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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH 29, 1985
Generations of would-be tunnel builders have been foiled by the
British attachment to being an island people separated from a
continent they've squabbled with for a thousand years. "Britain
is a very proud, isolated island, and we were very glad there was
no link during the Napoleonic Wars," Sir John Osborn, chairman
of the British Parliament's All-Party Channel Tunnel Committee,
said.
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There is still very strong right-wing opposition, still
unaware that we've lost an empire.•
A new-found enthusiasm became evident when Mrs. Thatcher and Mit
terrand held talks in Paris this past November.... The French
have always been more enthusiastic, and Mitterrand has backed the
idea since before his election in 1981. Last October he said he
was unreservedly for the project. "If London tells me it agrees,
it will be done quickly," the Socialist French leader said••••
Mrs. Thatcher, the more recently converted, now believes that it
is possible that private capital will take on the project••••
"She is quite taken with the romance of a great industrial pro
ject, like the opening of the railways," said one aide in Lon-
don••••
The French, susp1c1ous of Britain's attachment to Europe despite
a decade's membership in the Common Market, see a channel link as
"one of the surest means of mooring Great Britain to the European
Community," Premier Laurent Fabius, then France's minister of in
dustry, said a year ago. "I am an ardent supporter of the channel
tunnel•••• If we don't do it, future generations will have
grounds to reproach us," Fabius said.
Israel's Painful Pullout
In mid-1982 the Israeli army overran much of the southern half of Lebanon
with the objective of clearing out the hated forces of the Palestinian Lib
eration Organization. As a result of its •operation Peace in Galilee," Is
rael largely succeeded in breaking the back of the PLO. But at the same
time it created other enemies during its nearly three years of occupation.
In particular, the once cooperative Shiite communities north of Israel's
border have become bitter foes of Israel. Some experts predict the border
region w.ill be even more troublesome to Israel than when the PLO held the
region in its grip.
In an effort to root out the worst of the opposition on their current re
treat south--for retreat it is--the Israeli army has been conducting a
grimly thorough, house-to-house operation dubbed "Iron Fist," further
alienating the local population. One cannot help but wonder whether the
Israeli government stopped to consider all the possible ramifications of
its Lebanon invasion. Jerusalem, it would appear, was so fixed on rooting
out the PLO, even waiting for the right moment and pretext to act--which was
provided by the shooting of the Israeli Ambassador in London--that it
seemed blinded to other problems that could erupt in Lebanon. To explain
Israel's apparent miscalculation and new security problem, Leon Wieseltier,
literary editor of THE NEW REPUBLIC, wrote an article in the March 22, 1985
LOS ANGELES TIMES, entitled "Shias Feel the Iron Fist, Israelis Feel a New
Enemy":