French Jews Having Second Thoughts About Mitterrand

Francois Mitterrand’s election last month as France’s new President made many French Jews feel at the time as it the clock of history had been turned back 23 years to the heydays of Franco-Israeli friendship and the Fourth Republic. De Gaulle and his crippling arms embargo, Pompidou and his anti-Israeli initiatives and Giscard d’Estaing’s pro-Arab policy seemed a bad dream from which France had finally awakened.

Even Israeli politicians, usually careful and even suspicious of foreign statesmen, seemed won over by the generalized satisfaction with the Socialist victory. Prime Minister Menachem Begin and opposition Labor leader Shimon Peres vied with each other on who had better or older ties with the new French President. A new era in Franco-Israeli relations, and many hoped, in Jerusalem’s links with Western Europe as a whole, seemed to have started.

Now, six weeks later, many of France’s Jews are worried and sometimes disillusioned with the new Administration. Most express their misgivings privately but others have come out into the open. Even the most pro-Mitterrand Jewish organization, “Jewish Revival,” which had actively campaigned against the outgoing President and his administration has openly protested against some of the new government’s statements and decisions. The militant Jewish organization took the new administration to task for its statements over Jerusalem and the Palestinians, its speedy condemnation of Israel’s bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor and its attitude during the Security Council debate on this issue.

DISILLUSIONMENT STARTED SLOWLY

The disillusionment started slowly. The first clear inkling that the new government’s policy was not going to be exactly what some of its Jewish supporters had imagined, came on May 21, the day Mitterrand was inaugurated. The man, slated to become France’s next Foreign Minister, Claude Cheysson, told reporters that France will honor “all its foreign contracts and international commitments.” Two days later, Cheysson in an interview with the French paper “Le Monde,” stressed that these commitments include arms contracts but also such diplomatic engagements, as the European joint statement on the Middle East issued by the EEC member states in Venice in June 1980 and reiterated last December in Luxemburg.

Behind the scenes, the new Finance Minister Jacques Delors was busy reassuring Arab businessmen that nothing will change in Franco-Arab relations while the Minister for Foreign Trade, Michel Jobert, was meeting Arab diplomats. Jobert’s appointment as one of the new government’s five Ministers of State, sort of a super-Cabinet title, had already surprised and shocked many French Jews, Jobert, Pompidou’s Foreign Minister at the time of the Yom Kippur war, is known for his strong anti-Israeli and pro-Arab line.

Other apparently insignificant details contributed to further disturb Israel’s friends: Mitterrand’s friendly

message to PLO leader Yasir Arafat and Libya’s Muamar Quaddafi, his messages delivered to the Arab leaders, one by his own brother, Gen. Jacques Mitterrand, and the general tone of rapprochement with the Arab world.

The real change in France’s attitude came with the Tamoz bombing. Three hours after the news broke on Monday June 8, the new French Premier Pierre Mauroy condemned Israel with no mitigating circumstances. The following day, speaking in the city of Montelimar, Mitterrand reiterated this condemnation “in spite of our friendship for Israel.” He said that any country “which breaks international law” would be condemned by France.

Officials remained discreet on whether France would renew its work on the bombed Iraqi site and replace the destroyed or damaged nuclear equipment. Mauroy said: “This will be decided when, and if, Iraq submits such a request.” The Foreign Ministry issued communique after communique rapping various Israeli declarations and especially Begin’s claim that the Israeli raid had destroyed an underground secret chamber. The Quai D’ Or-say, usually protocol conscious, used most undiplomatic language in qualifying Begin’s statement as “pure fantasy.”

A ROYAL WELCOME FOR SAUDI KING

On Saturday, June 13, King Khaled of Saudi Arabia made a six hour stopover in Paris to confer with the new administration leaders. Mitterrand welcomed him at the airport and rode with him into Paris. After a banquet at the Elysee Palace, the King’s brother, Saudi Defense Minister Sultan Abdel Azziz, said “The King is highly pleased with his talks, The French and Saudi positions on practically all issues concerning both Europe and the Middle East are near-identical.”

