WORLD vs. ISRAEL
HELEN DAVIS
Foreign Correspondent
I
srael was this week brac-
ed for one of the most
serious diplomatic crises
in its 42-year history
after the cabinet unani-
mously resolved to withhold
cooperation from a UN in-
vestigative mission which is
being dispatched by
Secretary-General Javier
Perez de Cuellar.
The three-man mission,
led by the UN Deputy Secre-
tary-General Jean-Clause
Aimee, will investigate the
circumstances surrounding
the killing of 21 Palestinians
by Israeli security forces
following a riot on the Tem-
ple Mount in Jerusalem last
Monday.
While expressing "regret
over the loss of life that oc-
curred as a result of events
on the Temple Mount," the
Israeli cabinet communique
dismissed as "totally unac-
ceptable" the UN Security
Council resolution 672,
which condemned Israel for
using excessive force in deal-
ing with the riot.
The communique com-
plained that the resolution
was one-sided, ignoring
Arab provocation, including
the throwing of stones at
Jewish worshippers at the
Western Wall, which led
Israeli security forces to
open fire.
While the Israeli leaders
bristled with indignation at
being pilloried by the
Security Council, which one
Israeli official characterized
as "an international coali-
tion of hypocrisy," the deci-
sion by the United States to
join the chorus of condemna-
tion came as a psychological
hammer blow.
While the United States
has not been an uncritical
supporter of Israeli actions
in the past, Jerusalem has
been able to count on Wash-
ington's veto to protect it
from a traditionally hostile
Security Council.
There is now deep anxiety
in Jerusalem that Israel's
refusal to cooperate with the
mission will place it on
course for a full-scale diplo-
matic showdown with Wash-
ington.
The Security Council vote
has brought Israeli leaders
face to face with the brutal
realization that, policy dif-
ferences apart, their close re-
lationship with Washington
has been seriously under-
mined by the end of the Cold
War and the reduction of
Washington's need for a
powerful ally capable of
checking and balancing
Moscow's regional ambi-
tions.
Israel also now recognizes
that it will indeed be called
on to shoulder a large share
of the West's debt of grati-
tude to Arab states for their
support in the confrontation
with Iraq.
This was underscored ear-
ly this week when Secretary
of State James Baker called
on Israeli Foreign Minister
David Levy to cooperate
with the UN mission, con-
tending that such action
would help defuse interna-
tional outrage over the
Temple Mount killings and
return attention to Iraq's
aggression against Kuwait.
Mr. Levy, however, reflec-
ting the defiance of the
cabinet, flatly rejected the
Security Council resolution.
The cabinet, he said, had
taken account of possible
negative U.S. reactions and
of possible further hostile
Security Council resolu-
tions. He criticized Wash-
ington's support for the
resolution, which he termed
"a surrender," and regretted
that the Bush administra-
tion had "made a mistake."
"The United States," he
said, "is held captive by the
very coalition it formed
against (Iraqi President)
Saddam Hussein."
One sign of Israel's
deepening unease was pro-
vided by the normally
imperturbable Yossi Olmert,
director of the Israeli
Government Press Office
who made no attempt to hide
his outrage when he
declared that Israel
"completely rejects, in an
unequivocal way, this one-
sided, biased and distorted
resolution."
"We are not going to ac-
cept this humiliation which
completely disregards our
concerns and sentiments and
which completely disregards
the terrible provocation
which took place prior to the
tragic incident in which an
attempt was made on the
holiest site of the Jewish
people."
The Security Council deci-
sion, he said, had aroused "a
great deal of anger and in-
dignation among Jews both
inside and outside Israel.
This total disregard for
everything the Jewish peo-
ple stands for cannot be
tolerated by the State of
Israel."
In condemning Israel, the
Security council had already
passed judgment, he added.
"Who needs a commission of
investigation if they have
already issued a verdict?"
Deputy Foreign Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu said
the Israeli government had
sent a very clear signal to
the UN:
"It does not wish to see
that mission here and it does
not expect it to come. The
condemnation in the Securi-
ty Council was one-sided and
unjust."
The shooting, he said,
followed "a provocation on
Jews praying at their holiest
mittee, warned that the
dispatch of a Security Coun-
cil mission to Jerusalem
"will simply encourage the
more extreme elements in
the area."
It was, he said, "very im-
portant to us to listen to
what the United States
would like in this area, but
there are certain limits
beyond which we cannot go
in agreeing with the United
States, much as we would
like to do so."
According to one UN
source, officials of the world
body were surprised by
Israel's uncompromising
response to the resolution and
noted that Washington's
support "marks a very seri-
ous change in the American
Shamir under siege: The more the Israeli prime minister has been
criticized this week, the more defiant he has become.
site on a holy day. It's
unbelievable."
The Israeli government
contends that the UN in-
quiry into an event that oc-
curred in East Jerusalem,
which was formally annexed
by Israel after the Six Day
War, constitutes an inter-
ference in Israel's internal
affairs: "To receive a delega-
tion in these cir-
cumstances," said Mr. Levy,
"would be to accept that
Jerusalem is not our legal
capital and to bring Israeli
sovereignty into question."
At the same time, Uzi
Landau, the hard-line
chairman of Israel's
parliamentary Foreign Af-
fairs and Defense Corn-
attitude to the problem."
He noted that the United
States had vetoed a similar
attempt to dispatch a UN
investigative mission to
Israel last May, after an ap-
parently deranged Israeli
soldier opened fire on a
group of Palestinian
laborers in the town of
Rishon Lezion, killing seven
people. "This time it
welcomes the dispatch."
The UN mission will, in
fact, be the fourth to in-
vestigate the causes and
effects of the violence on the
Temple Mount. The Israeli
government's own indepen-
dent commission of inquiry,
headed by a former Mossad
chief, started work this
week, just as two human
rights groups presented
their findings to the media.
All are seeking answers to
a number of fundamental
questions about the affair.
Did Israeli troops, as the
Palestinians contend, open
fire on the Temple Mount
last Monday in line with a
deliberate, premeditated
plot to shatter the Western-
Arab alliance in the Gulf
and hasten the start of the
war against Iraq?
Or did they, as Israeli offi-
cials assert, seek to defend
themselves and Jewish wor-
shipers at the Western Wall
against a frenzied, PLO-
inspired, pro-Iraqi, rock-
throwing mob which out-
numbered the security forces
by more than a thousand to
one and which was intent on
reviving the faltering in-
tifada?
By any standards, the Pa-
lestinian claim appears
patently absurd; at the same
time, the Israeli forces seem
to have been inadequately
prepared for the occasion
and, consequently, to have
been panicked into using ex-
cessive force.
Sadly, the facts which
could provide conclusive an-
swers to the questions have
been lost amid the clouds of
tear gas on the Temple
Mount and the welter of
rhetoric which consumed the
UN Security Council for five
days last week.
Not that conclusive an-
swers are particularly
helpful in a conflict where
entrenched perceptions are
far more potent than the
facts.
The Palestinians started
hurling their rocks, bottles
and iron bars because, they
say, they really believed
that the Jews were about to
lay the foundation stone of
the Third Temple.
Never mind that the Tem-
ple Mount Faithful, a fringe
group which announces just
such an intention every
year, had been barred from
setting foot in the area by a
High Court injunction and
that a small band which at-
tempted to defy the order
had been turned back hours
before the rocks and the
bullets began to fly.
Whatever the facts, the net
result of last week's hour of
violence is that, as the Mid-
dle East stands on the brink
of an unprecedented war,
Israel now stands more
alone and more isolated than
ever before. ❑
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
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