The Downing Street Years

by Margaret Thatcher

  Israel

  I had been to Israel several times before I became Prime Minister; and each time I visited what for the world’s three great religions is ‘the Holy Land’ it made an indelible impression. Anyone who has been to Jerusalem will understand why General Allenby, on taking the city from the Turks, dismounted to enter it on foot, as a mark of respect.

  I have enormous admiration for the Jewish people, inside or outside Israel. There have always been Jewish members of my staff and indeed my Cabinet. In fact I just wanted a Cabinet of clever, energetic people — and frequently that turned out to be the same thing. My old constituency of Finchley has a large Jewish population. In the thirty-three years I represented it I never had a Jew come in poverty and desperation to one of my constituency surgeries. They had always been looked after by their own community.

  I believe in what are often referred to as ‘Judaeo-Christian’ values: indeed my whole political philosophy is based on them. But I have always been wary of falling into the trap of equating in some way the Jewish and Christian faiths. I do not, as a Christian, believe that the Old Testament — the history of the Law — can be fully understood without the New Testament — the history of Mercy. But I often wished that Christian leaders would take a leaf out of the teaching of Britain’s wonderful former Chief Rabbi, Immanuel Jakobovits, and indeed that Christians themselves would take closer note of the Jewish emphasis on self-help and acceptance of personal responsibility. On top of all that, the political and economic construction of Israel against huge odds and bitter adversaries is one of the heroic sagas of our age. They really made ‘the desert bloom’. I only wished that Israeli emphasis on the human rights of the Russian refuseniks was matched by proper appreciation of the plight of landless and stateless Palestinians.

  The Israelis knew when I arrived in their country in May 1986 that they were dealing with someone who harboured no lurking hostility towards them, who understood their anxieties, but who was not going to pursue an unqualified Zionist approach. Above all, I could be assured of respect for having stood up to terrorism at home and abroad. (It was only a matter of weeks since I had been one of the very few to support the American raid on Libya.) The Israelis were also aware of the tough line we were taking with the Syrians about the attempt of Nezar Hindawi, who had clear links to the Syrian Embassy and Government, to place a bomb on an El Al aircraft at Heathrow. So if anyone was in a good position to speak some home truths without too much fear of being misunderstood it was I.

  I was looking forward to seeing Prime Minister Shimon Peres again. I knew him to be sincere, intelligent and reasonable. I had met him many times. It was a great pity that he would shortly, under the arrangement reached with the Likud Party in the national coalition, hand over the premiership to the hardline Yitzhak Shamir. Both Mr Peres and I wondered in the light of past history how people would react to seeing the Union Jack and the Star of David flying side by side. But we need not have worried. I arrived to be greeted by welcoming crowds at Tel Aviv, and was driven up to Jerusalem to stay at the King David Hotel — so full of associations for me and for all British people.* Outside the hotel even larger crowds were cheering in the darkness. I insisted on getting out of the car to see them, which threw the security men into a fit of agitation. But it was worth it: the people were delighted.

  I breakfasted the following morning with Teddy Kollek, the Mayor of Jerusalem. I knew him well: he combined a warm humanity with formidable administrative zeal and — a still more valuable combination — loyalty to his own people with a sympathetic understanding of the problems of the Arabs. The whole day — Sunday 25 May — was full of evocative demonstrations of Israel’s history and identity. Naturally, I attended the Yad Vashem Memorial to the Holocaust: as on every occasion, I came out numb with shock that human beings could sink to such depravity.

  I went on to a meeting with Mr Shamir. It was impossible to imagine anyone more different from Shimon Peres. This was a hard man, though undoubtedly a man of principle, whose past had left scars on his personality. There was no hostility between us: but nor could there ultimately be any meeting of minds about the way forward. It was clear that there was no possibility of Mr Shamir himself giving up ‘land for peace’ and the Jewish settlements on the West Bank would continue to go ahead.

  I believed that the real challenge was to strengthen moderate Palestinians, probably in association with Jordan, who would eventually push aside the PLO extremists. But this would never happen if Israel did not encourage it; and the miserable conditions under which Arabs on the West Bank and in Gaza were having to live only made things worse. I also believed that there should be local elections on the West Bank. But at that time one of the strongest opponents of concessions on this — or anything else it seemed — was the then Defence minister, Mr Rabin, with whom I had breakfast on Monday. He proceeded to read out his views to me for forty minutes with barely time for a bite of toast.

  But I was not to be put off. I repeated my proposals for local elections in a speech that afternoon to a group of Israeli MPs at the Knesset — the Israeli Parliament — chaired by the eloquent and respected Abba Eban.

  Later I went to a dinner with carefully selected moderate Palestinians — mostly businessmen and academics — of precisely the sort I felt the Israelis should be prepared to deal with. They poured out their complaints, particularly about their treatment on the West Bank and especially in Gaza, where conditions were worst, partly because of insensitive security policing and partly, it seemed, because of economic discrimination in favour of Jewish business. I promised to take these matters up with Mr Peres — and did so in detail the following day — but I also made clear to them the need to reject terrorism and those who practised it. Although the general view was that only the PLO were able to represent the Palestinians, I also detected in conversations with smaller groups that this did not mean that there was any great love for that organization.

