British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd apparently has failed to convince Israel to receive a special U.N. team to investigate the fatal shooting of 21 Arabs by Israeli police last week on the Temple Mount.
But Israel continued to come under pressure from Washington to cooperate with the investigation, which was mandated by a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last Friday.
The British diplomat, who flew here Monday night from Cairo, met separately with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister David Levy.
According to information leaked to the news media Tuesday, the Israeli leaders were unmoved by Hurd’s suggestion that the Cabinet reverse its decision Sunday not to receive the U.N. fact-finding mission.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker urged Israel on Tuesday to cooperate with the United Nations, because “it is the only way we think that Israel will be able to make its case.”
At the United Nations, Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar was reportedly waiting for Israel’s reply to his request Monday for clarification of its intentions before deciding whether to send a three-member investigating team to Israel.
In addition to welcoming such an investigation, the Security Council resolution condemns Israel for “acts of violence committed by the Israeli security forces” against some 3,000 Arabs who staged riots on the Temple Mount on Oct. 8.
The Israeli Cabinet declared Sunday that the resolution was “totally unacceptable.”
But Israel has not broken off discussions at the United Nations in New York. Its acting permanent representative, Johanan Bein, met Monday with Perez de Cuellar to submit his government’s formal statement.
Bein also discussed the Security Council resolution Monday with Thomas Pickering, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
BAKER CONDEMNS VIOLENCE AT THE WALL
At the State Department, Baker rejected Israel’s contention that the United States backed the resolution in order to preserve its international coalition against President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
“This resolution is one that the United States would have voted for had there been no Iraqi crisis, because we were and remain disturbed by the killings that took place,” he said at a news conference.
“At the same time,” he added, “we were also disturbed by the violence against innocent worshipers at the Western Wall. We don’t think there is any excuse for that either.”
That remark seemed aimed at assuaging Israel’s indignation that the United Nations had completely overlooked the stoning of Sukkot worshipers at the Wall that took place during the Oct. 8 rioting on the Temple Mount above.
Several Jews were hurt, none seriously. But Israeli leaders were outraged by the very idea of an attack on the holiest place of the Jewish religion.
Moreover, they are convinced that the resolution and its investigation were contrived to undermine Israel’s claim to sovereignty over all of Jerusalem, including the Arab eastern sector it annexed in 1967.
“The basis of the resolution was a severe and predetermined charge sheet against us,” Levy told reporters Tuesday morning after a two-and-a-half-hour meeting with Hurd at the Foreign Ministry. He said that Israel traditionally does not reject U.N. missions, but this case is unique.
Both Levy’s and Shamir’s meetings with Hurd were described as cordial, though the British minister recently has been severely critical of Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to the leaked reports, Hurd did his best to persuade Shamir and Levy that to persist in rejecting the U.N. mission would keep world opinion focused on Jerusalem, instead of on Iraq, where it rightfully belongs.
The same argument was used to no avail by Baker, but he is persisting.
He told his news conference that the United States “appreciates” the “low profile” Israel has taken in the Persian Gulf crisis and that is one of the reasons it wants Israel to admit the U.N. team, so as to return to the status quo ante.
COMPARISON TO SADDAM HUSSEIN
Baker confirmed he had warned Shamir in a letter that “if Israel rejects the Security Council decision, there will be some who compare you, even though it is not justified, to Saddam Hussein and his rejection of Security Council decisions.”
The secretary stressed he was not making such comparisons, but he fears “some will try.”
Israel, meanwhile, enjoys the support of U.S. Jewry insofar as it is represented by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Conference Chairman Seymour Reich, who has been in Israel since last week, said the umbrella group’s constituents are united in their criticism of the Security Council resolution.
After meeting twice with Shamir in 24 hours, Reich said an early release of the Israeli government’s official investigation into the Temple Mount incident would “help alleviate” tensions between Jerusalem and Washington, and might also “satisfy the needs of the Security Council.”
Reich said he understood the report would be available early next week. Other sources said it was more likely at the end of next week.
The three-member panel is headed by reserve Gen. Zvi Zamir, a former head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. The panel interviewed Police Minister Ronni Milo for two hours Tuesday.
The panel heard Monday from national Police Chief Ya’acov Terner and also heard evidence from officials of Shin Bet, the internal intelligence agency, which is supposed to provide information to the police.
(Contributing to this report were JTA correspondents David Friedman in Washington and Aliza Marcus at the United Nations.)
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