Greeks resent lost role in Palestine

Behind the official language of the spokesman for the opposition party of PASOK, one could detect a feeling of frustration. Because Davos was an international platform from where Greece was absent and Turkey was very much present; for better or worse. The Arabic world has been traditionally a friendly ground for politicians of recent Greek history.

From its beginnings, at the end of the 60s, first as PAK (Pan-Hellenic Liberation Movement) and then as PASOK (Pan-Hellenic Socialist Movement), the large popular political group founded by Andreas Papandreou to overthrow the dictatorship in Greece and then to rule the country, maintained strong ties with the liberation movements of the Middle East. The period when the government of Andreas Papandreou, the leader and founder of PASOK, was in power (1981-1996), the relations between Greece and the Arab world were at their highest point.

One of Andreas Papandreou’s ideas was to promote the idea of friendship and cooperation of the socialist forces around the Mediterranean. To the displeasure of Israel and the United States, Arafat and the Libyan leader Muamar Gadaffi were his personal friends. When Yasser Arafat died two years ago, Karolos Papoulias, the present President of the Greek Republic and long time foreign minister during the period of PASOK governments, spoke about his "28-year friendship" with the historic Palestinian leader in an interview with the Greek newspaper Elefterotypia.

As Papoulias remembers "Andreas Papandreou as prime minister and me as foreign minister had arrived at the conclusion that the creation of a Palestinian state was and is a condition for the final solution of the Middle Eastern problemÉ If there was no PASOK government or Andreas Papandreou, possibly we would not be talking now neither about Arafat nor about the Palestinian issue."

Papoulias was perhaps referring to the most striking incident in the PASOK-Arafat relations when in December 1983 three Greek ships were sent under the order from the Greek government to Tripolis in Lebanon to transport Arafat and his 8,000 fedayeen to Algiers and Tunis. It was a 12-hour operation "in spite of the threats and warnings from Israel, the United States and the Jewish lobby," says Papoulias who even today believes that "the gates of peace can only be opened with the three keys of Israel, Palestine and Syria."

For a few weeks now, Turkey has been suffering under negative treatment by politicians and media alike in Greece. The beginning of this year saw a marked change in the atmosphere between the two countries to a cooler temperature fuelled by mutual claims for incidents over the Aegean and rumors of a "change of heart" on behalf of the Greek government toward Turkey. At the same time the Karamanlis government is desperately trying to retrieve its fading popularity after a terrible autumn marred by violent riots, strikes, scandals and a financial crisis.

Last month he changed unpopular ministers in an effort to bring back his disgruntled voters who were losing faith in his future. Recently, the unexpected and weird "confessions" and denials of Turkish actor Atilla Olgac, about his war crimes in Cyprus during the war in 1974, added to a strange feeling of tension in Athens and Nicosia that the current fluid political landscape in Turkey may erupt at any moment and spill over to its next door neighbors. The "Davos incident" came to add to that tension.

The infuriated Turkish prime minister who "had the guts to defy the Israeli president, defy the Americans behind him, defy the Jewish lobby, defy the diplomatic norms, etc," appealed to a historically anti-American and pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian nation who since the 70s has been hosting myriads of Palestinian refugees in their lands.

But since he is a Turk, this acceptance of a "brave stand off" has been diluted quickly with: "How can he dare to say that he is angry about the children of Gazza, when he killed thousands of Kurdish and Greek Cypriot kids!"- the angriest of the Greeks, at the same time are scolding their prime minister for not ever standing up against the Americans and the Jews.

However, those most angry are the traditional voters of PASOK. "What Erdogan did was that he took the place of Andreas Papandreou as the leading supporter of the Palestinian struggle," they say.

This is unacceptable for their historic pro-Arab leader who had led the pro-Palestinian camp among the Europeans much to the frustration of his Western allies. It is that feeling that one can detect behind the public statements of the Greek official opposition.