“The night following our arrival, at , Mr Gérard Arnaud, French ambassador to Tel Aviv, calls me. Philippe Douste-Blazy, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, has just seen the Haifa victims and asks me to join him at at HaifaTown Hall. I manage to call a taxi and my delegation.
The Mayor of Haifa, Yona Yahav, welcomes us and says: ‘6 years ago at the Knesset I fought to get Israel to leave Lebanon and you Europeans promised to do what was necessary for Northern Israel to be protected. You have not kept your promises.’
Mr Douste-Blazy answers: ‘I have come after the President of CRIF criticised me for only showing interest in the Lebanese victims.’ The Mayor gives me a thumbs up sign. ‘But my mission is also political. UN resolution 1559 must be applied and we must put an end to the ordeal of all civilians.’ This was followed by a press conference with masses of cameras representing the international press. We then went to the French consulate with the Minister, to meet with the French residents in Haifa, among whom the parents of French citizen Shalit who has been kidnapped. After this we leave the ministerial delegation and head for the station where eight Israeli workers were killed by a rocket. On the way, a siren begins to wail. The driver asks to immediately leave the car and we hide in a narrow passageway, up against a wall. Within thirty seconds we are rocked by a series of explosions. There are two casualties, one person being killed in his car. We head for the station workshop, where together with the three MP’s we lay a wreath. The damage is terrible: a huge hole in the roof, another in the ground, all the railcar windows blown out, hundreds of steel balls all over the floor. We are asked to quickly leave the site because of the risk of new explosions. Haifa instils fear, it is a dead city, a ghost city with 350,000 inhabitants. All businesses are closed, no cars, no pedestrians.
We return to the hotel in Jerusalem. There we meet with the delegation of the European Jewish Congress consisting of representatives from 25 countries. Minister of Defence Peretz takes the floor in very firm language: any Israeli who is kidnapped, whether soldier or not, is equivalent to a declaration of war. Hizbollah is not Lebanon, indeed the Hizbollah neighbourhood in Beirut was surrounded by guarded barriers.
At we meet with Tsipi Livni, Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs: ‘Proportionality must not be in relation to the action but to the threat. Governments understand us, but not public opinion. A cease-fire would be a victory for Hizbollah. I have spoken with the French and I think they share this point of view, or at least understand it, even if they express it differently.’
We then meet with Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres: ‘Iran is the major instigator. Iran is seeking to turn away the attention of the Iranian population from its difficulties, a population that in the space of 15 years has gone from 30 million to 70 million. Iran also wants to turn away the attention of the world’s leaders from its nuclear programme. Iran is financing Hizbollah. The strength of Hizbollah comes from the weakness of the big powers. If the powers want to truly eradicate Hizbollah, then they must be ready to fight as they did in Kosovo. 10,000 people died in Kosovo. We will only be to judge if a buffer force is opportune when we know the mission entrusted to it. A simple observation mission would be unacceptable.’
The next day, 24 July, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gives a joint conference for the European and American delegations. Once more we hear the language of firmness. ‘Hizbollah’s 10,000 terrorists have 15,000 missiles, some of which having a range of 300 km. They have already fired 2,000 rockets from mobile rocket launchers hidden in bunkers. One million Israelis are blocked in bomb shelters. We shall hunt down the terrorists and eradicate them one by one. The G8 is with us. Even France understands the necessity of implementing resolution 1559. No country in the world would accept 20% of its population having to hide under the threat of deadly bombs. We have been aggressed. We have no other choice than to defend ourselves.’
Israel is at war. The whole of the north of the country is paralysed. As for the south, there is fear that longer range Iranian-built missiles will be coming. Our message of solidarity has been very much appreciated by our Israeli bretheren.”
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