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uh huh. From Gainesville, Florida. Hello, I'm Mike Cannon. And this is conversation. In May 1983 Dr Mayer Roseanne was appointed eighth ambassador of Israel to the United States When he arrived to present his credentials. He already possessed a long and thorough acquaintance with this country from his years of service as consul of Israel in New York 1961 to 1967 and also from his service as legal advisor and aid to former Prime Minister Menachem Begin at the Camp David talks, which led to the Israel Egypt Peace Treaty in 1979.

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Ambassador Roseanne has been a participant in numerous important treaty negotiations during his 32 years in government service. In addition, he has held many important positions in the areas of international law, human rights, atomic energy and civil aviation. Most recently, from 1979 until last spring, he served as ambassador to France.

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A conversation with Ambassador Mayor Roseanne. When I return in a moment, okay. Mm. Five Live presents conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day. Your host is Dr Michael Vegan and professor of history and ethics, an assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.

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Mhm, Mr Ambassador, welcome to the University of Florida and to conversation. It's a pleasure to have you here because it's an unparalleled opportunity for someone like myself to ask your perceptions and perceptions of your country about what is taking place in the Middle East, in which now our nation is intimately involved, even militarily.

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But before we talk about Lebanon and the many other issues that face our two countries, may I ask a personal question. How does the United States appear to you as you return to it as against your years of service in New York in the 19 sixties?

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How have we changed in our perceptions of Israel? Or how have we changed in general? How do you see us? First of all, I'm very glad to have the opportunity to share with you some of the personal feelings, because usually whenever I am interviewed, ask questions about the Middle East and so on.

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So I'm delighted to be here and the United States, and to find out that the friendship between the people of the United States and Israel is as strong as ever. During these last years, we have read a lot about differences of opinion and about quarrels and so on.

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I'm glad to see that the feelings of not only sympathy but I would say love between our two countries there. And if you look back at recent history, you'll find out that the only country, in fact the only superpower that played a major role in achieving the first piece street in the Middle East is the United States of America.

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Without the efforts of the United States and the American administration, I don't think we would have had a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, and there is no doubt that this is a major development in the Middle East. We are too busy with the problems that we face today in order to remember this very important fact, especially at a time when you have a war going on between Iraq and Iran.

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This war has been there for the last four years. More than 300,000 people dead more than 125 or 150,000 prisoners of war instability in the entire region. The only place where you have some stability is the border between Israel and Egypt, and this is a large extent due to the United States.

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If there is an agreements that were signed between Israel and Lebanon and May of last year, it's also through the mediation of the United States. I recall as well that the United States was the first nation to recognize the existence of Israel as a state. Such recognition coming, I believe, within the first minutes, 14 minutes after the declaration of the state, I remember I was then Israeli army.

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It was in 1948. It was a Friday afternoon in Israel, which means Friday morning here, and the United States was the first state to recognize Israel, the second one being the Soviet Union. But the relations with the Soviet Union have changed since you mentioned the Iran Iraq war, which seems to be in the background of many people's minds as we in this country tend to fasten our attention on Lebanon.

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And yet that is a very dangerous war, is it not? You speak of instability. Is that not perhaps creating more instability in the region than what's happening in Lebanon? Absolutely. It's a serious danger to see this area of the world dominated by communism. As you know, the relations of Israel with both countries are very bad.

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The first act of Khomeini, when he took over power and Tehran and February 79 was to hand over the Israeli Embassy to Arafat, and there was a persecution of the Jews living in Iran. As far as Iraq is concerned, the Iraqis participated in all the wars against the state of Israel and to this very day refuses to recognize Israel.

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So as far as we are concerned, both countries are enemies of. Do you see a pronounced Soviet threat either through the Iran Iraq conflict or perhaps as background to serious activities? There is no doubt that Syria is acting for the Soviet Union. You know that the Soviet Union has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

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For the last 17 years, when the peace treaty was signed between Israel and Egypt, the Soviet Union vetoed the street in the United Nations, and since then it has adopted a very negative attitude. They send in weapons. You have more than 7000 Russians now in Syria proper and the Soviet Union does everything possible in order to prevent a peaceful settlement of the problems in the Middle East.

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Besides, as you know, as far as Israel is concerned directly, there is an anti Semitic campaign going on in the Soviet press. There are more than three million Jews living in the Soviet Union that would like to leave, and they have stopped practically all immigration from the Soviet Union.

