Arens Finds Baker’s Pleas ‘Offensive’ to Israel, Likud

Foreign Minister Moshe Arens said today that a blunt speech challenging Israeli policy by Secretary of State James A. Baker III was offensive to Israel.

“Mr. Baker’s words were not (just) offensive to members of my Likud Party central committee, they are offensive to the state of Israel,” Arens said at an airport news conference.

In his first major policy statement on the Middle East, Baker urged Israel on Monday to abandon the dream of a “Greater Israel,” halt settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and give Palestinians their political rights.

Most Israeli newspapers called the remarks a shocking and unprecedented attack.

Some said it could endanger Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s proposal for elections in the occupied territories by strengthening his right-wing critics and encouraging Palestinians to reject his plan.

Likud advocates eventual Israeli annexation of the occupied territories, where 1.75 million Palestinians have staged a 17-month-old uprising to demand their own state.

Speaking on return from talks with the Bush Administration in Washington and the European Community in Brussels, Arens said Baker’s speech to a pro-Israel lobbying group could harm the Jewish state.

“Mr. Baker’s words were especially saddening for me because it was agreed between Israel and the United States that we would not argue in public. . . . Mr. Baker’s words might raise (false) expectations in the Arab world,” Arens said.