to implement and already dead: the two-state solution.
A lot of people are against it. Many Israelis because they are afraid of a new October 7th. Many Palestinians because they fear not to get a state but a Bantustan, controlled, if not ruled, by Israel.
Those fears are deeply rooted and not at all unfounded. Our ambition – two states co-existing in respect, dignity and peace – will not be easy to realise but let’s never forget that we have an ally, a very powerful ally: necessity.
It will be out of necessity that, one day or another, we will get back, and maybe quicker than we think, on the road to negotiation and, finally, to a peace agreement.
What will be the borders? We do not know but there are many solutions in the proposals already made a long time ago by the peace camp.
Who will be the Israeli and Palestinian leaders of the new times? We don’t know yet but politics fears vacuum and when there is a need, politics will find the right leaders, the new Adenauer and De Gaulle we need for peace in the Middle East.
Yes, we can be confident, even in those times of sadness, blood and despair.
We do not see any light in the night but the situation is already changing, moving too slowly but moving in the right direction..
Would you have imagined a few weeks ago that, today, you could listen to messages of hope and support coming from the leaders of Europe? No, you wouldn’t have.
Would you have imagined that a United Nations conference co-organised by France and Saudi Arabia would reopen an international discussion on the two-state solution? No, you wouldn’t have.
And when we decided, in the European Parliament, with a very few friends, to push for the creation of an Intergroup for the two-state solution, uniting conservatives, centrists, socialists and Greens, did I imagine that we could succeed ?
No, I did not and, even two months ago, I didn’t imagine neither that so many decisionmakers would remember that their duty was to revive wisdom and political will and that it was possible because enough is enough and for, after all, you were so close to the peace not that long ago.
Fanatics killed Rabin. Fanatics bombed buses on the Israeli streets. Those terrorists were successful. Oslo failed but their road led to nowhere and, now, in the dead-end they created, it is up to us to answer the expectations of the two peoples, Palestinian and Israeli, Israeli and Palestinian.
You are not alone. Europe is on your side because on those two coasts of our common sea, our Mare Nostrum, we belong to the same culture, civilisation and destiny.
