Israelis got more consolation from three visiting European Community foreign ministers Thursday than they did from reports of President Bush’s remarks Wednesday night to a joint session of Congress.
Bush triggered sharply divergent reactions from Israel’s political left and right wings by his strong endorsement of the land-for-peace formula for resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The right was livid, the left amenable to compromise as politicians argued over what posture Israel should present to U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, due here Monday on his first trip ever to Israel.
The government was much more at ease with a statement issued by the so-called “troika” of E.C. foreign ministers assigned to deal with Middle East issues. It relegated an international conference to the end rather than the beginning of the Middle East peace process.
The conference scenario has long been a sore point between the Israelis and their European friends. The E.C. countries have backed it with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Israel has been adamantly opposed.
But Bush’s statement that a comprehensive peace must be grounded in “the principle of territory for peace” had a stunning effect here, even though it did not mark a departure from the policy of this or previous administrations.
“We have a difference of opinion with the president,” said Transport Minister Moshe Katsav, a Likud member of the Inner Cabinet.
“Land-for-peace inevitably means a Palestinian state, and 90 percent of the Israeli people oppose a Palestinian state,” he said.
SHAS LEADER BACKS GIVING UP LAND
Science and Energy Minister Yuval Ne’eman, chairman of the Tehiya party, which favors annexation of the territories, said Washington was making another ghastly mistake.
“They don’t understand this region. Witness their attempts to persuade us last year that Iraq was a moderate state,” Ne’eman said.
Knesset Speaker Dov Shilansky of Likud expressed his opposition to territorial concessions with a demonstrative visit to Jewish settlers in the West Bank Arab town of Hebron.
Shilansky, whose position bars him from speaking out on controversial issues, remarked that “the United States is our friend, but we shall determine our destiny here by ourselves.”
In contrast, a senior member of the opposition Labor Party’s Knesset faction, Uzi Baram, said Thursday that while his party was split over tactics, it supports “a large concession” of territory in return for security arrangements in a peace settlement.
If Labor has its differences, so apparently does the Likud-led coalition government.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual leader of Shas, the largest Orthodox party in the government, expressed strongly dovish sentiments Thursday.
Yosef,, a former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, said he could even countenance ceding sovereignty over Jerusalem in exchange for peace, as long as access to holy places was guaranteed.
Shas has threatened in the past to quit the coalition if hard-line ministers put constraints on Israeli peace initiatives.
Bush’s endorsement of land-for-peace seems to be the consensus of the victorious U.S.-led coalition that just defeated Iraq.
That point was expected to be raised in talks Friday with Joe Clark, the visiting secretary of state for external affairs of Canada, a coalition partner. Clark was quoted as saying in Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday that the Palestine Liberation Organization should continue to play a role in the peace process.
UNDER FIRE FROM THE RIGHT
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir adamantly opposes any role for the PLO, whose world standing has plummeted because of its support for Saddam Hussein.
Shamir and Foreign Minister David Levy told the visiting E.C. foreign ministers that Israel still stands on its May 1989 offer of elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leading to negotiations on Palestinian autonomy in the territories.
The plan also calls for peace talks with Israel’s Arab neighbors, without preconditions.
But Shamir and Levy came under fire on both these points Thursday from colleagues within the government.
Ne’eman insisted that elections and autonomy would sow the seeds of a Palestinian state.
Housing Minister Ariel Sharon, an outspoken Likud hawk, claimed that Israel’s formal annexation of the Golan Heights 10 years ago was an immutable precondition of any dialogue with Syria.
The E.C. visitors arc Foreign Minister Jacques Poos of Luxembourg, current chairman of the E.C. Council of Ministers; his immediate predecessor, Italian Foreign Minister Gianni de Michelis; and Dutch Foreign Minister Hans van den Broek, who will succeed Poos on July 1.
They met with Shamir, Levy and Defense Minister Moshe Arens. The Europeans also met 12 prominent Palestinians from the administered territories, including some identified with the PLO and with the Communist Party.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
