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Thank you so much for your invitation.

It is my pleasure to be here with you, with so many Palestinian and Israelis who are friends of the two-state solution and are working for it. And it is particularly important at this moment. We are living in dark times and your courage to fight against the extreme polarisation that is affecting the region and the world deserves the utmost respect.

I know that it is not easy to advocate for peace and understanding when people are being killed and cities being shelled every day. It is not easy, but it is eventually the only way to break the cycle of violence that has been going on for too long.

I know that you may be facing hostility within your societies for being here and speaking for peace and for speaking to each other

This meeting is being funded by the European Union, but despite this I am not sure that everybody will be happy of me being here today. But if we want to build peace, we have to talk with the people who want peace, as you. I am here because I think that we have to support the voices of peace, or the voices asking for war will be too many.

I want to thank the Cypriot authorities for hosting us today here in Cyprus since it was not possible to hold this meeting nor in Ramallah nor in Tel Aviv. I want to be very clear and say that recognising the pain, recognising the fears and the hopes of the other side does not mean normalising occupation nor legitimising terrorism or any kind of violence against civilians. The fact that you talk to each other does not meant that you agree with the occupation nor that you support terrorism. On the contrary, you are standing up against them. And allow me to say that you represent the best face of the future, a better future for your own people, but also a better future for the people of the other side and for the people around the world.

The world is in a critical juncture today, maybe in the most critical juncture in our lifetime. At the end of the month, I will be leaving the responsibilities I have been holding as High Representative of the European Union and Vice-President of the Commission for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. It has not always been easy to represent the European Union on this conflict, because the European Union member states are deeply divided about it. It is sufficient to have a look at the reactions that were provoked by the recent decision of the International Criminal Court to see how different are the positions inside the European Union.

Let me start by saying that this decision is not a political one; it is a court decision. It a decision taken by an international court that was created with a strong support from European Union member states.

The EU member states were very much supportive and when the court decided to issue an arrest warrant against the Russian President Vladimir Putin, many voices applauded it/ Some of these voices have kept quite remarkably silent today. As Vice-President of the European Commission and as High Representative, I want to express my support to the International Criminal Court and remind member states of the European Union that they are bound to implement the decision of the court.

The Countries candidate to become members of the European Union are supposed, among their obligations, to integrate the Criminal Court. It would be very weird that those who want to become part of the European union are obliged to fulfil criteria that the current members of the European Union do not fulfil.

Let me say that the Court decision has nothing to do with antisemitism and that this is not a political decision, but I am alarmed by the extreme polarization and politicization of the reactions against this court decision. I want to start talking about the Middle East Peace process, which is today very high in the agenda. It was not the case when I came to Brussels five years ago. My staff told me: “Do not invest your political capital, do not spend your time. It is useless, many people tried and not one succeeded. And for the time being things are quite quiet.”

As you may remember, Jake Sullivan said only week before the terrorist attack of Hamas that the Middle East had never been so peaceful. Well, it showed that nobody was aware of what was going on. Apparently, it was peaceful but it reality it was not, it was burning from the inside.

When I started working on the Middle East, I launched a project: I call it ‘a process for the day after’. My aim was to try to look at the Middle East from the point of view of the implementation of the two-state solution. At the United Nations General Assembly, just before the terrorist attack of the 7^th of October, we launched this initiative, but then the terrorist attack happened and everything stalled once again.

This conflict could drag the whole humanity into the abyss. In Gaza, we already looking at it, and it is not only in Gaza: the consequences could be very damaging and very dangerous for the whole world. I continue working on the peace process and at the last United Nations General Assembly we launched a Coalition for the Implementation of the Two-States Solution.

My last commitment before leaving my job will be to [co]chair – the 28^th of November in Brussels - the meeting of the technical working groups that are trying to look at how to advance in this way. They held a meeting in Saudi Arabia and now it is the turn to do it in Brussels.

If I say that the conflict will affect the whole world is because it has already taken a global dimension.

The prize of no peace in the Middle East has become exorbitant, not only for the people who are dying under the bombs, but for the whole region. And maybe for the whole world. Inaction is not an option. Wait and see is not a policy. And providing the same response to the same problem once and again without bringing a solution is no longer possible.

I think we agree on that due to your commitment, your strong commitment and the courage that you show going against the wind and facing animosity in order to fight for peace. I do not need to convince you. But let me say some things about how I see how to support the peace camp, to confront spoilers, to stick to the facts, to protect international law and to make the European Union relevant.

Once upon a time, the European Union was relevant on this dossier. The idea of the Two-State solution was launched by the European Union in Venice in 1982. So we were relevant and I think that we could become relevant again if have the political will. So let us go through these five guiding principles.

First support the peace camp

Second, confront the spoilers.

Third, stick to the facts, which means fight against disinformation.

