Brussels, 15/06/2007 (Agence Europe) - Belgian Socialist MEP Veronique De Keyser, the head of the EU's election observer mission in Palestine last year, said the EU bore huge responsibility for the tragic deterioration of the situation in the Gaza Strip. In a statement, she added that she was appalled to learn that President Abbas was going to dissolve the government, pointing out that for months, every European Parliament plenary session had called on the European Commission and Council to kick-start direct aid to Palestine again and finally recognise the government of national unity, not to exclude Hamas and to stop playing off one minister against another, but all in vain. She said the MEPs had urged them to take action because they knew time was running out and Mahmoud Abbas was playing his last card with this government and action had to be quick. But the MEPs' calls fell on deaf ears, added De Keyser, one of the signatories of the appeal launched a few weeks ago by a group of MEPs for the EU to resume direct aid. She said the EU should have entered dialogue with moderates to avoid being forced to face only extremists. Veronique De Keyser said the policy imposed by the Quartet had acted as a straitjacket on the Palestinian national unity government and that in the US, Israel and among extremists in Palestine, people had been waiting for the government to fall. By its actions, the EU had played into the hands of the extremists and precipitated civil war, added De Keyser.
Leila Chahid, the general Palestinian delegate to the EU, said the dream of an independent state was collapsing, describing the current situation as a repetition of the Iraq scenario in Palestine. She told France-Info that because there was no longer any central authority, local militias were being set up which were carrying out revenge attacks and vendettas, and the situation hugely resembled the situation in Iraq, in other words a civil war in the making. She said things had started to go pear-shaped since the boycott by the international community (including the EU) of the first Hamas government early in 2006. (fb)