Israelis suspect US envoys of pro-Palestinian sympathies
by Inigo Gilmore in Jerusalem
(Filed: 25/11/2001)
ISRAELI government officials are concerned that two
senior American officials arriving in Jerusalem tomorrow
as part of the latest American peace initiative in the
Middle East have pro-Palestinian sympathies.
They suspect that William Burns, the assistant secretary
of state for the Near East, and Gen Anthony Zinni, a
senior soldier-diplomat, will try to put pressure on Ariel
Sharon, the Israeli premier, to drop his insistence for a
seven-day lull in terrorism before meaningful talks can
get under way.
Israel believes that Mr Burns, who has made several
visits to Jerusalem, has shown sympathies with the Arabs
while Gen Zinni, who used to command US forces in the
Middle East, is an Arabist. Gen Zinni was awarded a
medal of honour by Egypt for his work in developing
co-operation between the US Army and the Egyptian
military.
To prepare for his role as head of the US central
command, Gen Zinni studied Arabic and Middle East
history and politics. He travelled extensively through the
region, meeting military and political leaders. Many of
those with whom he became acquainted in the 1990s now
occupy more senior positions.
One senior Israeli official said: "We are a bit worried. Gen
Zinni knows the Arab world and the Arab world knows
him. He has good contacts in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and
Jordan. But he does not know the real problems that
worry and affect the Israeli people."
Israel and the Palestinians both recognise that the
determining factor in US policy now is not so much what
Gen Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, says but what
its envoys do on the ground.
Within hours of Gen Powell announcing his new drive for
peace last week, Israeli bulldozers were flattening houses
in the Gaza Strip while Jerusalem defiantly announced
plans to construct homes for Jews in Hebron.
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestine Liberation Organisation
peace negotiator in the early 1990s, said Palestinians
were still measuring him up. "Gen Zinni was personally
chosen by Powell and, in the context of the American
administration, it is probably positive because out of them
all Powell has been most open-minded on the situation
here. The Palestinians are neutral on him. It is now a
matter of `wait and see'."
Gen Zinni's career has earned him a formidable
reputation in Washington. He grew up in a working-class
suburb of Philadelphia in a family of Italian Catholic
immigrants and enlisted in the Marines while at college. In
Vietnam he won two Bronze Stars before being wounded.
"His physical appearance probably conveys a message
that he uses to his advantage," said Jay Farrar, a former
Pentagon and National Security Council official. "He's very
pragmatic and down to earth. That's what helps him in the
diplomatic process."
This approach has been honed on difficult assignments,
including overseeing the American withdrawal from the
ill-fated mission to Somalia, helping Ethiopia and Eritrea
resolve a bloody border war, and overseeing operations
against Iraq after the Gulf war.
His career, however, has not been without controversy.
He commanded the operation that fired cruise missiles on
al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and a factory in
Sudan after the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa. It
was later claimed that the targets were ill-conceived and
the operations ineffective. In a recent interview Gen Zinni
said: "If you constrain yourself to military thinking and
military learning you're going to be fairly narrow. More
and more, senior officers have to be a blend of diplomat,
statesman, humanitarian."
As he wrestles with the intricacies of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he will need all those qualities
if he is to live up to his reputation as a man capable of
crafting thoughtful compromises.
The atmosphere for peace talks has not been helped by
another upsurge in violence. An Israeli was killed in a
mortar attack yesterday and seven Palestinians were
killed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Friday. This
followed the death of five Palestinian boys who picked up
a bomb. Israel admitted yesterday the "possibility" that
the bomb had been planted by its forces at a spot used by
terrorists to fire on them.
portal.telegraph.co.uk |
