Chirac's Mideast 'Diplomacy'
VALLS-RUSSELL, JANICE
A DUBIOUS STRATEGY Chirac's Mideast 'Diplomacy' BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSELL Paris That the Arab world enthusiastically hailed President Jacques Chirac's October 22 shoving match with Israeli...
...He went on to plead for a "rational appraisal" of Israeli affairs, instead of the guilt-ridden thirdworldist outlook pervading the media—which he sees as periodically seeking to prove that the victims of the Holocaust make ruthless oppressors too...
...Henri Hajdenberg, president of the French Council of Jewish Institutions (CRIF), who accompanied Chirac to Israel, has come under attack for not returning home in protest immediately after the Jerusalem incident...
...Long before Chirac embarked on his Mideast jaunt, journalists here were predicting the Israeli leg would be difficult...
...Duringapressconference inEgypt, the final lap of his trip, he startled President Hosni Mubarak by announcing France's record trade surplus with the Middle East...
...On the whole, Chirac's Jerusalem confrontation has been perceived here as part of a strategy to revive France's "Arab policy...
...And Chirac, especially in Israel, did often behave more like the troublesome Egyptian President than the head of a Western state...
...Unfortunately, the clash in Jerusalem occurred against a backdrop of anti-Jewish slander in France...
...They want war...
...Le Figaro editorialized that the American media's negative appraisal of Chirac's tour proved it had been profitable, because the U.S...
...What disturbed it was the applause of the French media, from the Communist L 'Humanite to the far Right Minute...
...More worryingly, neo-Gaullist Deputy Michel Pericard recently criticized respected journalist Ivan Leva'i for his "partiality when reporting Middle Eastern affairs"—an obvious allusion to his Jewish background...
...Francois Leotard, head of the Center-Right Union for French Democracy, was about the only senior politician to distance himself from Chirac, despite his party's support of the neo-Gaullist President...
...Indeed, they have been generally hostile to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since his election, suggesting he will be to blame should the peace process collapse...
...The more subtle Francois Mitterrand made two memorable visits to Israel—the first ever by a French President—and recognized its right to security...
...Since foreign policy is considered the President's prerogative, the consensus was predictable...
...Most columnists now agree that France has squandered what little chance it ever had of becoming a mediator in the Middle East...
...On the eve of Chirac's departure, a front-page Le Monde headline characterized Netanyahu as "Uncompromising...
...Georges Pompidou's Foreign Minister, Michel Jobert, made a point of never visiting Israel . Valery Giscard d' Estaing invited the PLO to open a Paris office and refused the extradition to Israel of Abu Daou, who was responsible for the Munich massacre...
...does not like France to be successful...
...Action there was—in the presence of 120 journalists, instead of the 20 who had been invited under the original plans...
...Le Nouvel Observateur put it this way: "Chirac understood...
...The PLO delegate to France, who was present, deciphered the cryptic phrase: "President Chirac has had to endure what the Palestinian people daily endure—which explains the extent of their anger...
...In Liberation, Arab affairs commentator Maati Kabbal pointed out that Netanyahu's electoral victory was due, "at least in part, to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, which we owe to the lack of democracy in the Arab countries...
...France Inter, the state-run radio station, allowed a spokeswoman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to speak at length about this, while giving the Israeli Ambassador short shrift...
...The same week, a frontpage cartoon in Le Figaro pictured Socialist leader Laurent Fabius, also of Jewish descent, proposing that Chirac be charged with anti-Semitism for his behavior in East Jerusalem—implying that Jews are obsessively thin-skinned...
...Chirac's claim that he was representing Europe convinced no one, even though de Charette persuaded his European Union colleagues to appoint a joint observer of the peace process...
...His September visit to France was overshadowed by coverage of the Palestinian riots following the opening of a tourist exit for an archeological tunnel beneath a section of the Western Wall—quickly dubbed "the tunnel of discord...
...As Mayor of Paris he cultivated their community, especially the Orthodox...
...But some Jews suspect him of being anti-Zionist, with scant understanding of what Israel's rebirth has meant to world Jewry...
...Meanwhile Chirac, who was Prime Minister then, courted Saddam Hussein by helping to finance and build the Iraqi nuclear plant Israel later destroyed...