  During my visit I had two long discussions with Mr Peres. He was conscious of the need to keep King Hussein’s now faltering peace initiative in play, not least so as to avoid destabilizing Jordan itself. But he was obviously highly sceptical about the proposal for an international peace conference. For all his understanding of the need for some kind of compromise, I did not come away with any real optimism. In fact, the succession of Mr Shamir as Prime Minister would soon seal off even these few shafts of light.

  However intractable the diplomatic issues were, there was no doubt about the warmth of my reception in Israel, which indeed continued to grow as the visit went on. On Tuesday on my way to the airport for my return flight I stopped at Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv that was twinned with Finchley. I had expected that I would be meeting the mayor and a few other dignitaries, perhaps some old acquaintances. Instead, 25,000 people were awaiting me. I was plunged into — at times, to the horror of my detectives and staff, almost sank into — a huge crowd of cheering residents, before being squeezed through and onto a large platform from which I had to give an unscripted speech — always the best. Later, during the Gulf War scud missiles from Iraq fell on Ramat Gan. The people of Finchley raised money to rebuild the houses that had been destroyed. This, I thought, was what ‘twinning’ should be all about.

  AFRICA

  The Problem of South Africa

  I no more shared the established Foreign Office view of Africa than I did of the Middle East. Whereas Israel was considered the pariah of the Middle East with which we would be ill-advised too closely to associate, this role was allotted within Africa to South Africa. The basic, if usually unstated, assumption seemed to be that Britain’s national interests required that we should ultimately be prepared to go along with the opinions of the radical black African states in the Commonwealth. In fact, a clear-sighted analysis suggested something rather different.

  Admitted that fundamental changes must be made in South Africa’s system, the question was of how best to achieve them. It seemed to me that the worst approach was to isol
ate South Africa further. Indeed, the isolation had already gone too far, contributing to an inflexible, siege mentality among the governing Afrikaner class. It was absurd to believe that they would be prepared to relinquish power suddenly or without acceptable safeguards. Indeed, had that occurred the result would have been anarchy in which black South Africans would have suffered most.

  Nor, I knew, could the latter be considered a homogeneous group. Tribal loyalties were of great importance. For example, the Zulus are a proud and self-conscious nation with a distinct sense of identity. Any new political framework for South Africa had to take account of such differences. Not least because of these complexities, I did not believe that it was for outsiders to impose a particular solution. What I wanted to achieve was step-by-step reform — with more democracy, secure human rights, and a flourishing free enterprise economy able to generate the wealth to improve black living standards. I wanted to see a South Africa which was fully reintegrated into the international community. Nor did I ever feel, for all the sound and fury of the Left, that this was anything other than a high ideal of which no one need be ashamed.

  It was also true that Britain had important trading interests in the continent and that these were more or less equal in black Africa on the one hand and South Africa on the other. South Africa had by far the richest and most varied range of natural resources of any African country. It was the world’s largest supplier of gold, platinum, gem diamonds, chrome, vanadium, manganese and other vital materials. Moreover, in a number of these cases South Africa’s only real rival was the Soviet Union. Even if it had been morally acceptable to pursue a policy which would have led to the collapse of South Africa, it would not therefore have made strategic sense.

  South Africa was rich not just because of natural resources but because its economy was at least mainly run on free enterprise lines. Other African countries, well endowed with natural resources, were still poor because their economies were socialist and centrally controlled. Consequently, the blacks in South Africa had higher incomes and were generally better educated than elsewhere in Africa: that was why the South Africans erected security fences to keep intended immigrants out, unlike the Berlin Wall which kept those blessed with a socialist system in. The critics of South Africa never mentioned these inconvenient facts. But simply because I recognized them did not mean that I held any brief for apartheid. The colour of someone’s skin should not determine his or her political rights.

  President P. W. Botha was to visit Europe on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the Normandy Landings and I sent him an invitation to come to see me at Chequers. He had a whole programme of visits in Europe, made possible by an agreement that he had reached earlier in the year with President Machel of Mozambique which seemed a promising development to many European states. Nevertheless, my invitation provoked accusations that I was ‘soft’ on apartheid. On Wednesday 30 May Bishop Trevor Huddleston, the veteran anti-apartheid campaigner, came to Downing Street to put the case against my seeing Mr Botha. His argument was that the South African President should not be accorded credibility as a man of peace and that South Africa should not be allowed to re-enter the international community until it changed its internal policies. This seemed to me to miss the point. It was South Africa’s isolation which was an obstacle to reform. Before his European trip, the only country that Mr Botha had visited in recent years was Taiwan.

  One thing which the opponents of apartheid — perhaps because so many of them were socialists — never seemed fully to grasp was that capitalism itself was probably the greatest force for reform and political liberalization in South Africa, as it was in the communist countries. South Africa could not fulfil its economic potential unless black labour was brought in to the cities and trained. Capitalism in South Africa was already creating a black middle class which would ultimately insist on a share of power.

