Subject: Cooks' Visit to Israel
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 1998 23:43:00 +0000
To: "Arutz-7 List"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

 

From:           Eddie Chumney
Subject:       Cooks' Visit to Israel
To:            <HEB_ROOTS_CHR@geocities.com>

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    THE JERUSALEM POST DAILY INTERNET EDITION
                         Wed, Mar 18, 1998


    NETANYAHU: COOK BROKE THE RULES

     By JAY BUSHINSKY

 JERUSALEM (March 18) - Great Britain's attempt to speed up the peace process
 degenerated into a bitter squabble yesterday. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
 accused visiting Foreign Secretary Robin Cook of violating the ground rules for
 his hotly contested tour of the Har Homa construction site in Jerusalem.

 The unprecedented verbal clashes that followed Cook's presence on the hilltop
 were triggered by his having met Palestinian leaders, including Salah Ta'amri,
 a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, nearby.

 "There were understandings according to which the tour would not include contact
 with Palestinians," a visibly angry Netanyahu said after a tense discussion with
 Cook. He said there had been a prior discussion with British Prime Minister Tony
 Blair, the gist of which was that there be no contact with Palestinians at Har
 Homa. Netanyahu demonstrated his displeasure by cancelling a supper at which
 Cook was to have been the guest of honor.

 "I had three four-course meals since I came to the Middle East," Cook said,
 denying a crisis in UK-Israel relations after a news conference at the King
 David Hotel. "I'm not going to miss another one."

 Cook described his visit to Har Homa as "a symbolic act," which was meant to
 show the extent to which "settlements" are destroying the peace process. He
 contended that this view is held by the international community.

 Netanyahu rejected this terminology, declaring that Har Homa is a housing
 development within Jerusalem's city limits, not a settlement in the West Bank.

 "We stuck to the letter of our agreement," Cook went on, referring to the terms
 that had been agreed upon by the two Foreign Ministries. He was escorted to Har
 Homa by cabinet secretary Dan Naveh and the Jerusalem Municipality's Amos
 Radian, after his initial intention to go there with the Palestinian Authority
 Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Faisal Husseini had been abandoned.

 According to Israel Radio, when Naveh greeted Cook, he said, "Welcome to
 Jerusalem, the capital of Israel." Cook replied: "It's not just the capital of
 Israel, it's also the capital of Palestine." Cook also refused a briefing
 from Radian on Har Homa saying, "I don't need your briefing, because I don't
 recognize your right to be here."

 "We repeatedly bent over backward to accommodate their concerns," Cook said,
 indicating that his rendezvous with Ta'amri did not constitute a violation of
 the visit's conditions.

 But Netanyahu regarded Cook's activities as a challenge to Israel's exclusive
 sovereignty over Jerusalem.

 "Israel is prepared to accept European assistance," he said. "But this is on
 condition that it not supersede direct contact between Israel and the
 Palestinians."

 Cook's tour not only rendered Netanyahu unable or unwilling to discuss any
 subject other than Jerusalem during their exceptionally tense meeting, but it
 also evoked a series of rhetorical reminders of his government's commitment to
 preserve the city's current status as the undivided national capital.

 "Jerusalem is a cardinal issue in my eyes," Netanyahu said. "Israel is the
 sovereign and it will remain as such forever. Europe understands very well our
 position with regard to Jerusalem."

 PA Chairman Yasser Arafat said that, "I'm sorry to say that Netanyahu is trying
 to make a big issue against Mr. Cook. No doubt this is provocative action
 against Europe."

 Earlier, Cook conferred with Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai, probing the
 negotiations with the Palestinians and especially Israel's proposal to withdraw
 from Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425.

 Reuters adds:

 The US said it has great confidence in Cook's efforts to promote peace, but had
 not been consulted on his visit to Har Homa.

 The State Department said it hopes the uproar over Cook's visit would end with
 Israeli and Palestinian leaders deciding that it is time to move forward on
 peace.

 Margot Dudkevitch and Mohammed Najib add:

 Cook was warmly received by Arafat in Gaza. During a three-hour meeting,
 Palestinian officials said the two discussed the deadlock in peace negotiations
 and the EU role in getting them back on track.

 Following their meeting, Cook and Arafat held a short press conference before
 Cook continued on to Jerusalem.

 Cook said the EU is deeply concerned about the deadlock and cannot accept
 settlement construction.

 The EU intends to establish a permanent security committee with the PA and
 work more closely with the Palestinians in training security officers, he said.

 Some 5 million will be set aside for the committee and Europe will continue
 providing aid to the PA after the five-year funding plan expires at the end of
 the year, he said.

 After Har Homa, Cook met with Husseini in a college opposite Orient House then
 placed a wreath at the Jerusalem memorial erected in memory of Palestinians
 killed by Israel.