...he would have all the Arab countries cheering France...
...Barring that, he must at least recognize that diplomatic discord with Israel can be a nasty weapon in the hands of anti-Semites...
...Other papers played up Foreign Minister Herve de Charette's decision to "boycott" Israel after officials there made it clear he would not be permitted to visit Orient House, the PLO's East Jerusalem headquarters...
...He implicitly warned Chirac not to repeat with Hafez al-Assad the mistake he made in coddling Saddam Hussein...
...Back in France, a poll showed 84 per cent of the population approved Chirac's coup de colere...
...But at the last minute the route was changed, causing security officials understandable anxiety over the President's safety...
...Janice Valls-Russell writes about French and Spanish affairs for the NL...
...First there was his apparent contempt for Israel's Parliament...
...He succeeded, and this may lead to a substantial increase in economic exchanges...
...Switching to French, he went on to say of his Israeli guards: "Their attitude explains a lot of things...
...At least initially, even responsible papers such as the Left-of-Center Le Monde and Le Nouvel Observateur and the Right-of-Center Le Figaro and Le Point, were taken in, as were TV and radio reporters...
...A DUBIOUS STRATEGY Chirac's Mideast 'Diplomacy' BY JANICE VALLS-RUSSELL Paris That the Arab world enthusiastically hailed President Jacques Chirac's October 22 shoving match with Israeli security men in East Jerusalem hardly surprised France's Jewish community...
...Chirac tried to push through the security cordon, grumbling about "provocation" and threatening in English (most unusual, given how linguistically prickly French officials are) to return to Paris...
...The Spanish Ambassador to Israel has been named to the post...
...Although in the 1950s France was pro-Israel, after the Six Day War Charles de Gaulle clamped an arms embargo on the "arrogant and domineering nation," setting a new course...
...In a television interview he voiced his preference for a "Mediterranean policy" encompassing Israel...
...According to both French and Israeli sources, the circuit through the Old City had been set in advance and appropriate security arrangements were made...
...It has been suggested that Chirac mend fences with Israel...
...The far Right National Front Mayor of Toulon, Jean-Marie Le Chevalier, had let it be known that he did not wish novelist Marek Halter to attend a book fair in his town, simply because he is Jewish...
...Agathe Logeart, Le Monde's normally levelheaded columnist, commented on the brutality of "local mores" and raptured over the glowing complexion anger gave Chirac...
...A French radio correspondent praised the President's "physical and moral courage...
...At the same time, he supported Yasir Arafat and helped to convince him that no breakthrough was possible until the PLO stopped calling for Israel's destruction...
...A half-hour gap was eventually found in his schedule for a Knesset visit...
...Salesman Chirac also canceled most of Syria's $350 million debt to France, clearing the way for further economic deals...
...He believes the Holocaust should be everyone's concern, and has acknowledged France's culpability in the deportation of Jews to the death camps during the Nazi occupation...
...The evening before the unseemly clash, too—although the French press has failed to report this—someone in the President's entourage was heard telling journalists that "there will be action...
...Obviously, his priorities lie elsewhere...
...As the days have gone by, however, some of this enthusiasm has cooled...
...All that was contrasted with the enthusiasm being drummed up for Chirac in Syria by dictator Hafez al-Assad...
...As for the French Jewish community, it has been plunged into disarray...
...France's roughly 500,000 Jews lack the economic and political clout of their American counterparts, but they try to speak with one voice through the CRIF...
...No one has been honored like this since [Gamal Abdel] Nasser in 1958," Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass assured Le Point...
...Even before the Israeli elections, Alain Finkielkraut, a sharp observer of the contemporary scene, had warned that "by their attacks, Hamas and the Hezbollah are influencing the way Israel will vote...
...Chirac is not considered anti-Semitic by French Jews...
...Then there was East Jerusalem...
...Mouna Nairn, in Le Monde, lamented Chirac's failure to use the prestige "he now enjoys in Syria and Lebanon to persuade their leaders to show more respect for civil rights...
...The leader of the opposition Socialist Party, Lionel Jospin, remarked: "I don't like to see the President of the French Republic being prevented from making contacts...
Vol. 79 • November 1996 • No. 8
