Subject: UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook in Israel
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 22:45:42 +0000
To: "Hebraic Heritage Newsgroup"<heb_roots_chr@geocities.com>

From:          Eddie Chumney
Subject:     UK Foreign Secretary: Robin Cook in Israel  
To:            <HEB_ROOTS_CHR@geocities.com>

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             THE JERUSALEM POST DAILY INTERNET EDITION
                                      (Mar 17, 1998)


                  NAVEH TO ESCORT COOK TO HAR HOMA

                  By JAY BUSHINSKY and news agencies


 JERUSALEM (March 17) -- A concerted diplomatic effort yesterday took much of the
 sting out of British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook's visit, but left a wide gap
 between the two sides' views of the peace process.

 The main breakthrough that assured the full gamut of official hospitality came
 when Cook, who arrives today, agreed to be escorted to the Har Homa
 construction site by cabinet secretary Dan Naveh and the Jerusalem
 Municipality's Amos Radian, instead of by the Palestinian Authority's Faisal
 Husseini.

 "This is unobjectionable," said David Bar-Illan, communications adviser to
 Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

 But Bar-Illan still considers Cook's choice of Har Homa as his first stop in
 Israel "puzzling." He contended that it might have been more appropriate had
 Cook gone to Yad Vashem or the Western Wall "as his first act on his first
 visit to Jerusalem as Great Britain's foreign secretary."

 On his way to Cairo at the start of his Mideast tour, Cook said he was
 determined to go ahead with the visit to Har Homa. In London, a spokesman for
 Prime Minister Tony Blair said the British leader stood behind Cook.

 "I am anxious to see Har Homa for myself," Cook told reporters. "I would have
 thought that it would be in the interests of both parties - including the
 government of Israel - that I were informed by seeing the situation for myself."

 Husseini said that Cook told Palestinians he would tour Har Homa with Israelis,
 then visit the adjacent neighborhood of Beit Sahur with Palestinians.

 A British Foreign Office spokesman said that although Cook would not meet
 Husseini at Har Homa, the two would meet elsewhere in eastern Jerusalem.

 "This compromise is not suitable," Husseini said, but added that "if he
 insists on going with the Israeli officials, he must come out with a statement
 that the Israelis taking him there represent an occupying force."

 "Israel is trying to place obstacles before a British role and is trying to
 belittle the importance of the British role in the peace process," he
 told Reuters.

 Netanyahu, meanwhile, has vowed that Israel will begin construction of the
 neighborhood, where a tractor was seen clearing a large tract of land yesterday.

 "It has to be clear that, from our point of view, Jerusalem remains and will
 remain the indisputable, indivisible capital of Israel in which we will build
 communities for Arabs and Jews alike, including Har Homa," Netanyahu told
 reporters.

 Government officials also rejected Cook's reported advocacy of an IDF withdrawal
 in the West Bank which would involve handing 20 percent of Area B and 20% of
 Area C over to the PA.

 They charged that this view is identical to that of the PA.

 Internal Security Minister Avigdor Kahalani said a pullback of this magnitude
 "would be a direct blow to Israel's security." He contended that it would
 entail withdrawals from part of the Jordan Valley and the heights overlooking
 Ben-Gurion Airport.

 In an address to students at Jerusalem's Polinsky High School, Kahalani said
 he favors an evacuation of "between 5% and 10%" of the areas in question.

 Speaking in his capacity as chairman of The Third Way, Kahalani said the
 American proposal, under which 13% of the West Bank would be given up, is also
 detrimental to national security.

 Upon arrival this afternoon, Cook's first stop will be Gaza, where he will meet
 with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. He then will proceed to Har
 Homa.

 After that, he will meet with President Ezer Weizman and Defense Minister
 Yitzhak Mordechai. In the evening, he will meet Netanyahu at the Prime
 Minister's Office.

 The British Embassy in Tel Aviv announced that Cook will be discussing the
 peace process, Iraq, "and other regional issues," as well as bilateral
 relations with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai.

 "The search for a way to reinvigorate the peace process is one of the key
 foreign policy priorities for the UK's European Union presidency," the embassy
 said.

 Cook is being accompanied on his trip by EU peace envoy Miguel Moratinos.

 "The UK is increasingly concerned by the continuing stalemate in the
 negotiations and the risk that this poses to the future of the process and to
 wider regional stability," the statement went on.

 The controversy that raged on the eve of Cook's arrival evidently prompted
 extremist vandals apparently linked to the Kach movement to scribble graffiti
 on the exterior walls of the British Consulate in Jerusalem. Slogans that
 defaced the building termed Cook an "antisemite" and proclaimed "Har Homa is
 Jewish forever."

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