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This is a violation of all the Helsinki agreements. You know. The third basket of the Helsinki Agreement provides for freedom of movement and the implementation of all the provisions of the declaration, human rights and so on. So when you look at it, you'll find out really again that if you compare the role played by the United States and the role played by the Soviet Union, you have exactly the right picture of both countries.

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A moment ago you mentioned Yasser Arafat. Recently, he was ejected from Lebanon for the second time and ended up in Egypt. Were you surprised, knowing that Arafat danced in the streets when he learned of the assassination of President Anwar Sadat of Egypt to see photographs of the new president Hosni Mubarak warmly embracing the head of the P l O.

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We're not We're not only surprised, but we're really shocked to see that, Uh, because besides, the fact that you just mentioned the, uh how happy Arafat was when Sadat was assassinated, and after all, Arafat is the man responsible for all the killings around the world. He is the man who organized international terrorism already in 1960 for Beirut was the center of international terrorism.

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Under the guidance of Arafat, he assumed the responsibility and for the killing of the 11 Jewish athletes at the Olympic Games in Munich. He declared that he was the responsible one for the killing of the 22 kids and my a lot. He killed innocent people on all airports in the world, blew up planes at Zarqa at the time at the Cairo airport in 1970 and therefore we were very much surprised to see that Mubarak hugs and receives Arafat on Egyptian soil.

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Besides, this is a violation, a flagrant violation of the treaty between Egypt and Israel. As you know, in this treaty, Israel gave up all of Sinai, the oil wells, the military basis naval basis, the Straits of Tehran, from where all the wars in the Middle East started the city of Yamit and op era.

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We did all of this in order to sign a peace treaty, and Egypt was supposed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel and not to do anything that could assist directly or indirectly any terrorist activity. This is Article three of the treaty, and I'm sorry to refer to specifics, because I know that generally people don't want to be burdened with what you call Legalistics, but this is the way it works.

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So therefore, we were really surprised and shocked and to see this meeting happened, and it's certainly not helpful to the beast process. I wonder if it is a sign that Egypt, having been isolated from much of the Arab world over the last six years, is not trying to re establish its place among the moderate Arab may well among all the Arab nations, for that matter.

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And in that connection, I understand Egypt has not had an ambassador in Tel Aviv for one year or more, more more than a year. Uh, first of all, I would say that the Arab world without Egypt there's no Arab world. So, uh, personally, I tend to believe that there is a little bit of exaggeration when people refer to the isolation of Egypt.

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I think that the Arab world is more isolated in Egypt and look what happens to the Arab world and what happens to Egypt. Since the signing of the peace treaty with Israel, Egypt was able to reopen the Suez Canal to get an extra billion dollars from, uh, use paid by these ships.

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They get $2 billion more for the oil that we gave back to Egypt. They get a lot of tourism as, uh, it's a boy, some of about $6 billion a year more. And this helps Egypt try to solve some of the economic problems. So there has never been a real isolation of Egypt from the Arab world.

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You have two million Egyptians working in the Arab world that are able to send the money to their families in Egypt. So what is unacceptable as to try it? For Egypt to try and become part of the Arab world at the expense of the treaty with Israel, we think that the treaty with Israel strengthened Egypt In fact, there were threats against Egypt from Libya and the fact that now Egypt is able, first of all to get it gets also economic assistance from the United States today, more than $2 billion a year.

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This is all a result of the peace treaty with Israel. So whatever Egypt does, of course, Egypt is a sovereign state and, uh has the right to do so, provided that this is not in violation of the treaty with Israel, and the fact that they don't send back the ambassador is also a violation of the agreement.

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There are specific provisions in the treaty that whatever happens between Israel and any other third party does not concern the Street E and the fact withdraw the ambassador is not in conformity with the commitments of Egypt. If you were shocked, as I understand you were by the spectacle of President Mubarak warmly welcoming Arafat, you were also, I believe, dismayed to find that the government of the United States described this meeting as an encouragement in encouraging development.

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I think that was the phrase right and as you know, we did present our point of view to the State Department I understand that you had a very I think it was called tough talk with Lawrence Eagleburger, the under secretary of State for political affairs. He's a very good friend of mine, and usually we don't use the word tough.

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We usually say that we had a very frank conversations. Yes. Let me turn to Lebanon, Mr Ambassador. In May of last year, you signed a treaty with Lebanon which allowed for or called for the simultaneous withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian troops. Are we any closer to that withdrawal now, as we come up to about nine months after the signing of that treaty.

