12 February 2007
A delegation of eleven members of the French Senate has visited Israel and the Palestinian territories. During their four-day-visit, the senators also met with Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert and the families of Israeli soldiers Gilad Shalit and Ehud Goldwasser, currently held hostage by Hamas and Hezbollah. The senators, half of whom had never been to Israel before, declared that their understanding of the region had increased in depth and complexity after meeting with various Israeli and Palestinian decision makers, political scientists, doctors and victims of violence. “We arrived with predetermined ideas but every day these preconceptions were replaced by realities,” senator Yvon Collin told Medbridge, who had organized the trip in partnership with the European Jewish Congress. The visit to Yad Vashem was placed in the current international context, and Olmert stressed the importance of remembering the past, referring to the Iranian threat: “Here, there is a nation for which history has profound meaning. When we hear that someone wishes to wipe us off the map, we are not able to tolerate it nor to take it lightly.” The senators discussed with Olmert the role Europe could play in this context.
The senators also visited the Hadassah hospital trauma centre in Jerusalem, where free care is provided to Palestinian children. The delegation met with various political figures in the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), such as the head of president Mahmoud Abbas’s office, Rafik Husseini, and the PLC deputy speaker Hassan Khreishih. The senators also toured the Old City of Jerusalem, stopping at the Western Wall.
