Bastiaan Belder (EFD). – (NL) Thank you very much for squeezing me in, as I was held back by an emergency meeting of the Enlarged Bureau of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Thank you for your understanding.

Mr President, paragraph 5 of Mr Peillon’s report rightly dwells on the need for a just and lasting solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The rapporteur calls on the European Union and all the Member States of the Union for the Mediterranean to devote maximum efforts to this cause. As Chair of the Israel Delegation, I very much endorse such peace efforts, but I think that they will only be effective once two conditions have been met, and those are: a) that the proposed two-state solution clearly be taken to mean the coexistence of a Jewish, that is Israeli, state and a Palestinian one, and b) that Member States of the EU and those of the Union for the Mediterranean promote a climate of mutual trust between the conflicting parties in the Middle East. Here, the common fight against the endemic evil of anti-Semitism, whichever form it takes (including the form of anti-Zionism), occupies centre-stage. You could also appoint the same number of Israelis and Palestinians to your secretariat, but we would still have to fight together to win mutual trust. That is the acid test.