BACKGROUND

Artwork from Newsday by Bernie Coot ner. Copyright* 1990. Newsday. Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

E.C. May See Israel-Bashing
As Solution To Its Mideast Woes

.

HELEN DAVIS

Foreign Correspondent

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34

FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1990

s curtains are drawn
across windows of op-
portunity in the
United States and icy diplo-
matic winds begin to blow
from Europe, Israel can ill
afford any further erosion of
support among its tradi-
tional and established
friends in the West. Yet that
is precisely what now ap-
pears to be under way.
Relations between
Jerusalem and Washington
have markedly cooled in re-
cent months — a conse-
quence of the growing clash
of styles between the Shamir
and Bush administrations,
as well as the new political
realities which have
redrawn the political map of
the world and radically
downgraded Israel's strate-
gic importance to the United
States.
Now, relations with the 12-
nation European Commun-
ity (E.C.), Israel's largest
trading partner, are also ap-
proaching a nadir. Following
a two-day summit meeting of
European heads of govern-
ment in the Irish capital of
Dublin last week, the EC
produced a communique
which is regarded as the
most hostile and potentially
most threatening yet to the
Jewish state.
In the course of an
unusually strongly worded
"Declaration on the Middle
East," European leaders
took what many observers
believe to be the first step

down the road to initiating
economic sanctions against
Israel.
The communique railed at
the "lamentable" state of
human rights in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip and
served notice that the EC
had resolved to step up its
"already significant support
for human rights . . . in the

occupied territories."
The European leaders
pointed out that they had
repeatedly called on Israel to
observe the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which is aimed
at protecting civilians in
time of war and to respect its
obligations toward the Pa-
lestinians under its control.
But, they asserted, Israel
had "failed to do so in a
number of important areas."
"Concerned that the
human rights of the popula-
tion in the occupied ter-
ritories continue to be in-
adequately protected, the
European Council calls for
further action, in accordance
with the Convention, to en-
sure their protection."
Significantly, too, the
communique urged all
signatories to the Geneva
Convention "to respect and
ensure respect for its provi-
sions," a call that was inter-
preted by European officials
as an important departure
and an implicit warning that
if Israel fails to "clean up its
act," the way could be open-
ed to international action,
including sanctions.
Unhappily for those Israeli
Foreign Ministry officials
who were anxiously seeking

to rebut the European
charges, the focus on Israel's
human rights record was
sharpened by a damning
report produced on the same
day by the Israeli human
rights group B'tselem.
The report detailed the ill-
treatment of Palestinian
teenagers in Israeli deten-
tion centers and described
how youths at two
Jerusalem lock-ups were
routinely beaten during
interrogation, left for hours
in tiny cells and handcuffed
to pipes in an open courtyard
during rainstorms. It also
accused Israeli police and
security officials of threaten-
ing to harm the families of
the youths, demolish their
homes or deport them if they
failed to "confess."
"Almost every minor we
interviewed," noted the
report, "testified that he had
been beaten, usually se-
verely — slaps, punches,
hair-pulling, blows with
clubs and iron bars — and
pushed to the wall and
floor."
The European leaders,
meanwhile, did not stop at
expressions of outrage over
human rights abuses. They
were determined, they said,
to encourage all efforts
designed to promote dia-
logue between the Israeli
and Arab disputants, in-
cluding the PLO, which
would lead to a UN-
sponsored international
peace conference and,
ultimately, a comprehensive
settlement based on the
principle of "land for peace."