Fourth, protect international law against the spoilers of international law. This morning I got terrified when I listened to a US Senator saying that they are going to impose sanction on any country that cooperates with the Court of The Hague. It is really incredible. They mentioned Canada, France, Germany and any other country that might support the International Criminal Court. It is a US senator. So when I talk about protecting international law I am not talking in a vacuum. I am talking concretely.

And last, to make the European Union relevant.

I am going to go quickly through all these points.

Support the peace camp: supporting the peace camps means to empower, moderate, and make sure that the voices of reasons can take the centre of the stage. It means making a conscious effort to provide a space for peace advocates and to make your voice heard. If in political debate you are not heard, than you efforts are useless.

Last Sunday, I met with the former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Alkidwa together with some colleagues from the Foreign Affairs Council to voice their ideas and to listen to anybody who is willing to talk about peace. Because the extremist spoilers are dominating the discourse and distorting the perception of others, but the voices of peace have to be heard. And the most effective way of countering extremist discourse is through human interaction among people like you.

To achieve peace, we need to appreciate that behind whatever distorted images of the other -when the other is being projected as someone that does not deserve life, or deserves to be treated like an animal- there is an intrinsic willingness to live in peace as part of the human nature. As part of the human nature, there is an intrinsic will to live in peace, because no human society can leave in conflict forever.

I think that the European Union has proved that we can make peace. Let’s remember in 1945, after the Second World War, the enmity between the German and the French. Remember how Europe was after the Second World War, who could have imagined that 70 years later I could travel from Gibraltar to Helsinki without passing any border. Who could have imagined that war is conceived as something impossible among us, what a great success in the history of mankind. So if this happened, it may happen again. We just have to work for it.

No human society can live in conflict forever. And that is why I called in Barcelona, some weeks ago, a conference with the motto “Reclaiming our shared humanity”, because we have lost the sense of shared humanity. There is no longer any kind of empathy for the pain of the others. There is no longer a concern for the pain for the other, the other deserves to suffer and we have to recover the sense of humanity and to make the paint of the other something that is felt as a pain for all human beings.

At the end of the day, the divide is not between Israelis and the Palestinians, not among the West and the Arab or the Muslim world: the real rift is between those who want peace and human rights and those who benefit from conflict. Because people, some people, benefit from conflict and this is why they continue pushing for it. Israeli civil society and activists for Palestinian rights has to be spotlighted to the Arab world on every occasion and other peace efforts especially the Arab peace initiative should be known to all Israelis too. I just came from Jordan which is at the forefront of this effort and I want to salute its remarkable commitment to peace for the region.

So what can we do? I personally believe that a credible commitment to the two-state solution means recognizing both states and this will be supported and moderated by the peace camp, but I don’t think that this will happen. Not all the members of the European Union are ready to recognize the state of Palestinian, not today. Second, we have confront the spoilers. Not only . And the key word is in this regard is consistency: confronting the spoilers only in one side can be counterproductive in two ways. The spoilers on the other side will feel emboldened and the spoiler will play the victim card inside their own community, why us and not them?

There has to be a great effort of consistency in order to show that there is common denominator and a common approach among any kind of people spoiling the peace processes. And this is part of the fight against disinformation, disinformation is the way to increase radicalization.

For too long we have been focusing on the spoilers only in one side, we listed Hamas, we listed Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other groups and terrorist entities, and it was well done. We have established a sanction regime for the perpetrators of the 7^th of October attack, but we have started listing also extremist Israeli settlers for the first time under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime.

I proposed, and some members states also proposed it, to use this sanction regime against the violent settlers that are responsible of attacks against the Palestinian people. It is good to put the weight on both sides. If there is something that deserves to be punished, it has to be punished, wherever it happens. The important thing is not who does but what is being done.

The European Union has taken measures to sanction -under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime- some extremist settlers for violating human rights. As European Union, we have to think how we can implement the decisions not only of the International Criminal Court, but also of the International Court of Justice. When it says that occupation is illegal, it is illegal. And if they say that the occupation of the Palestinians territories has to come to an end as quickly as possible, isn’t this something to be supported by everybody? Or is it pure rhetoric?

When Crimea was invaded by Russia, we immediately took the decision to ban in the European Union the import of products coming from occupied because it was illegally occupied. We have not done the same thing with respect to the Palestinian occupied territories. We have decided to put a kind of labelling in order for the consumers in the European Union to be aware of where this products are coming from an illegally occupied territory.

Does it happen efficiently? Is this being implemented with enthusiasm? I doubt it, but it should be done and more. The recent advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice has to be considered not as business as usual but we should do exactly the same thing that we did with Crimea, otherwise the accusation of double standards will come and it will be difficult to rebut it. So we think that the most has to be done against the ones who spoil peace, whether they are Israeli settlers or Palestinian armed groups A spoiler sanction regime could help to protect peace process from the ones that undermine it

The third thing is to stick to the facts. To support the peace camp and confront the spoilers, we will need to set the record straight. People have to know what is going on. The war is not only spilling over on the ground in Gaza and Lebanon, it is escalating online. The battle of narratives that polarizes between Israelis and Palestinians is spreading around the world, fuelling incitement to violence, disseminating supremacist discourse and disseminating antisemitism, anti-muslim hate and at the end dehumanisation.