 Liat Collins adds:

 "Netanyahu as foreign minister has apparently taken it on himself to ruin
 Israel's relations with Britain and all Europe," said MK Yossi Beilin (Labor).
 "Instead of allowing the visit of the British foreign secretary to Har Homa
 as an unimportant and marginal event in his trip, Netanyahu turned it into an
 international media event and succeeded in worsening world opposition to one
 of the few issues on which there is a consensus in Israel: the unity of
 Jerusalem and Israeli sovereignty."

 ********************************************************************

  THE JERUSALEM POST DAILY INTERNET EDITION
   Wed, Mar 18, 1998

    CHAOS PREVAILS DURING COOK VISIIT

     By ELLI WOHLGELERNTER


 JERUSALEM (March 18) - On a tumultuous, chaotic first visit to Jerusalem
 yesterday, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook was cheered and jeered by
 dueling demonstrators when he paid two symbolic visits to the controversial
 Har Homa construction site. Cook and his entourage met for a few minutes with
 cabinet secretary Danny Naveh at the foot of the hill, where Cook was shown
 the lay of the land and the surrounding rocky hills where 1,200 homes are
 expected to be built sometime soon.

 From there Cook proceeded a kilometer down the road past the military
 checkpoint to the back of Har Homa, where he was greeted for 30 seconds by
 Salah Ta'amri, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, amid a throng
 of jostling journalists, and right-wing demonstrators shouting: "Antisemite go
 home."

 "This is occupied territory since 1967; this is the playground of our youth,
 and we remember it," Ta'amri told Cook. "We have great faith in your courage,
 and sense of fairness and justice. Thank you for coming, I appreciate it."

 "Thank you very much," responded Cook, as he was quickly led away by nervous
 security agents trying to shield him from the vociferous mob. "I hope we can
 talk another time, in different circumstances."

 "He is an antisemite; he should go back to England and take care of his problems
 there," said right-wing activist Noam Federman. "He has problems in Ireland with
 the IRA and Sinn Fein, and he should not get involved in what's happening in
 Israel. This is our land, and we will take care of our business here."

 Federman and a handful of other Kach supporters had taken a back road through
 Bethlehem to demonstrate at the Cook-Ta'amri meeting. An hour before he had been
 part of a demonstration at the Hebron Road turnoff to Har Homa, together with
 some 100 others, including members of Our Jerusalem and Women in Green, who
 banged on pots while yelling: "Cook go home|"

 Three feet away, a smaller pro-Cook demonstration organized by Peace Now was
 facing off against the anti-Cook protesters. MKs Yossi Sarid (Meretz) and Yael
 Dayan (Labor) joined the rally, as demonstrators held up signs saying: "Cook,
 you fold, the peace roasts," "Har Homa is not Jerusalem," "Robin: Don't let
 Bibi bully you," and "Robin: Help us save the peace."

 Following his meeting with Ta'amri, Cook traveled to eastern Jerusalem to meet
 with Palestinian Authority Minister for Jerusalem Affairs Faisal Husseini.

 Cook said that, as Britain currently holds the rotating chairmanship of the
 European Union, his visit was an attempt "to renew the peace process and make
 sure we provide peace with justice to the Palestinians and peace with security
 to the Israeli population. The European Union is deeply concerned about the
 stalemate in the peace process. We are near neighbors of the Middle East; we
 also are the largest financial backers of the peace process. We want to see
 the peace process back on track."


 ************************************************************************************

  THE JERUSALEM POST DAILY INTERNET EDITION
   Wed, Mar 18, 1998

    THE GRAVEYARD OF COOK'S CAREER?

     BACKGROUND by DOUGLAS DAVIS


 LONDON (March 18) - British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook - dubbed "Throbbin'
 Robin" since abandoning his wife for a younger parliamentary aide - might yet
 look back on Har Homa as the graveyard of his political career. Not that the
 diplomatic imbroglio over a nascent Jerusalem neighborhood is, in itself, a
 resignation matter; it is just the latest in a series of high-profile
 miscalculations, misjudgments and mistakes by this unlikely Lothario.

 What makes the Har Homa debacle particularly embarrassing for the pristine
 government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair is that it has tarnished the
 jewel in the crown of Britain's six-month presidency of the European Union.

 Far from propelling Britain to center stage in Europe and the Europeans to
 center stage in Middle East diplomacy - the unalloyed objective of the mission
 - Cook's abortive public relations extravaganza in Har Homa has almost
 certainly scuttled that ambition.

 It is likely to have awakened Israel's darkest suspicions about Europe's
 innate pro-Arab tilt and, in the process, to have antagonized a principal
 protagonist in the peace process.

 An editorial in the London Times made just that point yesterday when it noted
 that the Har Homa issue "has all but eclipsed the main purpose of his trip and
 seems likely to have a thoroughly adverse impact on the EU hopes of becoming
 more actively engaged... Cook is not known for his emollient manner; but he
 has not served the EU's purposes well by donning his diplomatic big boots."

