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Is ra el
EILAT page 114
on the deck of the Zim
Haifa, French troops
demanded to check the con-
tainers in the ship's hold —
which, experts insist, is
physically impossible to do.
After a 17-hour delay, in
which "nothing suspicious
was found," the ship was
nonetheless denied entrance
to the Gulf of Aqaba and
made its way through the
Suez Canal to Haifa.
Meanwhile — and here's
the rub of it all — container
ships headed for Aqaba,
including those flying the
Iraqi flag, have been pass-
ing through the straits
unmolested and, according
to Israeli claims, uninspect-
ed.
The result: Aqaba is
bustling with traffic while
the port of Eilat is deserted,
leaving the entire town of
32,000 residents in turmoil.
"The maneuver has been
an economic disaster for
some 500 families,"
explained Gabi Erez, chair-
man of Eilat's Workers
Council.
Dock workers continue to
earn their base salaries, but
the better part of their
incomes are made through
incentive premiums based
on the amount of actually
cargo they handle. Customs
inspectors have been left
idle, and the suppliers of
other port services are like-
wise out of work.
The hardest hit are the
transport companies, which
usually send some 200
trucks a day northward to
Israel's heartland, but
which now face bankruptcy.
Zim, Israel's national
shipping line — which loses
about $1,000 for each hour
of delay — has also borne
the brunt of the ad hoc
blockade. The enforced
route changes prevent it
from honoring its contracts
with companies in the Far
East and Africa to deliver
their cargo to Eilat.
They've also played havoc
with its schedules for deliv-
ering the portion of its cargo
destined to pass through the
Suez Canal and continue on
to Europe.
"We've knocked on every
possible door, from the
Prime Minister's Office to
the Foreign Ministry," said
Zim spokeswoman Rifka
Benvenisti. So far, it's been
to no avail.
Eilat's port workers have
demonstrated on land by
the Israeli-Egyptian bor-
der at Taba, at sea on the
northern end of the Tiran
Straits, and even in front of
American Ambassador
William Brown's house on
the Fourth of July, chanting
"we're fighting for our inde-
pendence!"
Last Friday, they mount-
ed their most spectacular
effort yet: sailing five tug
boats across the bay toward
the busy Jordanian port of
Aqaba while shouting for
the TV cameras: "If they
make it impossible to work
in Eilat, we'll go to work in
Aqaba, where the allies
allow ships to dock."
Though the tugs stopped
just short of the border —
and a sure clash with the
Israeli navy and police —
that protest finally shook
Israeli officials out of their
lethargy.
Israel's ambassadors to
the U.N. and the U.S. were
instructed to raise the issue
with the relevant parties,
but nothing came of their
approaches. Israel's naval
attache in Washington pro-
posed that the inspection of
Israeli ships be carried out
in Eilat, where — unlike the
situation on the high seas
— the inspectors would
actually have access to the
containers' contents. So far
The U.N. action
has caused
economic chaos in
Eilat.
there's been no progress on
that suggestion either.
Foreign Ministry
Director-General Uri Savir
has • registered Israel's
"protest in unequivocal
terms" to Dennis Ross, who
heads the U.S. State
Department "peace team"
currently on a shuttle mis-
sion in the Middle East.
The strangest part of this
bizarre episode is that no
one seems to know what lay
behind the sudden change
in U.N.'s inspection policy
and the great difficulty in
reversing it.
Eilat's deputy mayor and
acting harbor master
accused U.N. Secretary-
General Boutros-Boutrous
Ghali of forcing Israeli ships
to reroute through the Suez
Canal in order to generate
more revenue for his home-
land. But Zim's Ms.
Benvenisti explained that
after docking at Eilat, the
container ships at any rate
continue through the canal
on to Israel's Mediterranean
ports and then Europe.
She ventured that not
some grand design, but sim-
ply a "capricious bureau-
crat" is probably behind the
affair. "I can only hope that
common sense will prevail,"
she added.
❑