530 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
though, on this point, I am tempted to think that it does need
a military power and a foreign policy able to support a trans-
formed United Nations, with its seat in Europe, and having
the means to implement its resolutions without having to rely
on the interests or the unilateral opportunism of the techno-
economico-military might of the United States.^35The Europe he wished to promote should allow its free voice to be
heard on the international scene, independent of any alignment:
A Europe in which one can criticize Israeli policy, especially
that pursued by Sharon and Bush, without being accused of
anti-Semitism or Judeophobia.
A Europe in which one can support the legitimate aspira-
tions of the Palestinian people to recover its rights, its land and
a state, without thereby approving of suicide attacks and the
anti-Semitic propaganda that often – too often – tends, in the
Arab world, to give renewed credit to the monstrous Protocols
of the Elders of Zion. [.. .]
A Europe where, without anti-Americanism, without anti-
Israelism, without anti-Palestinian Islamophobia, one can
ally oneself with those who, whether American, Israeli, or
Palestinian, criticize courageously, and sometimes more vigi-
lantly that we ourselves, the governments or dominant forces
of their own countries [.. .]It was in this Europe of the future that, more than ever, he
placed his hopes – the Europe that would ‘sow the seeds of a new
non-bipartisan policy’, which in his view was now the only way
forward.
Derrida repeated this message in Strasbourg, at the beginning of
June, at the session of the Parliament of Philosophers dedicated to
him. This city, one of those which he had most often visited, and
one in which he had been given the warmest welcome, paid solemn
homage to him. Here, on Monday, 7 June 2004, Derrida met sec-
ondary school teachers from the Lycée Fustel-de-Coulanges, and
returned to one of the questions that had most preoccupied him for
thirty years, the teaching of philosophy. The next day, under the title
‘On friendship’, he took part in an interview at the Kléber bookshop
with Isabelle Baladine-Howald, before giving what would be his
last lecture in France: ‘On the “sovereign good” – Europe in need
of sovereignty’. A teacher right to the end, on the Wednesday he
participated in dialogue with four young doctoral candidates who
had come to present their work. Then he met up again with Philippe
Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy for a particularly emotional
session. The tone of their conversation was more informal than ever,