Sharon remarks on "large Islamic bloc in Europe"

MA'ARIV 4/8/99: "Throughout the whole crisis in Kosovo, the foreign minister has been behaving like a bull in a china shop." This is what senior political sources told Ma'ariv with regard to Foreign Minister Ari'el Sharon's remarks regarding the future dangers posed by a "large Islamic bloc in the center of Europe."

According to those same sources, "Sharon hasn't learned that sometimes it is better to remain silent and that being right is not always the same as being wise."...Zalman Shoval, Israel's ambassador to the United States, yesterday published an exceptional personal message in an effort to repair the damage caused by the foreign minister's declarations.

In his statement, Shoval stressed that Israel always and consistently supports the stand taken by the United States and the West -- a position that reflects the common values that Israel and the enlightened world hold sacred.

Foreign Ministry sources also reacted with astonishment. "If he hadn't been foreign minister," a senior Foreign Ministry source said, "one could think that these were the ramblings of some eccentric individual."

Another Foreign Ministry source added: "In diplomacy, you don't always have to be right, but you always have to be smart."

...Members of the Israeli aid team led by Jewish Agency Chairman Salay Meridor which left for Albania on 6 April were also furious at Sharon's earlier comparisons between Israeli Arabs and the Albanian refugees.

"This is an infuriating comparison that is totally baseless," said one of the senior officials in the Israeli delegation. "How can one draw a comparison between the Serb atrocities and us? The criteria is not the fact that there are refugees but rather the actions of the parties."

Sharon's remarks debated in interview

IDF RADIO 4/8/99: [Reporter Wilensky] Good evening to our political correspondent Raviv Drucker.

[Drucker] Good evening.

[Wilensky] I understand that we have some new information regarding the reasons behind Foreign Minister Ari'el Sharon's remarks.

[Drucker] Listen, there is no doubt that Foreign Minister Sharon's remarks regarding the dangers inherent in Kosovo being granted independence -- let us remind our listeners that Sharon said that despite the empathy felt by the State of Israel for the human tragedy taking place there, a Muslim state that would join the ranks of those Muslim countries hostile to Israel poses a threat -- caused great embarrassment to Israel's representatives around the world and to the State of Israel in general.

Today, Foreign Ministry sources told us that a secret report reached the Foreign Ministry several days ago disclosing that the Albanian underground that is acting to secure independence for Kosovo is mostly or to a large part funded by Iran.

The Foreign Ministry sources are using this report to try to explain Foreign Minister Sharon's motives for making that, let us say, strange statement several days ago in New York. It is worth noting, Yaron, that Sharon is slated to meet with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright tomorrow.

Until now, there has been no official US response to the statements made by Israeli figures, neither to Israel's hesitancy at the start of this tragedy....

[Wilensky, interrupting] Will Sharon use the information that you have just reported in order to explain his remarks?

[Drucker] Undoubtedly. Sharon will also raise the fact that Israel is concerned about the possibility of a Muslim front with ties to Iran. Israel is worried by these issues. Minister Sharon will also try to say that, at any rate, his remarks did not reflect any kind of reservations about NATO's stand and its actions.

Sharon will tell Albright that there is no contradiction between these two Israeli positions. US diplomats have told us that the secretary of state will definitely not demonstrate enthusiasm for Sharon's position and may even give him a piece of her mind.

We still don't know whether any of this will come out after the meeting, because the Americans still don't want a direct confrontation with Israel at this stage..."

Barak's campaign against the ultra-Orthodox

YEDIOT AHARONOT 4/8/99: "One Israel Chairman Ehud Baraq disclosed two days ago that in the wake of the criticism leveled at the campaign against the ultra-Orthodox community, he decided "to lower the profile" on the issue.

In a meeting of activists in Tiberias on Tuesday, Baraq said his wife Nava had been the first to draw his attention to the fact that the wording of the posters against the ultra-Orthodox and yeshiva students was hurting Labor because it was also offensive to yeshiva students who combine their studies with military service and to traditionalist Jews.