  President Botha came to Chequers on the morning of Saturday 2 June. I had a private conversation with him which lasted some forty minutes and then I was joined over lunch by Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind and officials — the South African President by his Foreign minister R. F. (‘Pik’) Botha. President Botha told me that South Africa never received any credit for the improvements which had been made in the conditions of the blacks. Although there was some truth in this, I had to tell him also how appalled we were by the forced removal of blacks from areas which had been designated for white residents only. I went on to raise the case of the imprisoned Nelson Mandela whose freedom we had persistently sought. It was my view, moreover, that no long-term solution to South Africa’s problems could be achieved without his co-operation. But the main discussion concentrated on Namibia, the former South African colony, where South Africa had reimposed direct rule the previous year. Our policy was to support Namibian independence. There was little progress here: South Africa had no intention of allowing Namibia to become independent while Cuban troops remained in Angola, but there was no prospect of Cuban withdrawal until civil war ended in Angola — which at the time seemed a forlorn hope. The South Africans clearly wanted to have more secure relations with their neighbours and hoped that the carrot of economic aid from South Africa might enable better relations to be built. In fact, for the reasons outlined above, this was to be a vain hope because the South African social and political system had begun to hamper economic growth.

  I did not particularly warm to President Botha, whom I had met previously, but to do him justice he listened carefully to what I said. I found that when I raised specific circumstances he was willing to look into them personally and where he undertook to take action he proved as good as his word. The most important result of this meeting, however, was that from now on I was able to send him private messages on delicate matters which probably constituted almost the only helpful contact he had with western governments. As I told the Cabinet afterwards, it must be right to expose him as much as possible to our views. The arguments in favour of dialogue with the Soviet Union applied with at least as much force to the need to maintain contacts of this kind with South Africa.

  The year 1985 was one of mounting crisis for South Africa. There was widespread rioting. A state of emergency was declared in many parts of the country. Foreign banks refused to renew South African credit and the South African Government declared a four-month freeze on the repayment of the principal of foreign debt. My old friend Fritz Leutwiler, former head of the Swiss Central Bank, was appointed as a mediator between the banks and the South African Government. We kept in contact so I knew what was happening. The international pressure on South Africa continued to mount. President Reagan, who was as opposed to economic sanctions as I was, introduced a limited package of sanctions to forestall pressure from Congress. It was clear that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Bahamas at Nassau that October would be a difficult one for me.

  So in September I held a seminar at Chequers to clarify our thinking on tactics towards South Africa. Apart from Geoffrey Howe, Malcolm Rifkind, Paul Channon and Ian Stewart (from the Treasury), there were present a range of businessmen, academics and one or two interested and well informed MPs. None of us would have ‘started from here’ had we the choice. On the one hand the reform process in South Africa had ground to a halt: the constitutional reforms had proved a dead end because they did not involve even moderate middle-class blacks. On the other, the European Community was moving towards imposing sanctions. We had placed a reserve on the measures agreed by the Community earlier that month, though in fact, on closer inspection, most of these turned out to accord with our existing practice and I agreed to lift it before the CHOGM. One idea which was raised at the meeting was sending a ‘contact group’ of ‘eminent persons’ to try to get talks off the ground between the South African Government and representatives of the black community.

  In the run up to the conference I did what I could to try to slow down the Gadarene rush towards imposing sanctions. I wrote to Commonwealth heads of government urging that inste
ad we try to bring about negotiations between the South African Government and representatives of the black population. But it was already clear that we would be in for plenty of posturing from those intent on cutting a figure on the international stage.

  The CHOGM at Nassau

  I saw Brian Mulroney in Nassau on the first evening of the conference. He urged me to take the initiative by proposing a package of measures representing the lowest common denominator of Commonwealth agreement. All would be committed to it as the minimum, but it would be open to individual governments to do more if they chose. I told him that experience had taught me never to put forward ideas at too early a stage and I ended by saying: ‘I have made my final — and I mean final — step in accepting the European position on sanctions. I don’t relish being isolated within the Commonwealth, but if necessary so be it.’ I took the same line in similar meetings with Robert Mugabe, Kenneth Kaunda and Bob Hawke.

  Bob Hawke opened the conference debate on South Africa, obviously seeking a compromise. Kenneth Kaunda followed with an emotional call for sanctions. I tried to meet both points of view in my reply. I began by detailing the evidence of social and economic change in South Africa. I carefully cited the number of black South Africans who had professional qualifications, who had cars, who were in business. Of course, there was a long way to go. But we were not faced with a static situation. The speech had an effect, as I saw from the reactions of those around the table. But natural caution had led me to have a fall-back position prepared: after my meeting with Brian Mulroney my officials had worked up a note of options for further measures, which I would take with me to the heads of government retreat over the weekend at Lyford Cay, where I knew that the real business would be done.