The European Union should adopt a genuinely united policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict and pursue it with the same zeal that it currently displays on economic issues, according to a prominent Palestinian commentator.
Dr Rashid Khalidi, a leading Middle East scholar and former Palestinian negotiator, said in an interview with The Irish Times: "Brussels is willing to go up against Washington on issues on which there is a consensus, like anything relating to agriculture." But the same was not true of the EU member-states when it came to the Palestinian-Israeli dispute: "They are deeply divided and operating on a national rather than a European basis".
He pointed out that, for decades, there had been a "nominal consensus" on the need for a Palestinian state and an end to the Zionist settlements in the occupied territories, but nobody had actually been willing to confront Washington directly about its Middle East policy.
"That is what it is about, after all. That, or slapping the Israelis directly," he said.
Dr Khalidi's uncle was the last elected Arab mayor of Jerusalem. Although American-born, he has a strong sense of his Palestinian identity. The author of several books on the Middle East, he was an adviser to the Palestinian delegation during the Madrid and Washington negotiations in 1991-93.
"Bananas, foie gras, Europe is a tiger on those issues: a tiger!"
Dr Khalidi was encouraged by the fact that there were at least some issues on which the EU spoke as one: "I find it refreshing to see that Europe actually does act with one voice because it's promising for a future role for Europe as a unified voice on other issues that will be harder to forge a consensus on."
Though hopeful of change in the long term, he was disappointed up to now with the position of the European countries on the conflict between his own people and the Israelis: "I don't think they act as if they have a role on the Middle East, I am sorry to say." He believed the EU's foreign policy co-ordinator, Javier Solana, was "doing a manful job - but he hasn't got a mandate".
He continued: "I long for the day and I hope it will come in my lifetime when Europe - which is a Mediterranean subcontinent after all, the southern shores of which are deeply affected by what happens in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - will have the same forthrightness and willingness to stand toe-to-toe and tell the Americans, 'You are out of your minds, what you are doing is harming the West, harming our mutual interests: straighten up and fly right'."
Dr Khalidi was a guest speaker at a recent conference sponsored by the Keough Institute for Irish Studies in Notre Dame University, Indiana, on partition in Ireland, India and Palestine. He is professor of Middle East history at the nearby University of Chicago but has been spending a lot of time on academic work in France, which gave him a chance to watch EU policy up close.
He looks forward to the day when major EU states start telling the US: "You are completely wrong on this: our regional interest as Europeans with 10 million Muslim citizens of Germany, France and Britain requires that we take into account Arab and Muslim sensibilities. This ridiculous bias in favour of Israel is untenable and wrong and we refuse to subscribe to it." He acknowledged that the size of the Muslim population in the EU was not yet matched by its political influence: "They are disorganised, they are atomised, they are not yet a political force but they are going to be, very soon."
In common with another well-known Palestinian-American commentator, Edward Said, Dr Khalidi was not keen on the Oslo Accords. He said they were "a terrible agreement". Whereas the Palestinian negotiators thought they would ultimately get an independent state, he claimed many on the other side simply wanted the PLO leadership to "provide security for Israel in a subordinate capacity".
But as he saw it, the Israelis were now looking to an alternative Palestinian leadership: "I would never count Yasser Arafat out before he is actually dead - he's got more lives than a cat. But I do think it's the end of an era. I believe that the Israelis have squeezed him dry.
"They have used him up, they have done what they wanted with him, he can no longer do for them what they want, and they seem to have decided that they would prefer Hamas to a pliant Palestinian Authority. I think that's an Israeli decision and I don't think there is anybody, frankly, who can restrain them at this point. He is between a rock and a very hard place and there's not very much he can do. He is not being promised anything but Bantustans [the isolated homelands for South African blacks proposed before the ending of apartheid] by Sharon, if he does what they want for him."