Speech given on 6th of January 2026 in Israël at the Givat Haviva meeting.

I know. The situation has never been worse than today. The 7th October and the two years of bombings have deepened the fear and resentment between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. We all know that but on the other hand – and this is no less important – those two years of blood and madness have accelerated three evolutions already perceptible before this tragedy.

We are no longer at those times when Palestinians did not exist for the Western public opinion, or were all seen as terrorists.

In Europe and even in the United States, Israelis are no longer supported whatever they do, as they have been for decades because of the remorse created in western countries by the Shoah and centuries of persecution.

And, third evolution: the false view of the Palestinian fight as a continuation of the Arab nations’ fight for independence is not any more dominant in the ummah.

The 7th October and those two years of bombings have torn down the curtains and revealed the realities of the backstage.

The Gulf monarchies want peace because they need a regional stability to modernize their countries and reduce their dependence on oil. Iran’s dream of subverting the region by exploiting the Palestinian drama has failed. Egypt, Jordan, Morocco – maybe Syria and Lebanon tomorrow – are at peace with Israel.

Nowadays, Israel does exist in the ummah. Nowadays, Palestinians do exist in the Western world. Nowadays, those two nations are recognized by the Western and the Muslim world, and when you stop denying the existence of one of the two parties to the conflict, you have already taken the first necessary step of the climb – only the first one, but the first one.

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One anecdote, if I may. Two months after the Gaza bombings began, I tried to convince my political group, Renew Europe, the centrist group in the European Parliament, to call for an end to this nightmare. The entire room was upset by the bombings, but they were completely reluctant to condemn Israel in any way and all of a sudden, one of my German colleagues, a young fellow, started to cry, to really cry, and told me : “Bernard, you don’t understand. I am German. I could never condemn Israel.” His reaction was as moving as it was stupid because supporting the existence of Israel didn’t mean approving those bombings but, now, in the European Parliament, it’s different.

We have a far right which is completely supportive of whatever Israel does because they hate Muslims much more than they hate Jews. On the other side, the extreme left of the chamber actually regards Hamas as a kind of legitimate resistance movement. On those two sides, we have blind activists but the huge majority of the Parliament – the center, the Conservatives, the Socialists and the Greens – have a much better understanding of the realities. Rationality is winning, much too slowly in my view, but it is definitely winning and all over Europe, we see the same evolution.

Exactly as in the Muslim countries, the European perception of the conflict is now much more based on facts, strategic necessities and a willingness to move forward towards a solution. Trump himself seems to favor a regional agreement over his ideological connivence with Benjamin Netanyahu and so, the situation is now much more favorable to negotiations and peace even though negotiations and peace will not happen in one week because Hamas has won.

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Hamas has lost its leadership. It has lost thousands of fighters and activists but it won by shattering the openness of Israeli society to the idea of a Palestinian state which was real thirty years ago.

The change is so obvious that last November, a Saudi leader told me: “Aren’t they supposed to be rational?” He was talking about Israel’s rejection of the two-state solution but added immediately : “Well… the trauma of the 7th of October is understandable and they will need time to heal.”  He was right but nowadays, if rationality is increasing abroad, it is decreasing on the so-called Holy Land. This is the paradox of this moment but if it’s so, why do I think and why do I tell you that there are more paths, more possibilities to go forward than ever?

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The reason is that thirty years ago, the most clear-headed of the peace movement activists kept telling their European supporters: “We won’t succeed alone. Help us, oblige us to peace!” but, at that time, it was unfortunately impossible because this European, American and Middle-Eastern aggiornamento that we just spoke about had not yet taken place.

Now, it’s different. The appeal of the wisest people in Palestine and Israel could be heard. Now, it could be a game-changer because, after all, what happened in the last few months?

France and Saudi Arabia decided to push together for a wider recognition of a Palestinian state. They were supported by many other countries. The White House condemned this move, but not very strongly because the push was successful worldwide. And what happened then? The Saudis convinced Trump that it was time for a ceasefire. And the words “Palestinian state” appeared in an American document, just the two words, nothing more, but they were written down.

Europe, Middle-Eastern countries and the US have all pushed in the right direction, together, because they recognize that the status quo is no longer tenable, because all of them, for their own reasons, need to change the situation and because it’s becoming more and more possible to bring to mind some facts that were taboo yesterday, on both sides.

It’s now possible to remind the Israelis and the Western public opinion that for Jews, it was much better – not always a dream, certainly not – but much better to live in Muslim countries than in Christian ones and that the Palestinians were not at all guilty of Auschwitz.

