Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 19 - 25 October 2000 Issue No. 504
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

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Broker dreams

By Dominic Coldwell

After chairing the European Council of Ministers in the Atlantic sea-side resort of Biarritz last weekend, French President Jacques Chirac said he was "traumatised" by the violence sweeping across the Middle East. "We had the feeling, two weeks ago, of being only two inches away from a comprehensive peace settlement. Our disappointment has been cruel," he complained. Heeding a proposal by Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar, Chirac dispatched Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, to Monday's summit meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Sharm Al-Sheikh.

Solana's brief follows an intense week of shuttle diplomacy in which British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook vainly tried to secure Tel Aviv's consent to an independent commission of inquiry into massacres committed by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). According to Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Pique, Solana nevertheless convinced Arafat last Friday to attend a summit meeting.

In light of recent pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the continent, the EU has tried to project an air of neutrality at Biarritz. With visible relief, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin announced that his government "had discreetly made its preferences known" to the French branch of the Israeli Likud Party and issued instructions for cancelling an invitation to Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon. Sharon's visit to the Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September unleashed the current Palestinian rising. Despite talk of impartiality, Chirac's performance at Biarritz smacked of cautious French efforts to mollify the Israeli leadership after Barak blamed Chirac's insistence on an international investigation into the current violence for the collapse of Palestinian-Israeli crisis talks in Paris a week earlier.

Shimon Peres, Israel's minister for regional cooperation, meanwhile mounted a diplomatic blitz that carried him to Berlin, Paris, London and Biarritz. Adding insult to injury, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine sheepishly tried to explain that Peres had travelled "privately and by coincidence" to the autumnal Atlantic retreat, just as Europe's heads of state and government happened to congregate there.

Rubbing salt into Palestinian wounds, Nicole Fontaine, the president of the European Parliament, then urged both Palestinians and Israelis to rein in "extremists" -- as if to exonerate the role of IDF soldiers, who, according to Fontaine's definition, would supposedly fall outside the pale of fanaticism. Not to be outdone, Chirac highlighted that "two [Israeli] persons were lynched" in Ramallah last Thursday, urging Arafat to punish the perpetrators. He conveniently ignored the slaughter of 12-year-old Mohamed Al-Dorra by IDF soldiers a week earlier. Even worse, Chirac quietly dropped his initial support for Palestinian demands that an international commission investigate Israeli killings prior to a meeting with Israeli officials. "We won't pose any preconditions," trumpeted Chirac in reference to the Sharm Al-Sheikh summit.

Chirac's climbdown comes amid the growing vilification of Arabs and Muslims across Europe. On Saturday, French authorities forbade 5,000 demonstrators in Lyon from using placards with Mohamed Al-Dorra's image and the caption "They even kill children!"

Spanish authorities have also cracked down on pro-Palestinian protests. For the second week running, the High Court of Justice in Madrid has denied the Arab Cause Solidarity Committee (CSCA) a permit for demonstrating outside the Israeli embassy on the spurious grounds that the political situation in the Middle East does "not justify the urgency for such a gathering." The court's verdict comes despite declarations by both the Spanish government and the EU that the situation in the Middle East is one of "extreme danger" for the peace process.

Meanwhile, French Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant complied with Jewish requests to beef up police forces outside Jewish institutions last Friday -- although two firebombs marked with a David star were deposited outside the shop of a halal butcher in the tenth arrondissement one day earlier.

The government's deference to Israel, however, does not just offend Muslims. It could also well go against the grain of public opinion in France. According to a survey conducted by the daily Liberation on Monday, 31 per cent of Frenchmen hold Israel responsible for the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East. Only 15 per cent blame Palestinians. Among the educated classes, 46 per cent fault Tel Aviv, and in the higher income brackets, as many as 49 per cent charge Israel with the current carnage.

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