Same old Mistakes
EU this EU that...
<---------says "Piss on them"
From Nicosia to Jerusalem
By EVELYN GORDON
The European Union professed shock at the outcome of last month's Cyprus referendum, in which 65 percent of Turkish Cypriots voted to reunify the island while 75 percent of Greek Cypriots voted against. But the results should have shocked nobody: Thanks to the EU's own actions, they were virtually a foregone conclusion.
What is shocking is the
EU's failure to learn from experience. It used the same flawed tactics in Cyprus that it has in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ? and achieved exactly the same result.
The EU recipe is simple. First, label one side the "villain" and the other side the "victim," ignoring the complexities of the issue. Next, apply pressure only to the "villain," making it clear that the "victim" will suffer no consequences for intransigence.
And finally, watch in shock as the "victim" rejects an agreement that meets the lion's share of its demands. Evidently, the EU has still not grasped the obvious: If holding out for 100 percent entails no consequences, there is no incentive to settle for less.
In Cyprus, this recipe worked as follows: First, the EU decided that since the Turkish Cypriots solicited the Turkish invasion that divided the island in 1974, they were the villains, while the Greek Cypriots were the victims. It expressed this decision by slapping a trade embargo on Turkish Cyprus that turned it into an economic backwater.
The truth, however, is hardly that simple. In fact, it was the Greek Cypriots who began the 1974 war: They staged a coup, with backing from Greece, aimed at establishing an all-Greek government that would merge Cyprus with Greece. And given the history of ethnic strife ? in which the Turkish minority often suffered at the hands of the Greek majority ? it was hardly surprising that the Turks then turned to Turkey for help.
Certainly, Greek Cypriots suffered in the subsequent invasion: Tens of thousands were driven from their homes. But so were Turkish residents of the Greek sector. Neither side was innocent.
Next, the United Nations, with EU backing, mediated a draft agreement that met most Greek Cypriot demands. Under this agreement, the Turks would cede about 22 percent of their territory to the Greeks, uprooting every Turkish resident from this area. Additionally, about two-thirds of Greek Cypriot refugees ? some 120,000 people ? would be allowed to return to their former homes; the others would receive compensation.
Turkey's troops would gradually withdraw. And, though each side would largely govern its own affairs, their states would be linked by a loose federal government in which the Greeks would have a two-thirds majority on the presidential council.
Only one major demand was rejected: The number of Greeks allowed to move to Turkish Cyprus was capped, so as not to threaten the Turks' demographic superiority in their own state.
Finally, the EU made it clear that Greek Cypriots would pay no penalty for refusing: Greek Cyprus, it declared, would enter the EU on May 1 regardless of how it voted in the referendum. In contrast, Turkish Cypriots would not be admitted unless both they and the Greeks approved unification.
The upshot was that the Greeks had no incentive not to hold out for an even better deal. Indeed, Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos said so explicitly: Vote "no," he urged his countrymen, as we will certainly have a chance to negotiate a better deal later.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash also understood this. "They won't need a settlement as long as the world treats them as the government of the whole island," he said. Only the EU failed to understand.
THE PARALLELS to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are obvious. Here, too, the EU began by labeling the Palestinians innocent victims and Israel the aggressor. The historical context ? such as the fact that both the Palestinian refugees and Israel's conquest of the West Bank and Gaza resulted from wars launched by the Arabs with the explicit goal of destroying Israel; or that the Arabs rejected the 1947 UN partition plan, which would have created a Palestinian state, while Israel accepted it; or that the Palestinians have carried out unremitting terrorism against Israel for the last 50 years ? was deemed irrelevant.
Next, the EU made it clear that no matter what the Palestinians did, the EU would continue to support all their demands and hold Israel to blame for any impasse.
And the Palestinians, like the Greek Cypriots, reacted accordingly. At the Camp David summit in July 2000, Israel offered the Palestinians all of Gaza plus 88 percent of the West Bank, including parts of east Jerusalem.
The Palestinians not only refused; they did not even bother making a counteroffer. Then, three months later, they launched a shooting war against Israel.
But the EU's only response was to condemn Israel for shooting back and demand that it offer additional concessions.
In December 2000, Israel did so: It agreed to give up Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and even the Temple Mount. The Palestinians again said no ? and ratcheted up the anti-Israel terrorism to boot.
But once again, the EU responded with increasingly harsh condemnations of Israel's counterterrorism efforts, while declining to say a word against the Palestinian Authority. It also demanded that Israel continue trying to appease the Palestinians with additional diplomatic concessions, and it increased its financial support for the PA.
Just 10 days ago, its ambassador to Israel announced that from now on, Europe's economic ties with Israel will depend on progress in the "peace process." No similar threat has been issued to the PA.
In an ideal world, the EU's shock at the outcome of the Cyprus referendum would lead it to rethink its one-sided approach to conflict resolution. Unfortunately, this is the real world ? and no such reassessment appears to be forthcoming.
The writer is a veteran journalist and commentator.
You live in some strange idealized world, and when I show the truth and shatter your faulty vision, you go ballistic and violent. This is also the guy that called me a bigot because I said people are equal in humanity, that there should be no sub-humans.
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