IPU President in the Middle East
President Casini made an official mission to the Middle East at the end of January, coinciding with a freak snowstorm that brought much of the region to a standstill. The mission offered a unique opportunity for the President to hold talks with Israeli and Palestinian political leaders and senior officials and to explore with them ways in which the IPU can be helpful at the parliamentary level in bridging the gap between the two sides to the conflict.
On January 28, the day after the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz- Birkenau, he delivered a speech in the Knesset to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. During his stay in Jerusalem he held talks with the Speaker of the Parliament, Ms. Dalia Itzik, and leaders of the political factions, before meeting President Perez, Prime Minister Olmert and Foreign Minister Livni. The talks centered on the political situation in the region and prospects for peace, the crisis in Gaza, and codes and standards for parliamentary elections.
Wishing to learn at first hand about the difficulties facing the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Mr. Casini went to the PLC headquarters in Ramallah, where he held a lively exchange of views with a group of parliamentarians.
The IPU Secretary General joined the President during his visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah after making a stop in Amman, where he met with the Speaker and other members of the Palestine National Council for discussions about their membership status in the IPU. In the subsequent talks with the Israeli officials, Mr. Johnsson raised the question of the PLC parliamentarians who were detained in Israeli jails. He also held several meetings in Ramallah with the PLC members and the Secretary General of the parliament.
IPU “Friend of the Alliance of Civilizations”;
Reconciliation can take many forms, and the IPU has been involved in addressing the perceived divide between East and West as part of a new United Nations initiative known as the Alliance of Civilisations (AoC).The first Forum of the AoC was held in Madrid on 15 and 16 January 2008. Its aim is to find ways to bring the voices of moderation to the “clash of civilisations” debate, and to offer a counterweight to extremist thinking. Spearheading this venture are the Prime Ministers of Spain and Turkey, Messrs Zapatero and Erdogan. The IPU became a “Friend of the Alliance” at the end of last year, not least thanks to the attention drawn by the Bali Assembly resolution on Ensuring respect for and peaceful co-existence between all religious communities and beliefs in a globalized world, and is currently discussing a memorandum of understanding with the AoC Secretariat.
The meeting brought together leaders from religious groups, cultural foundations and institutes, authors and statesmen. The session at which the IPU spoke was about building bridges between international organisations to further the aims of the Alliance, under the title “Consolidating International Partnerships”. The discussion focussed on youth and education in particular. Since 9/11 cross-cultural exchanges between the West and Arab states have declined dramatically, and the purpose was to suggest educational and cultural dissemination initiatives that might begin to reverse the trend.
The following day saw the launch of two media-related initiatives: the “Rapid Response Media Mechanism”, which the moderator preferred to call “Cool Heads for Hot Topics” and which aims to establish a data base of press contacts who could make informed conciliatory statements at short notice in the event of a cross-cultural flare-up like the “cartoons crisis”. The other was the launch of the AoC Clearinghouse beginning with a theme of Media Literacy Education, which will catalogue media literacy programs and related government policies in different parts of the world.