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You see, Doctor Guarantee, For eight years, there was a civil war going on in Lebanon. There were more than 100,000 people killed in these wars. I visited the village of d'Amour, a Christian village. The churches there were used by the pillow in order to prepare the car bombs.

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And while all these Christians were being massacred, the United Nations was not ready even to discuss the issue. I remember when our delegation brought up in the United Nations the problem of Hama when the Syrians and Assad ordered the killing of about 25,000 Syrians in Hama and we brought it up in the we were told that this is a family affair and we have no right to raise it there.

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Now. As a result of our intervention in Lebanon in June of 82 there is hope to see an independent Lebanon again. Syria occupies today about 60% of Lebanese territory against the wish of the Lebanese government. The Lebanese government signed with Israeli in agreement, as you mentioned a minute ago and on May 17, and this agreement was ratified by the Lebanese parliament, a majority of 65 members of parliament to in spite of it, this agreement cannot be implemented because of the negative attitude of Syria that uses terrorism.

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And this is no secret. Uh, remember that they didn't hesitate to put a car bomb in the center of Paris on the Champs Elysees to try and assassinate the Lebanese publisher of a paper that was supposed to to Syria and, as a result of this act to Syrian diplomats were expelled from France about 18 months ago.

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They are the ones who organized the attacks against the French Embassy in Beirut and the American Embassy. And it was referred three days ago and the hearings in the Senate for the first committee in Washington that Syria plays an active role in organizing terrorism, against the presence of the multinational force and so on.

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So today we think that there is hope for Lebanon. Many things can be done, uh, in the political area. We think that the European countries that were very speedy and adopting sanctions against Israel two years ago and these sanctions were lifted only about two months ago.

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They should adopt sanctions against Syria. We think that the Saudi Arabian government should not provide Syria with more than $1 billion a year encouraging Syria and of course, permitting the purchase of Soviet weapons that are being used against the multinational force. So I personally think that more pressure could be applied on the Syrian government to ensure the independence of Lebanon.

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Syria, in fact, has never agreed to see an independent Lebanon. The Assad still believes in the the idea of the greater Syria. Therefore, there has never been a Syrian ambassador in Beirut, 1970 they tried to put an end to the independence of Jordan, had it not been for the Israeli mobilization on the borders of Jordan in 1970 there wouldn't be any independent Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan today.

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I believe that just within the last two days, Syria has stiffened its stand further, arguing that its forces would not withdraw until there had been a unilateral withdrawal by Israel and the other external forces friendly to Israel. Uh, of course I would be the United States, but I suppose would also include Italy and France.

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Yes, Israel has no intention whatsoever to proceed to the annexation of one square inch of Lebanese territory. We are ready to withdraw from Lebanon, provided that all foreign forces are withdrawn. If Israel withdraws unilaterally to the international border, then the Lebanon will be occupied, not to the extent of 60% by Syria, but to the extent of 100% what is at stake in Lebanon.

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It's not only a problem concerning the security of Israel, you know that when it comes to problems concerning our security, we take care of it ourselves. And we have never asked any foreign soldiers to fight for us. But the problem is at stake in Lebanon are much wider.

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The basic problem that has to be answered. Should the West permit the domination of this area by the Soviet Union through a surrogate, which is Syria? Should Syria, which is a radical Arab state that has done everything possible against the peace process? They are the allies of Iran.

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They are organizing the terrorist activities organized in the back A valley. It's no secret that there you have the basis from where the truck bombs that killed the Marines came. And Syria doesn't even hide its alliance with Iran today. So what is at stake there? It's something much wider than problems concerning Israel or Lebanon.

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Very recently, so called secret document purporting to be a resume of military planning in your government was presented to the Knesset, or Israeli Parliament. It, um, purported to show that it was the thinking of some of your military people that Israeli forces could not really expect Syrian forces to withdraw.

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Is there a public or official response to that document? And first of all, is it a genuine document? First of all, I I haven't seen this this document as a matter of principle, I read only the documents that I get officially, but they don't rely on press reports.

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With all due respect, the president, sometimes you have selective quotations from so called secret documents and I can tell you only what is the position of the Israeli government. And in reaction to this publication, there was an official statement by the Israeli government saying very clearly that what is binding upon Israel is the agreement that was signed between Israel and Lebanon on May 17 and this agreement provides for a simultaneous withdrawal of all foreign forces from Lebanon.

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So it's true that a document, a secret document, was quoted in the Israeli Knesset. But I do not think that first of all, the quotation was of the total text of the entire text of this document and secondly, the position of the Israeli government has not changed.

