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Is Europe Planning a New Middle East Peace Initiative?

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced a plan for a New Middle East peace initiative at a summit in Spain with French President Jacques Chirac. "Peace between Israel and the Palestinians means to a large extent peace on the international scene," Zapttero added: "We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes," referring to recent violent attacks which he says have "reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community."

Zapatero said that the peace plan will be presented to an EU summit next month, and consist of five elements: an immediate cease-fire, a formation of a Palestinian national unity government that could receive international recognition, an exchange of, peace talks between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and an international peacekeeping mission in Gaza and the West Bank modeled after that which has been sent to Lebanon.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said that "At the most what is being discussed are some Spanish ideas," and added that Israel`s position remained that negotiations needed to be directly between the parties to the conflict. Diplomatic officials in Jerusalem said that while the Spanish initiative was "not serious," it did reflect a European trend to put forward new peace initiatives. Zapatero is not perceived in as a balanced interlocutor in Israeli diplomatic circles. Chirac said France was "going to act jointly with the Spanish and Italian governments, with the cooperation of the EU" while Italian President Romano Prodi released a statement distancing Italy from the Spanish initiative.