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Yitzhak Shamir and David Levy: The new right?
Dual Collision Course Looms
For New Shamir Government
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
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36
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1990
L
ast weekend's bold
declaration by Israeli
Prime Minister Yit-
zhak Shamir that his new
government will "crush the
Palestinian uprising" and
"isolate the Palestine Lib-
eration Organization" has
inevitably raised diplomatic
eyebrows in what have
always been considered
friendly capitals in Europe.
For, behind the bombast
and the boasts, is a national
leader of considerable polit-
ical cunning but of limited
vision; a man who is no
longer regarded as master of
his own house and who is
now apparently being pro-
pelled, willingly or not,
along a course that may lead
to a shattering collision with
friends on both sides of the
Atlantic.
Even before Shamir for-
mally presented his new
government to the Israeli
parliament last week, the
seeds of conflict had been -
sown and the scene set for a
showdown with Israel's
highly valued diplomatic
allies and trading partners
in Europe.
It might be argued, given
the reality of Israel's polit-
ical predicament, that such a
confrontation is inevitable,
regardless of which political
stripe rules in Jerusalem.
The personality of Shamir
and the nature of his new
government, however, have
increased the potential for
diplomatic conflict and
radically shortened the time
fuse.
In an unvarnished ap-
praisal of current European
attitudes, Israel's highly
respected Ambassador to
Spain, Professor Shlomo
Ben-Ami, last week warned
that relations with Europe
are passing through par-
ticularly dark times.
There has, he reported,
been a serious erosion in
sympathy for Israel among
even the most favorably
disposed European states:
Holland, Denmark and
Germany. It is, moreover, a
phenomenon that is
reflected not just at govern-
ment level but also among
the general public, which in-
creasingly supports Pales-
tinian demands for self-
determination, the principle
of territorial compromise in
exchange for peace and
negotiations with the PLO.
Europe is a financial col-
ossus which currently ex-
ports goods worth some $7
billion a year to Israel, while
importing just half that
amount in return. The main
obstacle in the way of closing
that gap, the envoy informed
his political masters in
Jerusalem, was political.
But Europe, he warned,
will not expand its economic
dialogue with Israel in the
absence of a thaw in the re-
gion's political climate, and
Europe's resort to condem-
nations of Israel and threats
of sanctions, which now flow
freely from the political in-
stitutions of Europe.
Any lingering doubts
about the deteriorating state
of relations between Israel
and Europe were brutally
dispelled during a singular
undiplomatic exchange bet-
ween outgoing Israeli For-
eign Minister Moshe Arens
and a group of European
Community ambassadors in
Jerusalem last week.
Speaking for the group,
the Irish ambassador, whose
foreign minister is chairman
of the European Council of
Ministers, reportedly asked
Arens about the fate of Pa-
lestinians living "under the
yoke of Israeli occupation."
Arens did not address the
question, but instead re-
sponded angrily that the
Irish foreign minister had
shown little interest in
Israel over the past year:
"He bothered to meet with
Yassir Arafat in Tunis, but
he did not deem it necessary
to meet with me."
He reprimanded the am-
bassadors for the selective
attitude of their govern-
ments in dealing with Mid-
dle East affairs for imposing
embargos and sanctions on
Israel while failing to pro-
test the hostile declarations
which emanated from the
Baghdad summit of Arab
leaders last month and for