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Having spent eight years training to be a historian and none to be a diplomat, I consider myself a historian first and a diplomat after, even with 35 years experience as the latter. So approaching any country I like to find out not only what it is, but where it has come from.
This is nowhere clearer than in Jerusalem, which illustrates so well the complexity of the country – of its people, its history, and its religions. Just to walk its streets, feel its walls, admire its buildings, and look into the faces of its inhabitants, is to get a clear idea of how special, how culturally rich and how vulnerable the place is.
The land that is now Israel has been washed over since time immemorial by one empire after another – Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Crusader, Ottoman and most recently British. Each has left its mark on the people and on the land, even if buried below the surface. Sometime the people of the country, including the Jews, have just stayed put as the imperial powers came and went. Sometimes they have moved, or been moved, gone and come back. Sometimes new people have moved in. All the empires and all the people are, one way or another, part of Israel's heritage – and a fact to recognise.
So, how can so many different people live so close together in so small a space? It is a challenge that faces many nations, but in Israel, and in the territories it occupies, the combination is uniquely challenging. It is a precious land, precious to many.
By reason of its birth and its origins, Israel's relations with Europe are, and must be, especially close. This is reinforced by the strength of personal, cultural, intellectual, business and economic ties. Europe is therefore fully committed to an Israel that is secure, prosperous and free, and equally firmly committed to the peace process that, for so many years, has sought to help the people of this country live in peace with each other and with their neighbours.
How to achieve that end is an issue people have been arguing about for decades. But if we cannot find an answer that at least most will accept, the risk is people will be not only arguing but fighting over it. So, from a different job as I leave Brussels at the end of October, I will continue to engage, to exercise my mind and imagination on this issue, and encourage all from every side to open themselves to ideas that may challenge prejudices, ambitions or fears but which open a path to peace.
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