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Is Europe More Desperate for a Palestinian State than the Palestinians?

(Ha'aretz) Bjorn Brenner - Year after year, the EU channels millions of euros from European taxpayers into various projects in the Palestinian territories focusing on building the institutions of a future state. But the establishment of an independent Palestinian state no longer constitutes either a realistic alternative, or the most effective way of helping the Palestinians improve their lives - if this is really what the Europeans are seeking to do. The current situation is the way it is, and any serious policy-making must be adapted to what is realistic and feasible here and now. Today, seemingly abyssal rifts run between the Palestinian people and its leaders, between the Islamist and secularist blocs, between the old and young generations and between the scattered pieces of land that were once intended to make up the State of Palestine. Policy-makers in Brussels need to face the painful understanding that Palestine today is a project primarily advocated by the EU itself (together with the old guard in Ramallah). According to recent opinion polls, the majority of Palestinians believe that the (EU-funded) institutions in Ramallah are malfunctioning and corrupt. Evidently, public opinion in the Palestinian territories runs in the opposite direction to the EU's ongoing state-building efforts. The writer is a lecturer at the Swedish Defence University in Stockholm and a visiting fellow at Institut Francais du Proche-Orient in Amman, Jordan.
2017-06-19 00:00:00
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