 This is not the first time that the accident-prone, 52-year-old Cook has
 discomforted Blair, who is said to have had a cordial encounter with Prime
 Minister Binyamin Netanyahu less than two weeks ago and who is said to
 be personally well-disposed to Israel.

 Soon after entering office last May, Cook was criticized for having
 deliberately kept Princess Diana waiting for 20 minutes when she called on him
 for a briefing on land mines.

 He provoked another storm for raising the controversial issue of Kashmir with
 Pakistani leaders, immediately before accompanying Queen Elizabeth on what
 became a disastrous visit to India. Cook was further criticized for abandoning
 her in the middle of the problematic visit to rush back to Britain to be with
 his new lover.

 More recently, he has been accused of duplicity for continuing to sell arms to
 Indonesia while making human rights a top priority.

 Indeed, Cook's commitment to ethics and human rights has come back to haunt him.

 Labor chairperson of the bipartisan Parliamentary Human Rights Group Anne
 Clwyd accused him of not doing enough to act against the "brutal and sustained
 torture" of prisoners in Saudi Arabia, one of Britain's major arms clients.
 Cook's pledge to put human rights at the heart of British foreign policy, she
 said, "appears not to apply in the Gulf."

 But the greatest political embarrassment has not been one of his many  foreign
 policy gaffes, but rather the bizarre circumstances in which his 28-year
 marriage abruptly ended at London's Heathrow Airport last August.

 On their way to the airport, Cook received a call on his mobile phone from a
 senior Blair aide who told him that a London tabloid was about to expose his
 affair with parliamentary assistant Gaynor Regan. The time had come, Cook was
 instructed, to do something about it.

 Just minutes before he and his wife, Margaret, a physician who had supplemented
 her husband's meager income as an ordinary member of parliament, were about to
 board a flight for a holiday in the United States, Cook took her into a side
 room at the airport and told her their marriage was over.

 *******************************************************************************************

   THE JERUSALEM POST DAILY INTERNET EDITION
   Wed, Mar 18, 1998

    HAR HOMA, ONE YEAR LATER

     REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK by ELLI WOHLGELERNTER


 JERUSALEM (March 18) - What a difference a year makes - or is that deja vu all
 over again? Exactly a year ago today, some 2,000 media representatives assembled
 at the base of a lovely, tree-saturated hill in southeast Jerusalem to watch
 bulldozers and shovel trucks break ground for a controversial new neighborhood
 called Har Homa.

 After a morning of heavy rain that Tuesday, the skies turned partly cloudy, and
 though cold and blustery it was not enough to deter the multitude that came
 for the show.

 Yesterday, the journalists gathered there again for another media scene,
 fighting off driving rain and hail for the visit of British Foreign Secretary
 Robin Cook.

 In the 12 months between these two scenes, Har Homa became the political buzz
 word.

 No story from the world's media relating to the peace process could be written
 without a mention of this hill: every deadlock in negotiations, every potential
 breakthrough, every threat of street violence - in short, any twist and turn
 between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman
 Yasser Arafat since last March 18 has had the building project at Har Homa
 silently - and sometimes vocally - hovering above.

 The government argued it was Jerusalem, and as such it needed to be built, as
 much to ease the city's housing shortage as to make a statement on the city's
 boundaries.

 For the Arabs from the nearby village of Beit Sahur, Har Homa - or Jabal Abu
 Ghneim as they call it - was an extension of their land, and part of their
 future capital of Palestine.

 Everyone feared the worst that day, expecting a reaction similar to what
 occurred after the opening of another exit to the Western Wall Tunnel in
 September '96.

 But no violence and no threats would stop Netanyahu's government, and for the
 next nine months constructed continued unimpeded, despite worldwide condemnation
 and  UN resolutions condemning the building.

 Moreover, in the face of such worldwide opposition, it became the perfect
 rallying cry for the right-wing, the litmus test for those MKs and politicians
 - like Michael Kleiner of Gesher and Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert - who wanted
 to know just how strong was Netanyahu's commitment on the issue of Jerusalem.

 More than once in the past four months, Netanyahu has had to explain he was
 not caving in to US pressure to slow down the process, and that the project
 "will proceed without delay."

 But these politicos will not wait forever. When the issue was raised in December
 and January, it was said that technical problems were holding things up, but
 that the next stage - the offering of tenders - would proceed sometime in the
 first quarter of '98, that is by the end of this month.

 But sources in the Housing Ministry and the Israel Lands Administration told
 The Jerusalem Post that everything has been ready for a couple of months and
 that the delay is because they are waiting "for a green light from above. He
 is waiting for the right time."

 With Kleiner threatening to bring down the government over stalled construction
 and Olmert intimating he will challenge Netanyahu for party leadership if he
 hesitates on the issue, Cook's visit to the site yesterday with Salah Ta'amri,
 a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, only sets the stage for the
 imminent Act II in the year-long drama known as Har Homa.

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                     Hebraic Heritage Ministries Int'l
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