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In this respect had changed, it would be detrimental. I think any backing off this agreement would be detrimental to the peace process. Would be an invitation to more pressure would mean that the Lebanese government doesn't exist and in fact that it's Syria that dominates the area.

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The new strategic accord signed by premier yachts uh Shamir of Israel and President Reagan of this country in December last called for a joint air and sea maneuvers for the stockpiling of certain military material in Israel by United States forces and also the sharing of Israeli medical facilities by U.

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S forces. And I'm curious about one fact in connection with that. Following the tragic loss of 241 Marines and the wounding of many others in the bombing at Beirut airport, the wounded were taken by plane to US military hospitals in Germany and this offended Israel. According to statements that came out of your country, was that because you thought our our alliance was so close that we should have taken advantage of your nearby hospitals?

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Or did you regard that as a reflection on the quality of of medical care in your country? First of all, I would like only to clarify one thing. There is no a strategic agreement signed between the United States and Israel. What was decided during the visit of the Prime Minister and the Minister of Defense here was to have talks on these matters concerning strategic cooperation, and a political military committee was established and this committee is going to meet in these coming days in Washington in order to discuss the different problems concerning the medical assistance.

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Prime Minister Shamir was asked this question at the press conference during his visit in the United States, and he explained very clearly that Israel is convinced that this was as a result of standing orders and there were absolutely no political reasons behind it. Now, as you know, about four weeks ago, an agreement was signed between the medical authorities, the Pentagon and competent authorities in Israel for a cooperation and the medical field.

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In any case of emergency, I'd like to ask a question about the domestic health of Israel. As a country, we have just succeeded in the United States in lowering our rate of inflation to, uh, nearly acceptable level. But in your society, you find yourself facing the problem that afflicted us just a few years ago, double digit inflation, which has caused a lot of anguish among your people.

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What do you think might be a resolution of this problem for you? You see, we face problems that fortunately, the United States does not face to the same extent we spend 25% of our GNP for defense. One third of our budget goes for defense. If you compare it with other countries.

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Japan spends about 1% of its GNP for defense. So in a situation like this that has been going on for 35 years and at the same time we provide social services. We absorbed immigrants coming from more than 70 countries with no means, and you have to educate them and all you need also funds.

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So our first problem as how to ensure the needs of our defense while trying to solve the economic problems. Now, then, these last weeks, the government has adopted the new economic plan which provides for a cutting and government expenses. We have cut our budget from $20 billion a year to $19 billion.

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This doesn't solve everything. Then we have a system of indexation, of wages to the cost of living, and this will also be stopped. In fact, we'll have to lower our standards of living and we hope to solve these problems in the in the near future. But I want to reassure you that we have in the past faced even more serious problems in the economic field.

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I still remember the years of 1948 1949 when we did not have enough money to buy food abroad. Our problem today is the fact that we export for about $11 billion and we import for about $16 billion and this gap of $5 billion has to be covered.

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Had we had peace with the Arab world that the situation would be different, as I mentioned a minute ago to $2 billion additional expenses for oil that we used to have from the Sinai. This is part of the price of peace, but we think that everything should be done and even economic sacrifices should be accepted if this is the road to peace.

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As you know, Florida is a major Citrus growing state, and I understand Israel also produces a large Citrus crop in the form of oranges. Primarily, that's right, but most of our experts they are industrial goods, and we have high tech industries that provide today. If I compare, the 1972 hour industrial exports are of 2% today there are 35% of our industrial experts.

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We produce scanners to, and orange is also, but I will certainly not try to compete with the oranges of Florida and not with your weather. I would like to say to that. My recollection is that under the new strategic accord and I will not call it a signed treaty, uh, the United States agreed to purchase a significant amount of manufactured goods from Israel.

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I wonder if that would help your economy. Yes, there is a percentage that is being brought in Israel. But what we discuss now and negotiations are going to start this coming week on the establishment of a free trade area between our two countries. Israel has an agreement with the European Common Market and disrespect, and we hope to be able to sign a similarly given to the United States.

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But this will mean also a competition in Israel with American goods because this is a two way traffic. While Israel will be able to export its goods to the United States, the United States will, of course be able to export the goods to Israel with no debt.

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Mr. Ambassador, I thank you very much for being my guest on conversation. It's a delight to have you here on the campus of the University of Florida, and I thank you are viewing audience. My guest has been Ambassador. Mayor Roseanne, Ambassador of Israel to the United States.

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Mm. Mm hmm. Mhm. Yeah.