"In the wake of these reactions, we toned down the message and emphasized that we were referring only to the extremists, so that people should know who we were talking about," Baraq admitted...."

Arafat rushes home from Japan

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE 4/8/99: "Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat Thursday cancelled a news conference and decided to leave Japan two hours early without explanation, officials here said. "Arafat's side told US he wanted to leave Japan early," said a Japanese Foreign Ministry official.

"We asked the reason why but they did not tell us." The Palestinian leader was meeting with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi before flying to Vietnam and later China to continue his tour, which has already taken him to Turkey, Jordan and Russia.

He cancelled a news conference scheduled to follow the meeting with Japan's premier and decided to leave the country two hours earlier than orginally scheduled, officials said.

"We strongly urged the Arafat side to at least have a (media) interview here before he leaves Japan but that did not work out," said the Japanese Foreign Ministry official.

"Regarding his schedule yesterday, I think he must be really exhausted." Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura on Wednesday urged Arafat to postpone his plan to declare an independent Palestinian state on May 4 -- when an interim period of autonomy under the 1993 Oslo accords expires.

And Japanese police temporarily impounded pistols carried by Arafat's bodyguards when he arrived here by special plane on the two-day visit, Jiji Press news agency said..."

Kosovo Crisis Presents Iran with Policy Dilemma

Global Intelligence Report 4/9/99 via IMRA

Summary:
Iran, particularly in its role as the current head of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, has taken a great interest in the plight of the Moslem Kosovar Albanians. Tehran is torn, however, between its desire to stop and punish the Serbs and its opposition to U.S. military actions abroad.

Analysis:
Replying to accusations of Iranian complacency leveled in the Saudi-owned, Beirut-based newspaper Al-Sharq al-Owsat, the Iranian English-language daily Tehran Times on April 8 wrote that "If any Iranian official denounced the NATO strikes, he simply meant that the Western powers had violated the international norms and tarnished the prestige of the world body."

The Tehran Times' attempted clarification of Iran's position on Operation Allied Force illustrates the dilemma the conflict in Kosovo has presented Tehran. Iran is caught between its vehement condemnation of Serbian aggression and its opposition to U.S. global power projection.

And so, it has attempted to strike a balance that blames the UN Security Council for shirking its responsibility before the crisis erupted, thus making NATO air strikes necessary, while insisting that the strikes should have been launched under a UN mandate.

Iran's stand on Belgrade's "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo is unambiguous, and is shared by Tehran's moderates and conservatives alike.

Speaking on April 7 at the conclusion of a foreign ministerial meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Contact Group in Geneva, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi warned the "extremist Serbs" that "the world of Islam cannot tolerate continuation of brutalities against Moslems in Kosovo...

The world of Islam cannot witness atrocities against Moslems in Kosovo and not take any measures."

The trouble is, Iran can't figure out what effective measures to take. Tehran has sent two plane-loads of humanitarian aid to Kosovar Albanian refugees and has upgraded an Iranian-run clinic in Tirana. It has held consultations independently and in its role as the current head of the OIC with the UN, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, the Vatican, Russia, NATO members, and other countries.

It has even offered, with the OIC, to participate in any future internationally-led peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo. But beyond issuing condemnations and continuing to appeal for a peaceful and speedy negotiated settlement of the crisis, Iran has found itself somewhat impotent.

Adding to Iran's policy predicament, a number of Arab and Moslem countries have come out in support of NATO's bombing campaign, and among those opposed to the bombing are Iran's perennial enemies Iran and, initially, Israel.

Israeli Defense Minster Ariel Sharon has publicly warned against Kosovar Albanian independence, insisting it would create a greater Albanian "fundamentalist Islamic state" in the heart of Europe.

Baghdad has claimed that the U.S. is "playing the Kosovo Moslem card" to neutralize Arab and Moslem opposition to NATO attacks on an independent sovereign country.

"A country's internal problems should be settled within the country concerned, without any foreign interference," said an Iraqi statement. Both Iraq and Israel have reportedly had military contacts with the Yugoslav government before the current crisis as well.

