TRY TO REMEMBER THE KIND OF SEPTEMBER...

Israeli ploy on Arafat backfires: Blair rejects Sharon's plea to cut contact with president (Nicholas Watt, July 15, 2003, The Guardian)

Tony Blair's hopes of improving relations with Ariel Sharon suffered a blow last night when the prime minister was forced to rebuff an attempt by his Israeli counterpart to persuade Britain to sever all contact with Yasser Arafat.

In a sign of Britain's fragile relations with Israel after a series of rows, Mr Blair told Mr Sharon over dinner in Downing Street that Britain would continue to deal with the democratically elected president of the Palestinian Authority.

On the first day of a three-day visit to Britain, Mr Sharon tried to win British support for his policy of isolating the Palestinian president when he asked Jack Straw and Mr Blair to prevent officials meeting Mr Arafat. A senior Israeli official accompanying Mr Sharon told the news agency Reuters: "Any contact with Arafat weakens [the Palestinian prime minister Mahmoud] Abbas."

But Mr Straw rejected Mr Sharon's request during a mid-morning call on him at his hotel. "We made clear that the UK position, which is also that of the European Union, is that we will continue to have dealings with Mr Arafat, who is the democratically elected president of the Palestinian
Authority," said a Foreign Office spokeswoman.

Mr Blair believes privately that Mr Arafat has become a liability, unlike Mr Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, who is fully committed to the US sponsored "road map" which charts the way to a Palestinian state. But Britain takes exception to being told who its officials should
meet.

Obviously you can't conduct your foreign policy like a petulant child, but how much fun would it be if Sharon continued on to Ireland to meet with representatives of the IRA... Posted by Orrin Judd at July 15, 2003 11:39 PM