Chairwoman Hautala addresssed on 29 March a Conference “The Middle East: what next? Strategic implications for Europe and America,” hosted by MEP Ana Gomes.[:]

Hautala was invited by the DCI group to debate with former senior US officials who had worked in the US foreign policy for both the Republicans and the Democrats’ adminisrations. The latter justified the United States’ historical approach to the Middle East from the angle of Israel’s security and the importance of oil.

Hautala had a very different viewpoint, opposing double standards in the region and asking the US and Europe to fight for universal values. She voiced her concern over the other speakers’ claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be ‘put on the back burner for some while’.

Equal respect towards Israelis and Palestinians should be the new foreign policy of the US and of the EU according to her, to respond to the growing frustration in the Arab world on the West’s deep contradiction between the values it claims to uphold and its policies on the ground in the Middle East.