KARACHI, June 12: Despite being an economic power, the European Union is unable to play an effective role in the resolution of the Palestine-Israel conflict through a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East primarily because of the vested interests and due to a lack of credible military power.

This was stated by an expert on international affairs, Naushin Wasi, while speaking at a seminar on “Prospects for a comprehensive peace in the Middle East: The role of European countries” held at the Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi on Thursday.

She was of the view that while destabilisation started from within the ranks of the weaker sides, the outside players, including the European Union, had not been able to solve the Palestine issue owing to vested interests in the region.

Rejecting the notion that weaker nations are oppressed without any reason, Ms Wasi said that the weakness of any country provided an opportunity to the stronger nations to take advantage and to oppress the weaker nations.

Ms Wasi, who teaches at the KU’s department of International Relations, while dwelling on Europe’s role in the Middle East, especially the core issue of Palestine, said that although the EU laid emphasis on “constructive engagement”, it had never been able to play an active role because of various reasons.

“While the US wants containment of proliferation of weapons and Islamic terrorism, Europe wants to have political dialogue in the Middle East. But when it comes to economic and other interests, Europe also follows the US”, she said, adding that “while the EU talks about plight of the Palestinians, it also maintain economic ties with Israel”.

Ms Wasi, however, pointed out that there had been lapses on part of the Palestinian leadership owing to which the issue could not be resolved so far. While referring to the various peace efforts, Ms Wasi said: “In 2000, the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, had offered to vacate 95 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza, but the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat had rejected it”.

She was of the view that had Arafat accepted the offer, the issue would have been resolved.

Ms Wasi also claimed that stubbornness of both sides, Palestinians and Israel, in resolving the issue has been the major stumbling block. Palestinians wanted a separate homeland, East Jerusalem, end to Israeli occupation, return of refugees while Israelis opposed all these demands, which had created a deadlock.

She underscored the need to have a pragmatic, balanced and neutral involvement to resolve the lingering Palestinian issue. Ms Wasi was also of the view that although a second power was needed to tackle the US hegemony and involvement in the Middle East, EU could not play its role because of divisions on the Palestine issue.

“The European states face a new phenomenon, which is called Eurabia as huge Arab population lives in Europe. That is why Europe wants to deal the issue peacefully and to have a just and viable solution,” she added.

She pointed out that while the US wanted to crush the terrorist network in the Middle East and Palestine before working with a government, Europeans wanted an institutional framework and to engage the Arabs and Palestinians through constructive dialogue, giving them financial aid for establishing industry etc.

“But the problem is that the EU is indeed a power in economic terms, but is not as strong militarily as the US is, therefore, it is unable to tackle the issue effectively,” she concluded.