Statement of the KKE delegation in the European Parliament on the speech of the Israeli President, Shimon Peres

“The visit and the speech of the Israeli president, Shimon Peres, during the plenary session of the European Parliament, and just a few days after the assassination of Jaradat Arafat, yet another Palestinian political prisoner in the Israeli prisons, are provocative. The warm welcome by the presidents of the European Commission, J.M. Barroso, of the European Council, H. Van Rompuy, of the European Parliament, M. Schulz, and the entire political personnel of capital, prove once more the total support and encouragement of the EU for the imperialist political line of Israel in the Middle East and the wider region, for the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people.

Israel is a strategic ally of the EU, the NATO and the USA in the region for the promotion of their imperialist interventions in the framework of the “new Middle East” plan; it is actively engaged in the inter-imperialist confrontations over the control of the rich energy resources and the energy routes.

The participation of Israel in one of the most strategic plans of the EU, serving the profitability of the monopoly groups, which is the “Horizon 2020” program on research and technology, enhances its position even further, virtually to an equivalent member of the EU. It paves the way for Israel’s expanded role in the Mediterranean and in reality strengthens the “energy security” dogma of the EU and the NATO. It reinforces its intervention in the exploitation of deposits of hydrocarbons and natural gas in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean, mainly within the “energy triangle of Israel, Cyprus and Greece”.

The three-party government, ND-PASOK-Democratic Left, develops its “strategic cooperation” with Israel, actively taking part in the imperialist competition, while hoping to increase the share of the loot for the monopolies that it represents. It consolidates and strengthens the military cooperation between the two countries, the military exercises to prepare for war. The deepening of the cooperation of Greece with Israel marks the even greater involvement of the country in the inter-imperialist competition and contradictions.

The Greek people, the peoples of Europe and the wider region cannot expect anything from an alliance with the war machine that systematically implements a policy of genocide against the Palestinian people and has forced the people of Israel to live in a military state.

The KKE Delegation in the European Parliament demands the annulment of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. It supports the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation for an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state, within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital; for the immediate liberation of all the Palestinian and other political prisoners held in the Israeli prisons; the abolition of any embargo against the Palestinians, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The KKE demands that the three-party government, ND-PASOK-Democratic Left, annuls the military cooperation of our country with Israel; that the Suda military base closes down; that the territory, the ports and the airspace of Greece are not provided for the imperialist war against Syria and Iran, which will lead the Greek people and the other peoples of our region to great bloodshed and destruction”.