Toxic messages find a fertile ground because tragically the algorithm of hate has become much more profitable than the algorithm of peace.

You know how the messages are being replicated and disseminated and the algorithm of artificial intelligence that selects the messages that you are going to receive. It is not our fault because it is more profitable than the algorithm that selects the messages of peace. We have the Netanyahu government claiming that the information emerging from Gaza is unreliable, while this same government has enforced the longest media blackout in the history of press freedom. One cannot say at the same time that the information is not reliable and forbid any kind of free information.

We are facing the longest blackout in the history of press freedom, imposed by a democratic country. Media outlets are banned from entering Gaza to independently verify the claim of both sides and the devastating impact of the war on civilians. Local journalists previously threatened by Hamas are now killed by Israeli bombed and since the 8^th of October 130 Palestinian journalists have been killed, making Gaza the deadliest place in a war for journalists.

I am coming from Jordan and I had several meetings with different United Nations organizations that have an idea of what is going on there and that have people inside. They receive information and they tell you what is going on. Netanyahu cannot turn off the light in Gaza and then complain that the world cannot see; you cannot turn of the light and then complain that it is not possible to see. If you want to see, turn on the light and then let people come in and witness what is happening. Freedom of the press is under scrutiny within Israel itself. Journalist that criticise the war or its conduct are facing increasing pressure and on both sides, disinformation campaigns are shaping narratives of war and peace with fear and distrust. Some voices deny the unspeakable atrocities perpetrated by Hamas the 7^th of October, yet the images and testimonies of this massacres are impossible to erase. Others deny the disproportionate use of force and the staggering number of civilian casualties caused by Israeli bombardment in Gaza. The horrifying images and testimonies of children, women, elders mutilated or trapped under the rubble are unbearable to watch, but they have to be seen. In Spain we say: “Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente”

(If your eyes don’t see your heart won’t feel)..In order to feel you have to know, in order to have emotions you have to have images and the images are there but they are not widespread in the same matter in different parts of the word. Public opinion do not have the access to images and that is why the heart feels differently. I want to pay tribute to the courageous journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers and doctors both Israeli and Palestinians who are trying to document the truth to preserve it for future accountability.

These are the people we must stand behind and we must counter disinformation campaigns like the one which is going on currently on UNRWA which jeopardises lives at the time when Palestinians in Gaza are most in need of humanitarian aid.

In this battle of narratives, of fight for ideas trying to conquer the mind of the people, let us champion truth and amplify the voices like yours that want to make peace irreversible. This battle is not on the battlefield, but on the TV screens, in social networks, it is in every news, in every image, every comment that flows through the networks, poisons the whole mind of the people and prevents them from having a real understanding of what is going on. It is not all good or bad. It is a tragic story, the most tragic events that I have been able to see during my mandate and I am afraid that they will mark generations.

The fourth thing that we have to do is to protect the international law. When Russia attacked international law, we claimed that international law should be respected and we went to the United Nations, to ask the United Nations to condemn the invasion. This is the fourth principle, related to the historical duty to preserve multilateralism. It is legitimate to us Europeans to a greater part of the international community to portray ourselves as the guardians of international law and human rights when we see this being blatantly disregarded on a daily basis.

We cannot pretend to be and portray ourselves as the guardians of international law if we look to the other side when international law is being violated. We cannot proclaim ourselves to be the guardians of the rule of law without acting on the basis of the judgement of the International Court of Justice, confirming the illegality of the occupation.

We cannot pretend to hold a rule based international order and not implement the decision of the International Criminal Court. We cannot pick and choose the decisions we like and those we do not like. And we must ensure that the ICC is able to function without the impediment of any third party and without threats and intimidation like the one I have mentioned at the beginning that certainly terrifies me, because it is not coming from an authoritarian state, it is not coming from a Third World dictatorship; it is coming from the US Senate. Accountability has to be comprehensive and impartial.

The impunity on all sides has to be seen in Gaza and Lebanon, and impunity has to end. If there is impunity there will never be justice, without accountability there will be never be justice. And that we are seeing that the International Criminal Court doing is working to end impunity. To end impunity, because one has the feeling that in this war there is too much impunity and because without accountability there will not be justice and neither peace. The Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention must be a key moment next year to strengthen the commitment to enforce international humanitarian law

And we cannot stay idle when the United Nations, its leaders, its agencies, its staff on the ground are being ignored, obstructed, humiliated and even assaulted. No European Union member state, European Union institution, international community can look to the other side while the United Nations highest officials and the people in the ground risking their lives are being insulted, ignored, threatened and even killed. 240 United Nations workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 .