Iran's best hope for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis -- Russia -- has not panned out. Tehran has appealed several times to Moscow to "take advantage of its influence over Belgrade" to intervene on behalf of the Kosovar Albanians, but with no success.

Either Russia's influence has not been particularly strong or, as is more likely the case, Russia does not want to pressure Belgrade to accept NATO's ultimatum.

In an interview with the English-language Iran Daily printed April 7, Russian Ambassador to Tehran Konstantin Shuvalov went so far as to suggest that the perceived plight of the Kosovar Albanians was in significant part mere NATO propaganda.

No matter how eager Iran is to cooperate with Russia rather than NATO, this is not the answer Tehran wanted to hear.

And so we come back to NATO's bombing campaign -- not Iran's first choice and not really effective in stopping Serb aggression against Kosovar Albanians, but at least dishing out pain on the Serbs.

The English language daily Kayhan International stated the case quite succinctly on April 6, arguing that U.S. attacks on Yugoslavia and Iraq "set a dangerous precedent in international affairs" and "rendered the world a lot more unsafe without ever inflicting heavy blows to the repressive reigns of the rulers in Baghdad and Belgrade."

"However," the paper continued, "Milosevic and his criminal cronies deserve nothing but the eternal fire of damnation for the hell they broke loose on Moslems in the Balkans." Interestingly, the newspaper argued that Operation Allied Force would have been "just and righteous" with the backing of the UN.

Speaking to the OIC Contact Group meeting in Geneva, Iranian Foreign Minister Kharrazi laid the blame for the Kosovo crisis directly on Belgrade. Kharrazi charged that Belgrade's neglect for the legitimate rights of the Kosovars in clear violation of international norms and despite international condemnation, its constant inflexibility toward efforts to find a peaceful settlement of the crisis, and its intensification of the crisis through the massacre of innocent civilians, had given NATO an excuse to resort to military action.

At the same time, Kharrazi blamed the UN Security Council, which he argued had the main responsibility under the UN charter to maintain international peace and security, for not taking timely action to prevent the crisis in Kosovo. In essence, Kharrazi said NATO had to do what it did because Belgrade refused to behave and the UN Security Council didn't do its job.

Iran's conservatives, including spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and speaker of the Iranian Majlis Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, have condemned both Belgrade and NATO for the fate of the Kosovar Albanian Moslems. Khameini charged on April 5 that NATO air strikes were "an attempt to annihilate Moslems in this part of Europe."

On April 6, Nateq Nouri argued that the Serbs and NATO had reached a consensus for annihilation of Moslems, insisting that NATO military pressure only emboldened the Serbs to aggravate their crimes, with Moslems as the only victims. Nateq Nouri argued that the U.S. had used cases like Iraq and Yugoslavia to violate all international norms and follow the law of the jungle.

But in the absence of a better solution, Iran's conservatives have joined the country's moderates in laying the blame at the UN's doorstep. Nateq Nouri blamed the "inefficiency" of the UN Security Council and other international organizations for the failure to find a diplomatic solution to the brewing crisis in Kosovo before NATO resorted to a military option, and for their similar failure to bring an end to both Belgrade and NATO's actions.

Out of a perplexing policy dilemma -- where fighting the oppression of Moslems put it on the same side as NATO -- Iran has woven an interesting solution. It has concluded that the UN should do more to stave off global crises before they erupt and has given its grudging nod to U.S. power projection, with the caveat that it should take place under UN mandate.

Iran's relations with Russia have been strained by the crisis. And considering disagreements between Russia and Iran in the Caucasus and Central Asia, particularly over the CIS's Moslems, those relations may not recover any time soon.

How Iranian policy evolves is still dependent on the eventual outcome and aftermath of the Kosovo crisis, but Tehran has, for the time being, made a definite shift in orientation.

Interview with group encouraging Arab voter participation

IMRA interviewed Jaber Asaqla, the director of Al Ahali, in English, on April 8, 1999.

