Avi Dichter, chair of the foreign affairs and defence committee at the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, offered his country's aid on Monday 8 October for Europe to help with the fight against terrorism.
At a hearing at the European Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, he said that in Israel they had learned to fight terrorism at the cost of many lives and had gained so much experience that they now have know-how that they are prepared to share with European experts and professionals. He added that experience cannot always be purchased and it had been gained in Israel by fighting terrorists.
The Israeli parliamentarian expressed astonishment that Europeans differentiated between the political and military branches of Hezbollah, and that in all the years that he had been working in politics, he had not seen any difference and had never seen a clear separation in Muslim terror organisations between the political section and the military section. He added that a parallel with the IRA or ETA does not work in the Middle East.
Dichter was little inclined to discuss a solution in the Middle East, denouncing the attitude of the Palestinian Authority, which, he said, paid a salary to "Palestinian terrorists" imprisoned in Israel. Things have changed, he said, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the most important problem in Israel, but only the third or fourth biggest, which is not to say that the problem has disappeared. He mentioned the situation in the region, saying that people talk about a one or two-state solution, but live in a situation where there is the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas on the Gaza Strip.
Some MEPs were disappointed with the Israeli parliamentarian’s comments. Ivo Vajgl (ALDE, Slovenia) was concerned about his tone, asking what was left if all that was left was anger. Vajgl said that when one talks diplomacy or politics, there is a magic word, dialogue, which often provides solutions to a great number of problems. However, he said dialogue is lacking from the dynamic between Israelis and Palestinians. He added that Avi Dichter had not convinced the MEPs that he wants to hold a dialogue. Wajid Khan (S&D, UK) expressed concern about the Israeli state violating international law.
MEPs even went as far, in front of the Israeli MP, of regretting his presence. While the committee chair, David McAllister, said, as he does for visits by any high-ranking dignitary, that he was "honoured" to receive the parliamentarian, Ana Gomes (S&D, Portugal) said she was not honoured, but "disgusted". Recalling that Avi Dichter was not responsible for Shin Bet, the Israeli internal security service, she said that the same Dichter had been accused of war crimes and had also been the first lawyer to launch the law on the "racist" nation state. "I am not going to ask any questions because the only questions that I want a war criminal to answer are those asked by the public prosecutor and his lawyers", said Javier Couso Permuy (GUE/NGL, Spain). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)