Behind the Headlines Israeli-greek Relations Are on Hold

When Spain established diplomatic relations with Israel in January there was eager speculation that a similarly long-awaited move from Athens would follow. The expectations were heightened by a four-day meeting in Greece between Foreign Minister Karlos Papoulias and David Kimche, Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

Then, like a bucket of cold water dispassionately overturned on a barely rekindled flame, came the news from Belgrade, where the visiting Papoulias gave an interview to Greek journalists: Athens will stick by its “political principles,” he told the journalists. Formal diplomatic relations are, for now at least, out of the question.

The unequivocal negative stance of Papoulias left disappointment and puzzlement in its wake, especially since relations had appeared to be warming up between the two countries. Greece has all the components of an Embassy in Tel Aviv. The only real difference is that they fail to add up to an Embassy, calling itself instead a “diplomatic representation.”

Turkey, on the other hand, has an Embassy, but recently moved more closely into line with other Moslem states by lowering its diplomatic representation to the level of Second Secretary, and thus stripping the formal representation of its substance.

Concern about economic sanctions from Arab states and possible terrorist attacks against Spaniards at home and abroad had long delayed Madrid’s decision to establish relations with Israel.

A MOVE THAT FAILED TO MATERIALIZE

But once the move was taken by Spain, a recently admitted member of the European Economic Community (EEC), which had made recognition of Israel one of the conditions for Spanish membership, the simple step from de facto to de jure recognition of Israel by Greece — another EEC member — would have hardly appeared a dramatic break with past policy, according to advocates of Greek recognition of Israel.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Joseph Lovinger, veteran leader of Greek’s tiny Jewish community, of his country’s failure to come through after Spain made the move.

Lovinger, who was recently here on one of his frequent visits to the United States, said that before the Papoulias statement he had predicted to a U.S. Senator here that formal recognition would come about under the leadership of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou.

But a relatively new and otherwise unrelated concern of Athens has worked its way into the issue, according to Lovinger, by adding to his country’s sense of vulnerability to possible Arab sanctions.

The issue is the Greek-Turkish conflict over the island of Cyprus. The conflict provided a new chip for Arab states seeking to dissuade Greek recognition of Israel, according to Lovinger, when the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was established in 1983.

The only country to recognize the new secessionist state was Turkey, and the U.S. has been among those applying diplomatic pressure to dissuade other Moslem states from following suit.

CHIEF SOURCE OF ATHENS’ STANCE

But Lovinger said that Greek officials had told him of concern that if Athens were to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, Arab countries would retaliate by recognizing the Turkish republic in Cyprus. This, Lovinger told the JTA, was a chief source of Athens’ refusal to change its policy.

Lovinger suggested that his government’s policy on Israel might change if Papandreou moves closer to the center of the political spectrum in Greece, as he predicts he will over the next couple of years. Fear of its isolation in a region that is becoming increasingly Islamic in character, Lovinger said, will naturally push Greece and Israel closer together.

In the meantime, Greece has extended an official invitation to Israel’s Tourism Minister, Avraham Sharir, to visit Greece, Kimche announced during his visit there. Sharir would be the first Israeli Minister to be hosted by Greece in more than 20 years.

But formal recognition by Greece remains contingent on its longstanding conditions that appear to have little chance of being met any time soon: the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from territory occupied in 1967, and the commencement of negotiations between all parties concerned to find a just and permanent solution to the Middle East problem, including the Palestinian issue.

SITUATION OF GREECE’S JEWS

On his 18th year as leader of the Greek Jewish community, Lovinger said that irrespective of disappointment on the recognition issue, Jews in Greece — who now number some 6,000 over half of them residing in Athens — had few grievances as Jews.

The appearance of a swastika “here and there,” or an occasional rabid article from fringe group newspapers, are a fact of life, but no more, no less, than in other countries where Jews reside, he noted.

“Where is there not anti-Semitism?” asked Lovinger, a native of Hungary who made his way to Greece after fleeing a feared Nazi takeover in 1933. The now-retired pharmacist said he was eventually taken by the Nazis in 1944, but escaped after 20 hours, fleeing on a journey that took him to Aleppo, Beirut and Israel, where he stayed for 15 months.

Lovinger, who makes frequent trips to Israel as well as to the U.S., where his son and his family reside, said that the commitment of the Greek Jewish community to Israel and Zionism did not make the country’s Jews especially vulnerable to charges of “dual loyalty.”

“We are married with Greece. But our mother is Israel. And you must not forget your mother,” Lovinger said.