Gershon Mesika, the head of the Shomron Regional Council, was a guest of honor this week at an official meeting of the EU Parliament in Brussels. Mesika is the first leader of the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria to participate as a guest of honor at an official event in the European Parliament.

The conference is a reciprocal event to a tour in Samaria taken four months ago by the Vice Chairman of the Foreign Committee of the European Parliament, Dr. Fiorello Provera. During his tour, Provera looked at Tel Aviv and at the Ben Gurion Airport from the hills of Samaria, visited towns and became a friend of the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

Along with Mesika, the conference was also attended by his adviser Yossi Dagan and by David Ha´ivri, director of the Shomron Liaison Council.

Mesika addressed the members of the EU Parliament and said, “Those in Europe who push for the establishment of a Palestinian state, the meaning of their actions may be cutting the heart of the country and an existential threat to Israel. If we go, the terror will arrive in our place.”

He called on the members of the EU Parliament to stop funding extreme leftist organizations that work to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.

“These are radical organizations with a minimum hold among the public that are doing their best to incite the world against Israel using trumped-up charges,” said Mesika. “It is a strange thing that at a time when some European countries are on the verge of collapse and their stronger sister countries are forced to set aside their money to rescue them, some officials see fit to spend billions of euros in Europe on this activity. There is no logical explanation for this behavior.”

At the end of his speech Mesika explained why European countries should support and strengthen the settlement in Judea and Samaria.

“The European countries must understand that without the State of Israel there´s no stopping the Islamic tide from washing up Europe, and that without Judea and Samaria the State of Israel is not viable,” he said.

The speech received a round of applause and support from the members of the European Parliament, dozens of whom have visited and toured Samaria and the Samaria Regional Council.

Mesika’s visit to Europe and the meetings he held with officials resulted in many more Europeans expressing their interest in taking tours of the region in the coming months. (IsraelNationalNews © 2012 05/17/12)