It is now possible to say that in their fight two nations have been born; that the Palestinian nation has a right to his own state; that it wouldn’t be acceptable (nor possible by the way) to try to send the Israelis back to Europe, North Africa, Egypt or Iraq and that nobody could seriously think to reduce Zionism to simple colonialism.

European colonialism of the last two centuries was driven by the desire to build empires. It was organized by powerful states. It was imposed by the ferocity of strong armies. Zionism, on the other hand, was an attempt, at the end of the 19th century, to flee European anti-Semitic persecution.

At exactly the same time, Muslim intellectuals in India started to dream of a foyer national, a ‘national home’ to ensure their dignity and their safety. Exactly as the first Zionists, those Muslim intellectuals from India had lost hope of achieving equality and decided to establish their own state, whose name will be, a century later: Pakistan – Pakistan, which was created in 1947, a few months before Israel was

Was this aspiration for a Muslim state, colonialism? The answer lies in the question. Was Zionism, colonialism? The answer is the same: no, it was a flight and not colonialism but the creation of Israel, as Isaac Deutscher used to say, was like escaping from a burning building by jumping from the roof. The victims of persecutions had no choice. They had to jump, but in their fall, they killed innocent bystanders: the Palestinians.

It is now possible to say and to admit that the flight of Jewish people from Europe to Palestine created unfairness, conflict, and crimes. The Nakba was indeed a disaster for the Palestinians but as Israel’s right to exist doesn’t entitle it to deny Palestinians their own rights, the Nakba and the permanent unfairness inflicted on them don’t entitle Palestinians to rejoice when innocent people are killed, raped or tortured simply because they are Jewish.

Since the 7th of October and the bombings, fear and resentment have been extremely on the rise but, hatred or not, resentment or not, all the parties in the conflict are reaching the point where we used to be, we, the Europeans, at the end of the forties when we started to dream about ending war between us forever and building our unity.

At that time those dreamers were a small minority – a handful of utopians – but Jean Monnet, one the founding fathers of our Union, kept saying: “I am not an optimist. I am determined”. They started with coal and steel, and we succeeded as you will succeed if you follow the same way: the refusal of perpetual war and the will to build peace and create, step by step, a regional space of cooperation.

Don’t be skeptical. Don’t be optimist. Be determined because now it is possible and necessary to reach a peace agreement ; possible because the landscape has changed and the taboos are weaker; necessary because you are in danger of a new century of wars; possible because the Iranian regime is no longer able to support violence ; necessary because the United States will be less and less present in the Middle East as they are less and less present in Europe; possible because Europe, on the contrary, will be more and more present in the region because we need, at our borders, a new area of stability to create – together with the Middle East and Africa – what is going to be one of the three power of this century.

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Peace between Israel and Palestine will come from abroad. It will come from what was named, in the nineteenth century, “le concert des nations”, a convergence of the major powers. But even Europe, the Gulf countries and the US, even these powers together, cannot do a lot without the wisest people of the Holy land – without you – and so, I have got to be bold enough to dare to offer you a piece of advice, actually a proposal.

You, as peace-loving Palestinians and Jews of Israël, you should use this meeting to think about establishing a team of Israelis Arabs, Israeli Jews and Palestinians who would be your spokespersons, the spokespersons of a peace camp to be rebuilt.

It’s up to you to choose them but, before the summer, they should come to the European Parliament, to the very symbol of peace between the European nations after centuries of war, to the embodiment of the impossible becoming possible, in order to publicly appeal to the big powers for help and ask Muslims, Christians and Jews, all around the world, to collect one million signatures in support of concessions, trust and peace.

As the chairman of the Intergroup the of the Parliament for the two states solution, I can tell you that they would be most welcomed. They are invited to come and, from our Parliament, they could address the European Union, the Golf countries and the United States, ask them to prevent a new war and save the generations to come, Jewish, Muslim and Christian generations, by proposing the cornerstones of a future regional peace agreement.

It’s time to act!

Ask for international support, oblige the big powers to assume their responsibilities. Oblige your leaders to react to your initiative, to the Givat Haviva initiative, if I may. Oblige the big ones to find the consensus that you need in order to prevent a second century of war.

Tell them that you want peace but that you couldn’t reach it without their support. Create something new. Turn the page on hatred and bloodshed. Build a new peace and fraternity movement in this land and in the entire Middle-East. Turn the page on fatality.

Be utopian, be determined, and you will succeed.