Israeli Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir began his two-day official visit here today as prospects for the European Economic Community’s (EEC) Middle East initiative appeared to fade in the wake of the American Presidential elections and the Iraqi-Iranian war.
The initiative, formally undertaken by the EEC heads of state of their Venice summit meeting last June, will be on the agenda of Shamir’s talks with Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.
It is also due to be discussed at the upcoming EEC summit meeting in Luxembourg Dec. 1. But according to diplomatic sources here, the European effort to broaden the base of Middle East peace talks to include the Palestinians and Jordan, might collapse for lock of American pressure on Israel.
The EEC notions took into account what they perceived would be a major anti-Israel shift in American policy under a re-elected Carter Administration. They believed that this would eventually coincide with EEC moves in the Middle East. The Venice declaration urged that the Palestinians and the Palestine Liberation Organization must be associated with the peace process. The incoming Reagan Administration is considered unlikely to apply pressure on Israel to accept such a formula.
SHIFT DUE TO PERSIAN GULF WAR
The diplomatic sources here also noted that the Persian Gulf war has shifted European thinking and that new rivalries in the Arab world have made renewal of the Euro-Arab dialogue, originally initiated by Bonn, virtually impossible. There was to have been a major conference of European and Arab foreign ministers, excluding Egypt, to discuss political questions rather than economic ones. It would have amounted to a courting of the Arab rejectionist states by Europe.
Israeli diplomats agree with these assessments of the situation. They believe that much of the steam has gone out of the EEC initiative, which Israel vigorously opposed. They say European opinion is beginning to take note of Israel’s long held position that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the major or sole cause of regional instability or the chief threat to the flow of Middle East oil. With European attention focussed on events in the Persian Gulf, the Arab-Israeli conflict has receded.
The Israelis also believe that the Reagan Administration will not help further the EEC initiative to the extent that a second Carter Administration would have. President-elect Reagan is certainly at adds with the EEC’s Venice declaration, as Shamir noted before his departure from Israel yesterday. He observed that European policy making was bound to be affected by the shift in Washington.
Die Welt last week cited Israeli sources as having said that the new developments would help create a favorable atmosphere for Shamir’s visit. In addition to Schmidt and Genscher, the Israeli Foreign Minister will also meet with President Karl Carters of the Federal Republic.
After his talks here, Shamir will fly to Oslo for a 36-hour visit to meet with Norwegian officials. Israeli sources have described Israel’s relations with Norway as “very friendly” but they observed that Israel “cannot afford to take its-friends for granted.” According to these sources, Shamir will not discuss Norway’s ? standing reluctance to sell Israel oil from it. North See fields. That issue, however, is within the purview of Energy Minister Yitzhak Modai.
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