French Foreign Minister Cheysson stressed after the meeting that the Palestinians have “a sacred right” to a homeland and denounced unilateral (Israeli) decisions on Jerusalem. He said the status of the holy places should be decided at an international conference attended by all the parties interested in the issue because of their religious or cultural links.

During the Security Council’s debate, the French delegation not only asked for Israel’s condemnation but also called for the payment of damages for the destroyed Iraqi site and equipment.

Many of France’s Jews, including people who had voted for the outgoing center-right administration, were distressed not only by the concrete statement and decisions but also by the tone used by the country’s new leaders. The French Jewish weekly “Jewish Tribune” wrote that some of the words and the tone “were sometimes offensive” in spite of the new administration’s obvious good intentions.

Some French Jews, especially those who had supported the previous regime, condemned the new approach. Others expressed surprise but said that “We should wait to give Mitterrand a chance to apply his policies and views.” Others still said they had “expected nothing else” and that a country’s policy is determined by cold facts which, whatever the administration in power, remain the same.

Among those who expressed no surprise is Jacques Soustelle, a former Minister in the days of the Fourth Republic, a former Governor of Algeria during the Premiership of Socialist Guy Mollet and since then a warm and unwavering friend of Israel, Soustelle still is vice president of the “France Israeli Alliance.”

Soustelle told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency “I never had any illusions concerning the new regime as far as Israel and the Middle East are concerned. I was unhappy with the outgoing administration because of its Middle East policy but I never thought that a Socialist takeover would change things. The tone, maybe, might become pleasanter, more amiable, but the policy would remain the same.”

Soustelle, who practically broke with Giscard over the Middle East, adds “if anything, the new regime is even more dependent on Arab good will. Its main aim is to combat unemployment and Arab contracts will be ever more important. It has also decided to stop work on the Plogoff reactor, which would have supplied a large part of France’s electricity and will increasingly rely on Arab oil.”

The President of the “Jewish Revival” Henri Hajdenberg, admits that he is “shocked” by some of the new government’s words about Israel. His movement was highly active in changing France’s political climate during the long campaign and helped swing part of the Jewish vote against Giscard. Now, he told the JTA, he is “surprised at some of the things which have happened” but he wants to wait and “give Mitterrand a chance.”

Hajdenberg, a 34-year-old attorney, said that “Begin and the Tamuz bombing have not made things easy for the new administration. Even in Israel, not everybody agrees with Begin’s decision or his ensuing statements. In spite of this, some of the things said by France’s new leaders are wrong. Should this become the country’s policy, we will act against it but for the time being, we are still waiting to see how things will turn out.”

One of the outgoing deputies, 38-year-old Jean Pierre Bloch, is far more critical. “The new Administration will be far worse than anything we have known in the past. Formerly, we could work from within, there were means we, the Jewish Deputies, as part of the former majority, could influence the President’s decisions. Now, there are practically no Socialist Jewish Deputies. One or two at the worst, and all anti-Israeli. The new Socialist majority will do as it wants and what it wants with no restrictions whatsoever.”

Pierre Bloch, who belongs to the beaten Neo-Gaullist party, is bitter for obvious political reasons but he also represents many attached Jews who feel the same, though they use more moderate terms in expressing themselves. Pierre Bloch, whose father is President of L.I.C.R.A. and the French B’nai B’rith, showed the JTA a tract against him distributed by pro-Mitterrand Jews. “They would rather see me, a Jew lose. And win another Socialist seat.”

The new French Administration will have to clarify its position within the next few weeks unless it wants to risk disillusioning most of its Jewish electorate for good. Hajdenberg and other French Jewish leaders, said “something must be done within the coming months or weeks, to make it clear where Mitterrand and his men really stand.”