25 November 2006 - The EU has a key role to play in bringing peace to the Middle East and a resolution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Green Party Euro-MP Caroline Lucas will tell a Portsmouth meeting on Friday.

It should suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement – which gives Israel preferential access to EU markets – until Israel ceases all violations of Palestinians’ human rights, she will tell the meeting, which is entitled: ‘The European Union: its potential role in a just resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict and how we can get the EU to act’.

Dr Lucas, who is a member of the European Parliament’s delegation to the occupied Palestinian territories and a former EU election observer in Gaza, said: “Though a fragile ceasefire is now in place between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza, Israel continues to hold hundreds of Palestinians as political prisoners and preside over an occupation which leads to state-sponsored terrorism and systemic human rights abuses against Palestinians.

“Peace will only come to the region when both sides abide fully with international law: respecting the human rights of everyone in the region, releasing political prisoners, ceasing attacks on civilians and infrastructure and abandoning unlawful nuclear weaponry.

"The EU has a mechanism for putting pressure on Israel to do this – though the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which contains a clause allowing the treaty to be suspended on human rights grounds. It is now up to EU leaders and the European Commission to make this happen and act to bring peace and justice to the troubled region.”

The Green Party Euro-MP for South East England, who is also co-founder and co-president of the European Parliament’s cross-party Peace Initiatives Intergroup and a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s decision-making council, will make her comments at the Portsmouth Central Library meeting this Friday, which has been organised by the Portsmouth Network for a Just Settlement of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

ENDS