IMRA: Is the primary purpose of your organization to get people to vote or does it have other purposes as well?

Asaqla: This is only the first project. We are a new organization. We are working with the Palestinians in Israel to empower the Arab citizens for their issues and interests in the country.

IMRA: Are you planning to educate the public regarding the position of the various candidates on the issues?

Asaqla: No. We want to get people to vote. We want to get them more involved in what is going on in the country by participating in the elections.

IRMA: In the last election what was the voter participation rate in the Arab population?

Asaqla: 77%

IMRA: How does that compare with the Jewish rate?

Asaqla: The national average was 82%. The Jewish rate was about 92%.

IMRA: Ultimately would you expect to be able to get the Arab rate above the Jewish rate? I understand that there is the matter that fewer Arabs are overseas, for example.

Asaqla: That's correct. The participation rate of Jews living inside Israel is over 95%. We beleive that it would be great if we can keep the rate at the level it was in '96.

IMRA: Is there a geographic problem with getting people to the polls - that they need transportation?

Asaqala: Only in some places in the Negev. In the rest of the country it is not a problem. People vote at the schools and they are within walking distance.

IMRA: What are the elements of the campaign?

Asaqala: One is a media campaign - posters and advertisements etc. We have a another campaign - identifying people who did not vote in the last elections and encouraging them to vote this time.

IMRA: In the last election there was a phenomenon of Israeli Arabs who voted a blank ballot in protest. Do you see this happening again? Does your group have an opinion about this?

Asaqala: I don't take a position. I want people to come out and vote. I don't expect many to vote a blank ballot this time.

IMRA: When I think of an American model - say the League of Women Voters- one puts together a brochure with the replies of the candidates to a series of specific questions. Do you see doing something like this?

Asaqala: No. We are a very small country and people know what the candidates have to say.

IMRA: The Ford Foundation is underwriting this?

Asaqala: No. We are in the process of applying for a grant from the Ford Foundation for our overall activities. The Ford Foundation has made it clear what they will not support election activity.

Interview with King Hussein

The following are excerpts from the December 1996 interview of Jordan King Hussein by Avi Shlaim published in Yediot Aharonot on 6 April 1999 via IMRA:

At a certain stage of the negotiations [in 1970] they offered me to return to Jordan 90 percent of the territory, even 98 percent, that did not include Jerusalem. I could not accept the offer. I stood on it that I would be the only authority on every centimeter of the territory under my responsibility. Principally based on the events in '48 when I succeeded in keeping the West Bank, including the Old City of Jerusalem, and lost Lod and Ramleh.

..A few days before that [the October 1973 war] I met with Sadat and Assad in Cairo. Assad asked me to allow the fedayeen return to Jordan, and I refused.

..We met in London, just before the [1990 Gulf] war broke out. Yitzchak Shamir was accompanied by Ehud Barak. Shamir told me:'look I face a dilemma. In '73 our people were not alert enough. And the sudden attack caused the greatest of damage to our forces. Now we see that you are calling up the army, and my generals are calling on me to place the IDF on alert against the Jordanian army. They say that it would be irresponsible if similar measures to yours are not taken.'

'Mr. Prime Minister,' I replied, 'It is your complete right to take such measures, if you feel it is necessary. But allow me to note that this situation would increase the danger of an unintentional war that could break out between our forces.' Shamir asked; 'What is your position?' And I replied: 'I am on a defensive stand only. We will act against anyone who tries to hurt the sovereignty of Jordan.'

When I gave Shamir my promise, he said: 'I rely on your word, and will prevent any movement of the army.' And he stood by his word. It was an incident that I will never forget: Shamir acted as someone who relied on my promise. That is the right path.

..Peres was not involved at all [in the breakthrough in Jordan-Israel relations that lead to the peace treaty]. He didn't know, and this fact angered him greatly, to my sorrow.The fact that Peres did not like the peace agreement, caused a certain amount of estrangement on his part. I think he wasn't happy about the agreement, and I am sorry about that, because I know that he served his country, and always believed in peace.