By IPS Correspondents
LONDON, Feb 2 1996 (IPS)

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres had little need to discuss basic bilateral issues when he came to Britain this week. Israel’s relations with the United Kingdom have rarely been so good. This gave the Israeli premier a chance to expound on prospects for a broad Middle East peace — and to open the door for speculation on possible British and European roles in furthering the Middle East peace process.

Winding up his visit Thursday, Peres paid tribute to both Britain and the European Union. “Somewhere there must be a connection between the European Union and the Middle East on destinies,” he declared.

It was as close as he came to asking for EU involvement in the Middle East peace process. Yet with negotiations in train with Syria, the question is being raised as to whether or not Britain, France and other European countries might play some role in supervising an Israeli-Syrian agreement.

A British Foreign Office official, questioned by IPS on the possibility of British troops taking part in a peace keeping effort on the Golan Heights, which Israel would be expected to return to Syria under any peace treaty, said UK troop contributions could not be ruled out.

“If such a request were made to the UK, we would consider it.” He added: “On the Syrian track, we are ready to consider any request that might be made to help those talks; if asked, we stand ready.”

As yet, there is no formal acknowledgement that the matter has been officially raised, although Peres did hold talks earlier on Thursday with British Defence Secretary Michael Portillo.

One UK defence analyst, Ailee Saunders of the Royal United Services Institute in London, said that Syria would probably favour the involvement of European forces in any Golan Heights military observer mission. “I believe the Syrians will want a multinational, and not just an American presence,” she told IPS.

Israeli analysts have recently made similar comments. Moshe Maoz, Israel’s principal academic expert on Syrian affairs argued that Damascus would probably wish to see French involvement in a multinational force, to counterbalance Israeli wishes that any such operation should primarily be carried out by US military personnel.

Peres himself used the London trip to indicate his willingness to make peace, not just with Syria, but with Lebanon. At a press conference following his talks with British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind on Thursday, he praised the work of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri in reconstructing Lebanon in the wake of 17 years of civil war. “I think Hariri did a very good job in the restoration of the Lebanese economy.”

Peres argued that Lebanon’s problems were today “much more related to their relations with Syria than to their confrontation with Israel.”

The Israeli Premier added: “Our position on Lebanon is very clear. We do not have any territorial claims, we do not look to their waters. We do not want to play a role in their politics and the best bet for Israel would be to have a balanced independent Lebanese Government, Lebanese authority, which is able to control the security part of it as well.”

He appeared to envisage some kind of parallel negotiations with Lebanon, to match those taking place with Syria. So far, Lebanon has declined to enter into negotiations with Israel, protesting the continued occupation of substantial parts of southern Lebanon by Israeli-backed militia, often working directly with Israeli troops.

The Israeli Prime Minister maintained his caution on the question of an independent Palestinian state. Politically, he suggested some kind of “framework” that would embrace both Palestinians and Jordanians, and an economic triangle in which Israel would also be involved.

But he gave no clarification of these views beyond repeating his regularly stated comment that “Jerusalem was never an Arab capital in history and Israel did never have (sic) any capital but Jerusalem.” He added: “Jerusalem will be free in the religious sense, but politically speaking, it is a concluded situation.”

In his discussions with Rifkind, Peres praised the assistance that Britain was giving to the Palestinians. London is committed to providing 75 million dollars as its contribution towards the 2.4 billion three-year programme which the World Bank is coordinating. A new British programme to help train Palestinian administrators is about to begin. This will mainly take place in the field, but some Palestinians will be brought to Britain for specialist courses.

However, Britain is trying to target much of its aid programme at the grassroots. It is funding new training centres and programmes focussing on know-how transfer for private enterprises.

The Overseas Development Administration is providing some of the initial funds for the small-scale lending operations to Palestinian women which are used to help them start up their own businesses.

“We are helping them learn how to manage a project, and teaching women general business skills, also sewing, dressmaking and computing,” an ODA spokesman told IPS.

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