I want to use this occasion to pay tribute to the United Nations agencies and also to the United Nations secretary general, from the top to the bottom, to UNRWA and to OCHA which are lifelines for millions of people.

In Jordan I had the chance to, meet the Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinians territories, he has been witnessing and suffering the last months what is going on. And when you listen to him, you understand the reasons that brought the International Criminal Court to take the decision that the court has taken. One understands the reasons by which International Court has issued this statement.

You know that there is no more Gaza left in Gaza, there is no more Gaza left in Gaza. No villages no hospitals no schools, no society, only individuals fighting for their survival on an individual basis and risking to be left totally alone very soon.

In a matter of days, the United Nations will be forced to stop the its humanitarian assistance because there is no more fuel, the little that manages to get in is being looted by gangs acting in total impunity. And human beings will be dying to hunger and disease, being forced to violence and the whole humanity is looking to the other side.

The last point, we have to make use of EU leverage, we have leverage but it has to be used. The European Union is relevant when it wants to be relevant. In order to be relevant you have to be united, otherwise it is not possible. We have been remarkably united in confronting the invasion of Ukraine until now.

If we want to be relevant we must continue with what we have always been good at doing: upholding international reality and promoting the two-states solution. There is no single state of the European Union who is again the idea of the two-state solution. Not a single one has said “I am against it”.

Every time that there is a meeting of the European Union member states, their conclusion is the same: we support the two-states solution, the question is what do you do in order for this solution to be implemented because the key word is “implementation”. A word that some members are still little bit reluctant to use. Because implementation means to take decisions, means to use coercion means to put constrain, otherwise it is just your rhetoric. We are very good at denouncing international law violations, we should be good when also this violation is being performed by our close partner.

Israel is our close partner, we have with Israel the strongest association agreement that we could imagine with any other country in the world. The dimension of external relations, economic relation is so big, the participation of the Israeli government in our programs is so important, that certainly I think that when we hear the threats of settlement expansion, the threat of annexation, attacks to international organisations and agencies, it should make a light blink saying “look there is something wrong here”.

Our close partner seems to be ready to violate international law or they are already violating international law, why don’t we use the same standards that we used in Crimea. As I mentioned before, I think we have to have a close look on the way we measure the behaviour of our partner and act in accordance with our principles.

We need to continue investigating in more democratic Palestinian institutions, we need to invest on making the Palestinians authority and bodies more democratic and legitimate and more efficient. We have to ask and we are asking for reform of the Palestinians authority, increasing its acceptance by the Palestinian people, help them to provide better services and security.

As we said, we are the strongest partner of Israel with trade and many other issues. I think that this close cooperation now is at risk of not moving forward in light of continuous violation of international law and human rights in the Palestinians territories. Are there violations of Palestinian rights in the occupied Palestinians territories? Are there or not? Yes, there are. It is impossible to deny. What are the consequences? I think that we need to clarify his and that is why I presented to my colleagues at the Foreign Affairs Council my assessment at the request of some member states. There has not been a decision from the Council of ministers but it does not mean that this will not continue to be studied and taken into consideration.

And we need very much in Europe to prevent a spill over that jeopardizes the security and safety of our Jewish communities in Europe permanently. We have to fight anti-semitism and antimuslim hate, and any kind of anti- someone belonging to any kind of human group. There is nothing more cruel, more stupid and more unacceptable than anti-semitism, the worst invention of human kind but this word cannot be used in vain. Anti-semitism brings us to the dark moments of our history and it is because of this dark hard moment that we have a responsibility for this not to happen again, against anyone. Do not use the word in vain. Do not say that everybody is anti-Semitic. I am not anti-Semitic, the Secretary General of the United Nations is not anti-Semitic, the Spanish Prime Minster is not anti-Semitic, the workers of United Nations agencies are not anti-Semitic. Let’s not use this word in vain, because the word antisemitic brings back the memories of millions of people being killed, please don’t use this word in vain. I have the right to criticize the Netanyahu government because it is a democratic government elected by the Israeli people, as much as I have the right to criticize any other government in the world. But to criticize the policy of a government and the way they conduct the war does not make me anti-Semitic. The best friends of Israel are not only the ones that say “go, do whatever you want, free hand”. No, these are not the best friends of Israel, the best friends of Israeli people are the ones reminding that there are limits to the right of defence and this limits are based in international law and the respect of human dignity everywhere. Not to make a human being become an animal, because they are not an animal.

This is what I wanted to say today here with you and that is why you should continue to say it loudly, and I thank you for taking the risk of saying that. I know that it will not be easy for you and that is why I wanted to be here. Because you are on the right side of history and I want to thank you for that.